Happy Holidays!
Wait a sec, it’s only September!
That may be true, but if you haven’t started getting ready for the upcoming season you need to start now. Stores such as Costco have already set up their in store holiday displays, planting the shopping bug in people’s minds. We are also seeing that consumers are starting to search for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals already.
For most retailers, the holiday season is the most profitable time of the year. According to ComScore, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales grew by 15% and 18% in 2013. Every year this continues to grow, meaning this year we are likely to see an even bigger increase. However, without a good conversion optimization strategy, you might miss out.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales grew by 15% and 18% in 2013
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In this post we’ll take a look at a few different ways you can get your store ready for the entire holiday season.
Landing Page
As noted above, consumers are already searching for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.
In fact, take a look at this Think with Google chart from August 2014. It shows that people started searching for black friday days weeks in advance. It is also reported that about 29% of shoppers would begin making Christmas purchases before Halloween this year.
For further proof, take a look at this chart from Google Trends from 2013. Here we see that people started searching for “Christmas Gift Ideas” at the beginning of August!
One of the most infamous and successful Black Friday/Cyber Monday retailers has already put together a Landing Page: Walmart
Chances are your competitors are putting together landing pages and so should you. Your landing page doesn’t have to be long or tell of every product that’s going to be on sale. It should be a teaser of what is to come. Think of it as an appetizer before the main course! It should leave people excited and ready to shop as soon as the sale starts!
There are many programs out there that are extremely easy to use. Unbounce lets you quickly build a landing page with conversion optimization features that are built in, like A/B testing and form fields!
Live Chat
People are impatient. They are even more impatient when it comes to sales.
When Cyber Monday hits, people are in a frenzy! They are scared their product is going to run out, so if they have a question, they want it answered immediately! This is where live chat comes in handy.
But live chat isn’t just great for Cyber Monday. In physical retail stores you have the sales associate to help you. You can think of live chat as an online sales associate.
“Consumers today are demanding real-time assistance whenever they are connecting with a brand, especially during the busy holiday season,” says Robert LoCascio, Founder and CEO of LivePerson
We see this statement is true. People don’t want to wait around for an answer. Often times people get frustrated when they can’t find an answer and will just move on to the next store. A timely chat popup will pre-empt this.
Statistics show that live chat is the preferred method of contact. eConsultancy reports live chat has the highest satisfaction levels for any customer service channel, with 73%, compared with 61% for email and 44% for phone.
Live chat also helps with conversion optimization. Internet Retailer had a story on a company, ABT, that uses live chat. They find that live chat boosts conversion rates by 20%! It also helps to make customer service agents more productive and efficient.
Implementing live chat will put you ahead of the competition as many eCommerce stores do not have it.
Content
Content, as you probably already know, is extremely important, so it is something you need to continue doing well through the holiday season.
Blog Posts
We’ve already seen that consumers started looking for Christmas gift ideas in August. So blogging on topics that relate to the holiday season will present a huge opportunity for you.
Some topics to blog about are:
- How to host a holiday party
- Gifts ideas for mom and dad
- How to stretch your dollar
- Major promotions you are running through the holidays
We already know what consumers are searching for, so think of what your store has to offer. The holidays can be a stressful time for people, so be helpful and attentive!
Social Media
Social media is a great way to get people excited about the holiday season. Customers are keeping an eye and ear out for bargains this time of the year.
Pinterest especially is recommended because it is so visual. Use Pinterest as a way to help people find something for everyone on their list. For example, say you sell watches. You could have different boards such as:
- Watches for the classic woman
- Watches for the sports star
- Watches for the trendsetter
Pin appropriate watches to each of the boards. You can even include outfits that you would pair with the watch.
Below is an example of holiday boards by Paper Source
Why make your customers have to come to you when you can come go to them!
If you already have an email list, that’s great. Now you need to have a plan of what you’re going to send.
A good plan would be to pick one promotional item you want to mention at a time.
Sephora recently sent out a holiday email. They chose to send an email about beauty boxes that are great to give as gifts.
If you don’t have a great list of people, make sure to add a spot on your landing page that allows people to sign up to an email subscription. Make sure you tell them about why they should sign up and make it sound enticing!
Free Shipping
“For whatever reason, a free shipping offer that saves a customer $6.99 is more appealing to many than a discount that cuts the purchase price by $10.” – David Bell, Wharton School of Business
The coveted free shipping! Time and again the survey says that people want free shipping.
- Forrester Research says 61% online shoppers prefer to shop with a retailer that offers free shipping than one that doesn’t
- Retention Science discovered online shoppers are twice as likely to respond to free shipping offers versus price discounts
- Internet Retailer states 58% of shoppers want free or discounted shipping
61% online shoppers prefer to shop with a retailer that offers free shipping than one that doesn’t
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The facts are there. So what can you do about it? Offer free shipping…but not forever! If you can’t afford to offer free shipping forever or even for a month, consider using it as a promotion! You could offer free shipping for a few days or even a week and see if your conversion goes up.
Get Going
Now that you have our list of tips, get started! The holidays are coming fast and with these tips you’re likely to increase conversion rates and capture some extra sales. Make this season the best season yet.
Do you have any tips from last season you would like to share? Let us know!
The post Conversion Optimization – Optimize Your Store For The Holidays appeared first on LemonStand.
