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Well hello there! Catherine Langman here with you on the Productpreneur Success Podcast! Welcome to the show if you’re a new listener, and welcome back if you’re a long-time listener!
I’m recording this episode in July and I think it will be released before the end of the month.
And what I’m sharing with you today is some tips and inspiration to help you ensure that you get the absolute best revenue results possible this coming holiday season.
It’s been a seriously tough start to the year for so many of you, so I really want to help you make sure that you make the most of the busiest sales season of the year.
Because the fourth quarter is typically the busiest time of the year for eCommerce. From October to the end of December, there are popular holidays worldwide, such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, as well as more recent promotional events like Singles’ Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.
Now, we know that Covid-19 lockdowns laid the foundation for new consumer behaviour and helped drive online sales to new heights over the last two Christmasses, but don’t be tempted to assume that this trend has ended.
This year, in 2022, eCommerce retail sales globally are predicted to be over $5.5 trillion, with many businesses making more than 25% of their sales in the 4th quarter of the year.
In fact, some businesses will make up to 75% of their revenue during the 4th quarter. And even for non-seasonal businesses, the online stores who do a good job of events like Black Friday will see their conversion rates skyrocket over 6% which is 3x the average.
It’s also interesting to note that the majority of shoppers – 42% – are now both researching and buying online during the holiday season as opposed to in-store, versus about 20% of shoppers buying online on average over the whole year.
So to say that the holiday season is prime time for all of us to boost sales is a major understatement.
But it would also be a mistake to think that you can start planning your holiday marketing around September or October. Or even later than that if you’re like many businesses I’ve observed over the years!
To really make the most of your marketing in Q4 this year, and enjoy the best revenue growth results possible, you need to be planning now. In July.
Because there’s a lot more to it than just rolling out a few emails and ads and then crossing your fingers and hoping for the best!
Before we dive in, I want to let you know that I also have a special offer available right now.
If you wanna set your online store up for massive success this holiday season – you gotta start planning and implementing your marketing now.
If you get this right, you’ll enjoy:
- A BIG hit of revenue!
- Increases brand awareness
- Attracts new customers and stockists
- Increases customer loyalty and repeat purchase
- Drives word-of-mouth referrals
- Provides opportunity for media exposure
Not to mention – you’ll also enjoy achieving all of that with more predictability and way less stress or crazy long hours hustling!
To help you with that – I’ve decided to do something completely crazy!
Here’s what I’m talking about…
For a few days only, I’ve put together my Ultimate, Epic Holiday Promo Bundle at a massive discount of 75% off, saving you $591!
I’m giving you 4 training resources for just $197 – that’s the PRICE of JUST ONE!
That means you’re getting 3 entire courses absolutely FREE.
But, after this Flash Sale is over, the price will jump back to the regular value of $788.
Here’s how it works:
To take advantage of this special, one-time opportunity, or find out all the details, just head to catherinelangman.com/holiday
And I’ll be sure to link to this in the podcast shownotes as well.
So, if you’ve been keen to learn how to run the kind of marketing that generates massive results, but you’ve been on the fence about buying training programs, coaching or consulting…
Or if you love the idea of generating a big hit of revenue from your marketing…
Now’s the perfect time to jump on this deal 🙂
Again, just head to catherinelangman.com/holiday to grab this deal today!
Alrighty, let’s jump back into the podcast episode now where I’m going to be sharing with you some insights around what you should be doing right now in your business and your marketing in order to set yourself up for a bumper holiday season this year!
- Start early – like now – and have a plan. But whenever you do start, making a plan for your 4th quarter marketing is crucial. Don’t just decide at the last minute to sell off whatever excess stock you have lying around – plan in advance to make sure the stock you have makes sense in the context of the campaign idea. Try to wing it during the holiday season and you’ll be outperformed by competitors who have had their campaigns set up and scheduled months in advance.
Planning your strategy doesn’t have to be complicated. Start by outlining the goals you want to achieve and the tactics you plan on using.
In reality, you’re likely to be planning and running a series of promotions between now and the end of the year.
Next, list all the assets you need to design and the marketing, email and advertising campaigns you need to build.
Then, decide on your promotion dates. What date will you open the Christmas promotion? What is your last possible postage date?
Then, create a realistic timeline backward from the day you want to launch.
Breaking your holiday digital marketing campaign up in this way will help show you exactly how much work needs to be done and how to make the best use of your time.
Most important of all, don’t freak out if you haven’t started planning yet. There’s still plenty of time to create your killer digital marketing plan for the holiday season. Just listening to this podcast episode will help guide you onto the right pathway. - Plan ahead with your inventory as well. Look at trends in your own business – what’s selling, what’s not. Last year, ppl were buying for Xmas much earlier – from October. The concept of ‘buy now, wrap later’ rang true. Bundles and gift packs make it easy for customers to choose.
