In the middle of July, you’re consumed with sunny days, barbecues, and beach vacations. Sleigh bells, snowflakes, and gift wrap are probably the last things on your mind, and that’s understandable. As an online business owner, though, you need to be thinking ahead – as far as you’re concerned, the holidays are right around the corner!
It does seem like the retail industry pushes the holidays on us earlier and earlier every year, and we’re not encouraging you to start launching Cyber Monday promos all over your site as soon as the leaves start changing colors. We do, however, strongly recommend taking some time to brainstorm and strategize your holiday marketing plan this summer. Get a head start and you’ll earn an avalanche of sales.
Why should you start planning now?
Your competitors probably are. The best in the industry know that a solid marketing plan takes time. If you don’t want to be left in the dust during the year’s busiest selling season, you need to keep up.
You need to figure out exactly what to put on sale.
Evaluate what worked and what didn’t work during your holiday season last year, and build off that. Do you have a certain item you’re not going to be selling anymore next year? Put on a holiday clearance sale! Do you have two products that would work really well as a package deal? Offer a buy one, get one promotion. Identify your best sellers and plan to feature them on your homepage to entice shoppers and promote your heavy hitters. Rename your featured products section something more descriptive like “Seasonal Favorites” or “Holiday Must Haves” to stay consistent with the holiday theme.
Anybody can slap a discount on a couple items and call it a holiday sale, but the best merchants know there’s strategy and thought that must be put into these seasonal promotions.
Design doesn’t happen overnight.
It’s not enough to just throw the word “holiday” into your store’s copy. You’ll want dazzling visuals – buttons, banners, and more. This means you’ll need the help of a graphic designer, and, trust us, those folks are in demand around the holidays. It’s best to get your requests in early so you have time for edits and modifications.
You need a social media strategy.
The opportunity to acquire new customers and make sales doesn’t just exist within your actual website. What about social media? Do you want a holiday-themed cover photo for your Facebook or background for your Twitter? How are you going to promote your sales on social? In fact, should you have an exclusive holiday discount or insider sale for your followers? Find ways to distinguish your store’s seasonal perks on social channels.
SEO needs to be updated.
Re-evaluate your SEO efforts and begin updating/making changes as needed. Make sure your store is set to “SEO friendly” in the admin area, get your meta tags in order, and configure your SEO for holiday products and categories.
Email marketing needs to be planned.
Not only do you need to draft some compelling copy for your email newsletters, you also need to strategically create subject lines and a mailing schedule. Not to mention, curating contact lists and getting email graphics ready.
Now that you have an idea of when and why you’ll need to execute your holiday marketing strategy, put down the iced tea and get out there. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner!
If you need to change up your brainstorming sessions, check out these 5 effective brainstorming exercises for something new.