Spindustry Blog

Use Website Data to Build a Successful Holiday Marketing Strategy

Posted by Jessica Plunkett on July 23, 2014
Find me on:

Your website holds a lot of valuable information useful to planning a holiday marketing strategyholiday web strategy blog graphic – you just have to be willing to dig for it. For many, an online e-commerce store may be the only way customers interact with a brand. Monitoring website analytics tells a story about what customers want, how and when they want it. Evaluating that data can help your team formulate a solid holiday marketing strategy.

Here are five key points to monitor and evaluate:

1. Look for trends in purchasing patterns. Did customers tend to purchase a sleeping bag during the same checkout as buying a tent? Could you offer an upgrade to a better quality sleeping bag during a holiday promotion to close more sales? Did your free shipping with $100 purchase promotion do significantly better than your 10% off cart deal? How can you maximize sales during the holidays based on past purchasing behavior?

You may also discover products combinations you hadn’t considered before, which would make a great “gift guide” addition that you create for your website and share via your social channels to entice customers. Santa’s elves need all the help they can get!

2. Which products receive the most social media shares? There are two schools of thought: First, people share something when they think someone they know would be interested in it. Second, people share something they’re coveting themselves. Remember that people are in gift-giving and gift-list creating mindsets during the holidays. Monitoring social shares may give you insight into which products are the most sought after.

Don’t currently have a share button on your product pages? Add one to your website now so that you can start gathering valuable data before your holiday marketing strategy is finalized.

3. Test out the shopping cart experience on mobile. According to this article on 50 key mobile stats from Forbes, 81 percent of smartphone users have done product research via their phone and 50% have made a purchase from their phone too. Make sure the shopping and check out experiences are easy to do from a mobile phone. Consider testing out a mobile-specific promotion before the holidays so see what kind of feedback you get and if there are any kinks that need to be worked out now. Mobile coupons receive 10 times higher redemption rate than print coupons, so again don’t lose out on sales by ignoring the mobile experience.

4. Evaluate website traffic patterns from previous years. Around 30% of people start holiday shopping before Halloween. Are your customers in that 30%? Look at stats from previous years to see when orders started increasing. Make sure to account for that in your holiday marketing strategy. Just imagine if you were able to capture even 10% of your customers and upsell them on an extra $100 because you offered an incentive in October.

5. Use proven marketing strategies: The concepts of scarcity and exclusivity apply now more than any time of the year. Brush off those “marketing 101” techniques to increase the urgency to buy now while the gettin’ is good. Track each campaign in analytics to see what motivated your buyers to act.

Track, monitor and analyze website data now to develop a strong holiday marketing strategy. Your website is one of your biggest assets so use it to give customers what they want and spread more cheer to everyone!

‘Tis the season! 

Help me build a holiday marketing strategy!

Topics: mobile marketing, social media, marketing tips, analytics, website tips