Preparing Your Business for the Most Wonderful (Marketing) Time of the Year
The holidays seem to sneak up on most of us, teeming with long lists of things to do and too little time. To add to the pressure, marketers know that the holidays are integral for the success of most retailers’ fiscal year. In fact, the National Retail Federation estimates that holiday sales can represent anywhere between 20 percent to 40 percent of a retailer's annual sales. To ease the tension and face the holiday season prepared, your 2013 holiday planning should already be underway.
There's no denying that promotions can drive foot traffic and website visits during the holiday months. For example, Vapour Organic Beauty's four-day holiday sale last year, which lasted from Black Friday thru Cyber Monday, accounted for approximately 7 percent of Vapour's annual web sales. This is equal to approximately 25 days of web sales in just four days.
Whether you conduct business online, in-store or both, now is the time to map out your marketing and promotional plan for the upcoming holiday season. Here are the top four best practices to ensure you're prepared for the most wonderful (marketing) time of the year:
1. Review historical data. Take a look at the performance of promotions on key days from previous seasons. Days that are highest value during the holidays typically include:
- Black Friday (Nov. 29);
- Cyber Monday (Dec. 2);
- Green Monday (Dec. 9);
- National Free Shipping Day (Dec. 16)
- Christmas Eve (Dec. 24); and
- the day After Christmas (Dec. 26).
Make sure you understand what's worked well in the past, what hasn't and why. For Vapour, it's four-day sale works best. "Our four-day sale allows for us to benefit from social sharing and also reduces confusion for customers," says co-founder Krysia Boinis. In addition, retailers should use this historical information to ensure that this year's master holiday promotions calendar will be even more effective than last year's.
2. Draft a master marketing calendar. I recommend creating a cross-channel calendar starting now and extending through the holiday months with key dates for promotions, product launches and category discounts. Identifying winning holiday products is a key component to successfully marketing top gifts and having a profitable holiday season. This calendar can include in-store promotions, catalog sales, website sales and other important/integral events for your business. Capturing all channels on one master calendar will help create consistent messaging and ensure that you're maximizing your marketing efforts.
Online channels such as Amazon.com and eBay need to have the right products being sent to them. Your landing pages, emails and banner ads need to queued up and ready to go when you know they'll be most effective. Don't wait until the last minute to prepare these items. Detail them in a calendar to ensure comprehensive marketing coordination and smooth execution come November.
3. Align your promotions across channels. Don't allow your web promotions to undercut or compete with your in-store promos, and vice versa. Make sure you're aware of your activity and content across all consumer touchpoints so your company's messaging and pricing are consistent. That's not to say you can't have "web-only specials" or exclusive discounts by channel, but your overall message should be consistent so consumers aren't confused. Having a master promotions calendar and weekly team meetings will help keep all your elves informed.
4. Bundle products and create gift sets. Inventory planning should typically happen five months to six months in advance of the holiday season. It's a great time to identify top-performing products and bundle customer favorites into gift packages that cover various price points. "At Vapour, for example, we handpick some of our customers’ favorite products and bundle them together into beautiful gift boxes ready for giving. This way, customers can discover new favorites or share the products with friends and loved ones. The price points tend to be under $50 and over $100, making it easy to shop and give during this busy time of year," says Boinis.
5. Measure and adjust. Throughout the holiday season, adjust product placements and pricing daily until you've achieved optimal sales. The holiday season certainly isn't the time to have a "set it and forget it" mentality; adapt and tweak on a constant basis so you're getting the most out of the increased traffic. If you have the tools available, run multivariate tests on your website creative, email campaigns and even online advertisements as the season ramps up. Then you'll be able to make informed decisions during peak times based on those results.
With a little more than a month till Thanksgiving, don't delay creating your holiday marketing and promotions strategy. With a comprehensive calendar, cross-channel coordination and regular measurement, you can capitalize on holiday sales and build loyal shoppers all season long.
Will Devlin leads ShopVisible's Professional Services group, which is focused on implementing programs and strategies designed to grow client's online revenue.
- Companies:
- Amazon.com