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In 2019, US shoppers spent nearly 20% more online than the previous year, representing a nearly 5% increase in total holiday shopping sales over 2018. In general, the "holiday rush season" lasts from Black Friday to December 24. However, that season is constantly being extended to include more time in November and an increasing number of online offers in October.
Because of the disaster of Covid 19, online sales increased, and more shoppers prefer to shop online rather than in person. Overall sales volumes are expected to remain flat or slightly increase in 2019. This is quite impressive given the pandemic's shaky stake in global economies throughout 2020, with overall US unemployment high and GDP figures at 2009 recession levels.
Here are some tips that could increase the sales of your business in November:
1. Get the offers ready
Your marketing should primarily focus on promoting remarkable offers and holiday sales. This could be any type of deal that is promoted through various media channels. You want to look at offers that will pique your audience's interest and get them to your website or store! These are frequently considered loss leaders, but they do not have to be, they are also frequently limited inventory offerings. Both strategies give retailers and brands more confidence to keep prices low at or near break-even levels while preventing a large volume of these items from being sold, which would harm overall financial performance.
2. Previous customers are key
Previous customers will certainly account for more than half of your total sales. In some cases, brands see that around 80% of sales come from previous customers, which means that you must market to existing customers in any way you can. This is frequently done through email marketing campaigns that are segmented and targeted to existing customers with offers that can be tailored to them.
This is one of the best paths to increase revenue from the existing customers is to build a marketing and customer relationship. Here are few ways to market your customers and improve business.
- Find opportunities with market research
- Engage with your current customers more
- Identify ongoing customer needs
- Customer Loyalty programs
- Refresh your products and services
- Cross-sell and upsell whenever you can
3. Plan your marketing channel
Strategise the different marketing channels to promote your brand and sales events is clearly planned out the various offers you want to run and document of your media platforms.
How much you can easily spend on advertising and the scheduling of all the content also impacts on it.
Marketing channels can include Facebook ads, social media content, paid Google, broadcast/cable television, radio, sponsorships, events, and other methods. Simply plan out how much you want to spend at each using previous year's data to determine what has been shown to be your best ROI on marketing spend, but do not discount and drop certain channels entirely, as this rarely results in a positive result.
There are various advantages of using right marketing channel which are the following:
- It helps to save money
- It helps to save time
- It is convenient
- It improves conversion
- It improves effectiveness
4. Make sure your website is working well
The last thing you want to happen is to drive a lot of traffic to your website only to have it fail to impress users, fail to transition to mobile, or simply fail to function well, including any online store. You want to make it as simple as possible for people to give you money! So go through your website thoroughly to ensure that everything is working and responding properly. Remember, your website is always the first impression you make on potential customers, and mobile devices account for 50% of all web traffic.
5. Get your team ready
This may sound obvious but ensure that your team is aware of and well-versed in the offers you are running, how any discounts or exclusive deals work, and that they are fluently able to communicate the specifics of your sales event to customers. Also, expect your team to be busier than usual! Offering additional performance incentives for profit or volume targets is an excellent way to encourage customers to go beyond with your company. During the holiday season, even small gestures can have a significant impact on employee motivation and attitude. Remember to keep a safe working environment for all employees as the pandemic continues.
If you have in-person sales, prepare your store to safely manage the extra volume of people and give any needed personal protection equipment as well as arrange additional facility cleaning.
With the many opportunities the month of November brings for seasonal shopping, our five tips to help you drive sales are
1. Get your offers ready
2. Previous customers are key
3. Plan your marketing channel
4. Make sure your website is working well
5. Get your team ready
Following these five steps will help significantly increase your holiday season sales
Image source: Annie Spratt, Unsplash
