Each year the build-up to Christmas is extraordinary, with retail and ecommerce stores making the most of the holiday season. But like every year, it comes and goes faster than you realise – but how can you make the most of the post-Christmas season?
The start of a new year is a great time to take advantage of other sellers scaling back marketing or advertising efforts, allowing you to get found in ways you may not be able to in the run-up to Christmas.
Less crowded marketplace
As many businesses scale back efforts as the new year rolls around, it’s a great opportunity to find new customers, and retain old ones, through boosted digital marketing efforts.
Make the most of a less crowded marketplace, and build up your conversion funnel with Prospecting campaigns to reach new customers through AdWords. Identify new customers using demographic audiences, contextual targeting, and vertical targeting.
Abandoned shopping carts
No doubt you may have seen a lot of abandoned shopping carts occur across the holiday period.
Whether a customer is using the cart as a “save for later” concept, or simply changed their mind, it’s a great chance to follow-up in January when everything has calmed down.
If you contact a customer about an abandoned purchase, and offer a special offer or coupon to complete it, then they will be much more open to finishing the transaction. Of course, ensuring you can capture an email address before the abandoned cart occurs is always a plus in ecommerce. This method ensures you can keep sales going into the new year.
Coupons for January
For any customers purchasing items or gifts in December, you can encourage future sales by including a coupon for a purchase in January.
This is a great way to encourage business in the future, whilst also allowing for repeat purchases in a typically slower month. If you offer coupons with December purchases, even if they don’t use the coupon in the future, the promise of future discounts can allow you to stand out from the crowd.
Holiday shopper savings
If you would rather follow-up later, then sending customers a follow-up email with exclusive offers or targeted deals in January can be a very effective route.
Focus on a new social network
If you’re getting deluded with the bigger social networks getting saturated with content and advertisements in your niche, then perhaps it’s time to focus on a smaller social network.
Depending on if it suits your brand, consider looking at Periscope, Instagram, or even Snapchat. Periscope offers a real-time opportunity to engage with customers through live video, and similarly Instagram allows you to post spectacular images to your customers. Snapchat is also rising in prominence, and offers a way to share your brand’s story with consumers.
Many of the smaller networks offer higher engagement rates, with Instagram boasting an engagement rate 120 times higher than Twitter, and 58 times higher than Facebook.
Build new relationships
Content is always a great way to build relationships with potential customers. As many businesses are now getting involved with content marketing, the next step is to utilize content in order to build relationships with customers.
Personalised content, whether it involves emails, videos, or digital advertisements, will be a big shift in digital marketing in 2016.
Follow-up gifts
For shoppers who purchase items online and have highlighted the fact “this is a gift”, you can email them in the future to suggest what they should look into next. Suggested items, or “other people have bought” can often be effective.
Marketing automation
Setting up marketing automation in this regard can also prove useful. For example, you could ask for birthday dates, or ask for details on the giftee in question.
With this extra information, you can then market to your customers at exactly the moment customers are looking for gifts in the future.
Carry on with deals
January may not be as busy as December, but there’s no reason a good promotion can’t help out.
Discount any inventory that hasn’t sold as expected in December, or any excess inventory. Seasonal stock or holiday-themed items can often be good. A clearance section is a great way to attract post-Christmas bargain hunters.
Remarketing
Utilising remarketing in the new year is a great method to encourage return visits.
By retargeting customers who visited your site over the holiday period, you stand a good chance of finding extra sales to be made. Many companies experience an increased amount of traffic in December, especially for ecommerce, which is great to capitalise on and encourage shoppers to do business with you. If they already converted, then presenting complimentary products or services can also be enticing.
If you need a hand generating a marketing funnel, or just want to discuss your options, get in touch with the team at Xanthos.
