A successful holiday marketing campaign would mean survival this year, let alone being profitable. Why so?
Well statistically, total spending, quarter-to-date has increased by 56.4% in comparison to Q4 of 2021, while gross merchandise value for the same period has decreased by 22.6%, and total orders have shot up by only 7%.
What worked until last year, might have to be changed to sustain holidays in 2023. Keep reading to learn what are the challenges eCommerce brands are facing and holiday marketing strategies that can work up the results for you.
How Has Holiday Marketing Changed?
With customer behaviour changing, it is only becoming paramount for eCommerce brands to figure out ways in which they can build and maintain a strong brand-user relationship. Here, identifying customers’ preferences and anticipating their needs – is important.
Here are some interesting statistics to show how the online market is expected to grow during the holiday season in 2023:
- More than 85% of consumers will be shopping online this holiday season.
- eCommerce is expected to grow 15.5% compared to 2021 to $236 billion!
Like us, many businesses worldwide have recognized the potential of social shopping or social commerce. Even the brands that were working solely in the retail market have climbed up the ladder and are now putting a patch of focus only on eCommerce.
There’s so much growth because there is so much potential. And yes, the competition in the industry is insane, which is why the ways of holiday marketing have changed greatly.
With this rapid change, brands are also facing challenges in keeping up with the current state of marketing. Let us discuss them below.
The Challenges Of Holiday Marketing Campaign
1. When To Start Promotions & How To Promote Offers To Achieve Best Revenue
Brands face the challenge of not knowing when to start promoting their holiday offers and how to promote them to achieve the best revenue.
The question of whether to start the promotions early or be fashionable late always ends up in a whirling confusion for any brand.
According to stats, 56% of shoppers plan to complete their holiday purchases before December, and 91% of them agreed to make last-minute purchases during the holiday season. This shows that shoppers spread out their Holiday shopping over weeks. There will be shoppers for your brand in every phase, and the only way out of this dilemma is to start early and be prepared.
When it comes to the ‘how’ of promoting an offer, brands either offer too much or too little to the audience, the beginning of promotions is an awareness phase, and along with promoting what your brand is offering, you must also educate the customer about how your product or service can create a difference for them.
2. How To Be Successful Amidst Rising Costs Of Customer Acquisition?
Another challenge that brands face is finding a way to acquire new customers to expand their horizons of sales, growth and engagement while keeping their budgets unmodified.
According to research, 44% of companies focus more on acquisition and only 16% on retention.
Customer acquisition is vital for any brand because without finding new customers and expanding the customer base, any brand would fail to continue. The holiday season is the best time to understand your brand’s true potential and help your brand reach new customers.
As important as customer acquisition is, it is becoming extremely difficult for brands to focus on it due to the soaring high costs in the current market scenario.
3. How To Retain Shoppers Throughout The Holiday Season And After It’s Over?
The holiday season is a time when consumers are in the mood to shop and are ready to invest in new products. This mindset of customers also makes it a challenge for brands to retain them and keep them interested in your brand throughout the holiday season – from shopping in advance to shopping last minute and even after the holiday season ends.
With so many eCommerce brands emerging, there is tough competition in the market. Brands are doing their best to reach out to new customers and are going all the way to present themselves charmingly.
4. How To Get The Best Return On Ad Spend During The Holiday Campaigns?
During the holiday rush, brands invest in many segments to boost their revenue, and one of them is running ads. Brands run ads to promote their products, campaigns or new launches during the frenzy of holidays to attract more customers – old or new. Understanding the importance of advertising during the season is crucial, but it is also a challenge for advertisers to get the best returns on ad spend.
There are many types of ads – social media ads, Google search ads, website banner ads etc. and as we discussed above, due to the increasing competition of e-commerce brands in the market, even ad costs are increasing exponentially.
5. What Kind Of Content Would Resonate To Your Target Audience?
One big challenge brands face is to be sure of the content their target audience would enjoy and relate to. With the rise of social media, brands are extremely mindful of what kind of content goes up on their social media and other platforms. Generating content is a challenging task, and brands have to opt for tedious ways like influencer collaborations, hashtag campaigns and giveaway contests to retrieve quality content.