- Build your list now. Running a giveaway, using list-builder apps like Wheelio, doing collaborations with other brands – do whatever you can, often and consistently, so that you can build your list ready to roll out your marketing.
- Write and optimise a gift-guide blog now. What if I said you could potentially double the amount of free organic search traffic and sales? Would you like that?
A Christmas-themed gift guide or mega blog – optimised for the right search keywords – can do this for you!
Not many business owners will go to the effort to write a Christmas blog – yet these keywords usually have a huge search volume! So you’d achieve a distinct advantage. - When it comes to your major Christmas promotion, first of all, think about what your campaign ‘theme’ or creative concept is.
‘Advent Calendar’ or ’12 Days of Christmas’ style or ‘a very Aussie Christmas’ or visually theme it, like Candy Cane or Gingerbread…
You want to think in terms of visual story-telling and ways you can really cut through the noise of a very busy competitive landscape. Just talking about Christmas gifts won’t cut-through at all. - Next, what’s the offer, or offers? Could be free gift wrap + card with minimum order spend, or discounted bundles or gift packs, or you could run a series of offers or incentives. Perhaps over the last week of your promotional period, offer free express post so you can close as many sales prior to Christmas as possible.
- People now want as much certainty in their lives as humanly possible. In a world where so much has been so unpredictable and uncertain over the last couple of years, what can you do to provide more of a sense of certainty and control? If you remember, last year there were enormous shipping and delivery delays, so a lot of consumers will have been impacted like that and want to avoid disappointment as much as possible. So make sure you communicate openly and promptly and often about delivery. Consider a cheap upgrade to express as well, or test for the promotional period just making express the standard. Yes I know it costs more, but I’ve seen this work to increase conversion rates.
- Remove friction from your website to maximise sales and reduce cart abandonment. Shoppers typically prefer fewer clicks and faster transactions. Any interruption to your customers’ purchasing experience will increase their frustration and the risk of cart abandonment. Research shows that for every one-second delay, conversion drops by 7%. We do this using tactics like bundles and gift packs to make it super easy for shoppers to choose; creating specific landing pages to send traffic to for the promotion, rather than going to the home page or a collection page; removing the need to enter a coupon code to redeem a promotion; making it super easy to access customer service; making shipping details really clear and easy to understand (and as fast and as cheap as you possibly can). Also making sure you offer the main payment options your customers want to use.
- Engage customers with personalised holiday incentives. Statistics show that about 60% of consumers are more likely to become repeat buyers after a personalised shopping experience. Playing to the holiday spirit with ideas such as customised gift suggestions can help make personal connections with customers that build long-term loyalty. How on earth do you do this? This is where a tool like Klaviyo used in conjunction with Shopify really comes into its own. As long as you’ve had 500 customers buy from you, you can then gather shopper insights using Klaviyo’s predictive analytics. You can also use the dynamic product recommendations in Klaviyo, which will dynamically add the most relevant or popular products to your emails, helping to increase conversions. There are also many ways you can segment your Klaviyo database, based off your contacts historic shopping data, or if they usually buy for a boy or a girl or a Mum or a Dad (or you might have much more gender inclusive customers who respond to more inclusive messaging), or customers who usually buy from one specific collection, or who usually spend a large amount at once vs not at all, or lapsed customers, or people who’ve never bought from you but still open your emails.
Ultimately you want to send more emails than feels comfortable. - Ramp up customer support to prepare for the holiday traffic. When sales volume goes up, so do the customer service enquiries, whether they’re on your website live chat, via email or via social channels. Make sure you and your staff and any tools you use, like Gorgias customer service app, are in place to deliver on expectations and handle any increase in enquiries or requests for help.
- Bonus – keep track of your results by monitoring and recording your performance metrics.
So – that’s it for this episode – I hope you’ve found this helpful and hopefully gives you a bit of inspiration and motivation and maybe a bit of a kick up the bum if you know you need to start taking action but have been procrastinating a bit!
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, I’d like to ask you a quick favour: would you share it with one or two of your business besties? Especially if you know they’re looking to either scale and grow, or sell their eCommerce business this year. It’s super easy to share – just click on the icon next to the podcast on whichever platform you listen to it on, copy the share link and then send it in a message to your friends.
If you want to get your hands on the special discount Epic Holiday Promo Bundle I mentioned, just head to catherinelangman.com/holiday to get that 75% off deal for yourself.
Lastly, if you’re keen for some more in-depth help and support with this stuff, please just give us a shout! We offer courses, coaching and done-for-you-services to suit every stage in business, whether you need help to learn and implement these things or you’d like to outsource to our team. Just head over to productpreneurmarketing.com and you can book in for a free strategy session.