What does your audience want? Start by analyzing your customer data from previous years. Look at what worked and what didn't. What kind of discounts worked? What kind of product / services did they opt for? This will help you tweak strategy for effectiveness.
Create a promotional calendar: This year, Halloween is on October 31st, Thanksgiving day on November 23rd and BFCM long weekend from November 24 – 27th. Christmas sales will be between December 23rd and December 25th. Some people may also do Year End / New Year sales from December 26th to January 1st. Plan your promotions accordingly – email campaigns, social media promos, onsite displays…
Make your deals exclusive & open them early: People expect lowest prices during BFCM. If you can’t lower prices much, think about bundles / combos. Or some other way to increase value. And importantly, go live with them much before BFCM. You want to get a share of their holiday spending as early as possible.
Leverage email marketing: Icegram Express has templates designed for BFCM and other campaigns. Use them. Use list cleaning, segmentation, scheduled sending and all other features to your advantage. Upgrade to Max if you have to – life will be much easier and your campaigns will be more successful. Here are some additional tips.
One tactic that works very well for us is to send a reminder email to people who opened the first email in the campaign – and a “did you miss it” email to people who didn’t even open the first email. We use segmentation for this and run multiple levels of segmentation to narrow down the audience and write emails based on their behavior.
Test checkout from mobile: Many customers shop on their mobile devices. Ensure your website and emails are mobile-friendly.
Promote on your website and social media as well: Use Icegram Engage and show banners or pop ups on your website. One campaign that always makes a lot of sales for us is a header banner that announces “Last Day Today” for a campaign. Engage comes with a lot of templates and flexible rules to display targeted messages. Use them well and your revenue will definitely grow.
Also, don’t forget to post on all social platforms! You can run contests, share customer reviews and engage with your audience – beyond pushing your offering.
Retargeting campaigns: Retargeting campaigns can help you reach customers who have shown interest in your products but haven't made a purchase. Send them an email series, show them onsite messages – or even run paid ads to bring them back.
Plan early – but don’t sweat if you’re late: Even the simplest campaigns can bring in sales. So don’t feel guilty or overwhelmed. At the very least, send a broadcast campaign to your list. If you don’t have any offers, just send them holiday greetings. Reconnect with your audience. They will respond.
Course correct as needed: Track revenue. But also track email opens, clicks, site visits and cart conversions. Keep tweaking your next email based on results. You have enough time to course correct and recover from mistakes.
