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10 Ways to Boost Online Sales This Holiday Season

Thursday, November 12, 2015
Marketing

10 Ways to Boost Online Sales This Holiday Season

Holiday sales are expected to grow by 5.7 percent this year – and the holiday shopping season is already in full swing. Are you doing everything you can to take advantage of that growth?

A big chunk of shopping this year will be online – mobile, especially. So here are a few ways to get the most out of your online retail presence, from search to social.

Search 

Marketers are putting 15 percent of mobile budgets and 35 percent of desktop budgets into search advertising.

  1. Promote discounts – Create paid search ads offering discounts on the top products customers are searching for.
  2. Build gift guides – Set up blog posts or landing pages with gift guides for specific groups (e.g. Top 10 Gift Ideas for Mom) based on your top-rated or most popular products – great content to attract organic traffic or to direct paid ads to.
“Boost holiday sales from search to social.”

Display

Banner ads can be highly targeted to reach your most receptive audiences.

  1. Dynamic ads – Set up templates that allow you to automatically generate customized ads promoting specific products or deals; predictive modeling can help you pair the right products with the right customers.
  2. Retargeting – Serve up ads reminding customers about specific products they viewed earlier but didn’t purchase.
  3. Abandoned cart reminders – Target ads to customers who left unpurchased items in their online shopping carts.

Video

Experts are calling this the Year of Video Marketing – don’t get left behind.

  1. Product videos – People are 85 percent more likely to purchase something after watching a product video that helps them understand how it works and how it looks in real life. 
  2. Pre-roll videos – These are those little commercials you see right before you watch a video online. You can use them to promote your popular products, or even for retargeting.

Social Media

Your brand’s social media posts have a greater influence on purchasing behavior than any other channel, including search and your website.

  1. Promotions – The most influential types of email/social promotions for holiday shopping are additional discounts on clearance (27 percent), and storewide sales (24 percent).
  2. Videos and gift guides – The product videos and gift guides I mentioned above make excellent shareable content that’ll push customers to their shopping carts.
  3. Product reviews – Let your existing customers do the work of persuading prospective customers; share some of your best product reviews on social media, or link to lists of top-rated products.

Need help making all this happen? Contact us.

Got a brick-and-mortar store, too? Here are seven ways to boost in-store sales during the holidays.

Tags: Branding & Advertising, Web & Digital, Consulting & Training, Video, PR & Social Media

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