Average Order Value: how to increase it for XMAS 2019

The holidays are approaching. Halloween products lead the march. The period around Christmas is essential for many E-commerce. By advertising campaigns and promotions to increase the average basket, there are as many risks as opportunities, especially for SMEs.

You can end the year with a bang and lots of sales, but also disastrously with a large number of orders to be processed.

In 2019, e-commerce companies saw some changes in marketing techniques to increase conversions.

New technologies or promotional strategies, in both cases e-merchants have to adapt their shop to the fluctuations of a constantly evolving industry.

Generating sales efficiently has never been more real than during the holiday season. E-merchants must therefore prepare for the madness of promotions and Christmas sales.

Your store needs to be fully optimized and ready for different advertising and promotional strategies. And this, even before the holiday season that generates the most sales like Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday and Christmas.

Table of Contents

Customize the shopping experience

To increase sales on your online store, nothing better than a personalized shopping experience for all your customers.

If you have a discount on different products for a particular holiday, consider making cross selling and upselling to complete the basket.

Suggestions for a product that would interest your customer have an impact. By using customer-specific data (such as searches, shopping cart and order history), you can boost your sales during the holidays and increase your conversion rate.

Update of the return policy for the holiday season

If your return policy is too strict during the holidays, you risk losing sales.

On the contrary, at this time your E-commerce needs a flexibility of returns. Simply because everything can happen. It offers some comfort to your customers in case of error in size, product defect, dissatisfaction, etc.

To establish a relationship of trust with your customers, you must have a completely transparent and fair return policy.

Also, by increasing your return time until the end of January, you give your customers enough time to return the gifts. A good customer experience will increase their satisfaction and loyalty.

Marketing email strategy during the holidays

Sending promotional emails is an essential key to advertising campaigns during the holidays. If you have discounts, promotions or special offers for Christmas, do not wait until the last minute to send these promotional emails.

By catching your customers’ attention in advance, with automatic emails, you can prevent future promotions and increase conversions when you need them the most.

This method also works with reminder emails for abandoned carts. Since buyers go to different online stores to find their articles during the holidays, they may forget yours. A little reminder for an abandoned cart would be an interesting idea to boost your Christmas sales.

Rewards and loyalty program

The reward system for customers or the loyalty program is perfect for the period before the holidays. It could even be a crucial step for you.

By leveraging your loyal customers (and encouraging new customers to become loyal), you give them an additional benefit and an added value to your store.

A good, easy-to-use rewards system provides member benefits, value your products, and increases engagement and interaction with your members. During the holidays, this method offers you the chance to convert your buyers into long-term loyal customers.

All this is very interesting, but how to put this system into practice? The Smile.io application allows you to start and look for your reward system needs.

Update landing pages for the holidays

During the holidays, there is nothing more important than having top landing pages. Customers will be redirected to these pages following a search or from a link in your emails, or in your advertisements.

It is almost vital that these pages have an attractive design with a simple layout for easy navigation.

So elements like the shopping cart or buttons for social networks must be visible and easily accessible to allow shoppers to navigate after clicking on the redirection link.

If you’re unsure about your visual content, you can always check out applications that allow you to create landing pages and increase conversions well before Christmas.

Campaigns and social media marketing for holidays

Sharing a link to your store in an Instagram story, posting good offers and discounts on Facebook posts, or tweeting a product’s campaign with a slogan hashtag, are just some of the options available with social media during the festive period.

That’s why your brand must be unique and creative to attract buyers’ attention. Your campaigns and marketing techniques for social networks must be ready to boost your sales and encourage buyers to visit your store.

For example, you’ll need to make sure you’ve installed the new Instagram feature for payment. You can then launch your promotional campaigns even before the holidays and use this new tool to sell directly on the application.

Optimize your campaigns and promotions for Christmas

Sometimes it’s essential to use the holiday season as a focus of your marketing strategies to increase your sales. Thus, these must correspond to a holiday in particular in order to develop the festive side and the enthusiasm with your customers.

For example, an LGBT offer with products related to the month of Pride, patriotic designs on your landing pages around the National Day, or special promotions and bargains on winter products during Christmas.

There are lots of possibilities when you imagine everything you can do with your brand and products. So how to juggle Christmas’ promotions and celebration?

Schedule contests and giveaways during the holidays

Contests and giveaways during the holidays are a great way to increase customer satisfaction and engagement while boosting your sales. You can put in practice this method directly on your website or by using social media tools.

For example, you can post the photo of one of your products to be won on Instagram, and choose the winner from the comments.

In this way, you will not only facilitate your customers’ commitment and sense of community around your brand, but you will also promote products and bargains to come during the holidays.

That’s why scheduling contests and giveaways in advance is an effective marketing strategy for your e-commerce during the holiday season.

Think about free shipping in the holiday marketing plan

Amazon’s free shipping is one of the favorite methods of the platform. It is therefore essential for your e-commerce to do the same during the holidays. Not only free shipping generates sales, but also conversions.

Leads will be more easily converted into customers if the order offers free delivery. You can choose to offer it from a certain amount or for a certain period of the year, such as Black Friday or Cyber ​​Monday.

If you don’t know where to start, look at the delivery plans of your competitors. They can help you position yourself and attract as many customers as possible during the holidays. Not to mention the fact that this technique also increases your conversions.

Content Marketing during the holidays

During the holidays, Content Marketing is essentially a continuous stream of content.

These may be blog posts, video content, social networks, etc. Any traffic from a web search to find your business is good. With original, up to date and festive content, your business can appear more easily in search results and boost your Christmas sales.

For example, by incorporating your products into a blog post about decorating ideas for autumn and Halloween, your visitors will be more inclined to buy on your store.

Many companies can apply this method, as long as the content is in line with your brand, but also with the holidays celebrated.

Flash sales and urgent sales

Limited sales are another effective marketing technique to sell more during the holidays. For example, you could impose dates for sales or discounts, offer limited product lots, or be sure that the low or limited inventory indicator is visible for the top-selling products.

If your store can stimulate urgency during the purchase process, maybe your customers will hesitate less to add a product to the cart and confirm the purchase.

Encourage a sense of community and moral responsibility

Nobody wants to end up in a shop where the products have no value and they find nothing to buy.

That’s why, during the holidays, some marketing techniques can help promote your values ​​and ethics.

For example, you can donate to a charity that is close to your brand values or encourage your clients to pay a small amount for a good cause.

It is a small action but has great power. It makes it possible to create a connection between your buyers who wish to feel good during the end of year celebrations but also to share the values ​​of your brand. While promoting your business, you share a sense of moral responsibility within your customers.