These strategies add an extra dimension of work for brands, an extra budget, and other expenses like hiring more people to manage content to get the best results.
Tips & Strategies To Drive More Revenue From Holiday Campaigns In 2023
This holiday season is unlike any other before. With an all-new state of marketing and e-commerce brands rising like a high tide, the challenges for brands are also unique.
That’s why we have curated a list of strategies to give you a clear vision and help you plan your holiday marketing strategies for your e-commerce brand and drive more revenue in 2023.
1. Start Promotions Early
The real challenge during the holiday season, or in fact, any other day for any brand, is losing a customer because of the brand’s non-availability. It could be a product or just the fact that you were not prepared to cater to the needs of your customer.
Eradicate this challenge and start your promotions early. Be prepared for your customers way before they start preparing to shop. Get your offers ready, and keep your website up and running. As mentioned above, 56% of shoppers plan to complete their holiday purchases before December.
So this is your time – you can get started with promoting Thanksgiving offers and convert those offers into Black Friday offers.
2. Have An Email List Ready To Target Potential Customers
Email marketing is always a winning cause, especially during the holiday rush. A great strategy to keep your old customers or potential customers in the loop with your offers is by keeping them in your email list.
You can send personalized emails or even attach product links to the products in their abandoned cart to remind them of their interest in those products because nothing speaks louder than a personalized shopping experience for shoppers.
You can go overboard and provide your customers with an extra discount or free shipping on those products.
You can keep these offers holiday specific and make them a part of your promotional campaign for Christmas campaigns.
3. Retarget Old Customers With Exclusive Offers
To meet those sales goals, you must remove any limits you might have to create a customer base. The best way to do this is by retargeting old customers and claiming them back.
Shoppers tend to drift away and spread out their holiday shopping spree by exploring new brands. Retargeting them by offering them exclusive offers like loyal customer rewards is a great technique to make them feel valued and included.
You can also plan hashtag campaigns to increase your brand’s visibility while you target customers. This strategy works best for pre-Christmas campaigns, especially before BFCM, which is the time when shoppers are most active.
4. Speed Up The Checkout Process
The most important and functional strategy of them all is also the simplest one. Keep your website ready for traffic and ensure that the shoppers don’t face any blockers during their purchase journey.
Imagine going on a website to buy a simple pair of shoes or a sweater for your sister’s Christmas gift and having to create an account on the website with over 15 fields! Shoppers find that arduous, even though it could benefit your brand for two important reasons.
- Customers don’t want to spend so much time buying the product; they have already spent time choosing the product they want.
- Customers don’t want to share their personal information or create an account on your website.
Remove those delays and bring your shoppers to the checkout page in not more than 2 steps. Keeping it fast is the best way to turn website visitors into shoppers.
5. Keep Your Pages Attractive With Social Content
At the macro level, social content does wonders for your brand. And as an e-commerce brand, you should give social content its due space in your marketing strategy.
Social content can retain your shoppers and keep them with you from Thanksgiving to Christmas and New Year, and even after the holiday season if used correctly.
You can think of compelling campaigns, collaborate with influencers, introduce branded hashtags for your brand, and promote vigorously through them during the holiday season.
Collecting content through these ways will help you collect content for the entire year. You can maintain your social media presence and create catalogues for your brand.
And guess what? There is one more amazing way to use this social content and make your Christmas merry.
With Tagshop, you can create a compelling feed of social content and embed it into your website through a single source like a hashtag, user handle, user mentions or stories from social media channels.
You can convert this social content into a shoppable gallery and tag products to make them shoppable with Tagshop’s advanced features. This feed is customizable and not only an amazing technique to boost traffic on your website but also on your social media page!
Coming To The Conclusion
This time of the year, shoppers are riding the horses of expectations and being the brand owners and marketers, we gotta give our customers what they are looking for.
It’s a win-win situation for both – the customers and brands to meet the expectations. After all, this is the time when you can expand your customer base, and by offering something extra to the customers, we can achieve or even precede your sales goals.
