Every major Internet ecommerce property has their holiday messaging in gear. Whether it is http://www.petco.com talking about your pet’s wish list or http://www.bodyshop.com with their body butter-adorned Christmas wreath, the virtual gloves are off. It is time to seize those holiday sales.

What is going on with your home page? Have you gotten into the holiday spirit, or does your messaging scream “Grinch”?

Don’t be intimidated by the competition. Even if you don’t have the budget or ability to create fancy graphics, do SOMETHING to greet your customers for the holiday shopping season. Holiday graphics are preferable. But a simple text message will suffice. If you need an extra something, there are a range of holiday clip-art sources out there.

In this year of price-conscious shopping, a holiday special would be an excellent idea. If you are not prepared to do any product discounting, you can at least suggest some holiday gift ideas or put together a category of stocking stuffers.

Of course, better to encourage larger purchases. Maybe you can throw in a free stocking stuffer with a purchase over $50.

Be creative and have fun with the holidays. And if you haven’t gotten in gear, don’t wait any longer. Only 31 days ’til Christmas!

Right now, I’ve got two things on my mind: turkey and the holiday ecommerce season. For me, they go hand-in-hand, because I know that at the point I start talking turkey, it is time to get holiday marketing in gear.

If you are an ecommerce merchant, there is no better way to kick off the holiday season than with an email blast to existing customers. Before people get too far along with their shopping plans, you want to plant the seed in their minds to return to your site to do some of their holiday shopping at their favorite ecommerce website.

A few points to consider:

1. Dress up your email with the holiday spirit.
2. Identify some products on your site that are ideally suited for gifts and stocking stuffers and link directly to those products from your email.
3. Make sure you clearly state your holiday shipping cut-offs in the email.
4. Give a special incentive for doing holiday shopping early – perhaps by offering a discount coupon.
5. Encourage recipients (since they are previous customers) to pass the email onto a friend as a great place to come up with gift ideas for them.
6. Plan to follow up the email with another one in two weeks when we are in the prime time of holiday shopping.
7. If you have not done email marketing before make sure that you follow acceptable rules and practices and send to actual customers and those who have expressed an interest in receiving emails from you.

If there is ever a time of the year to go for it with your marketing, this is it! Have fun with your email communication and do your best to spread some holiday ecommerce cheer.

I expected to wake on this post-Halloween Monday to the sight of ecommerce websites, plastered with holiday splendor. Surprisingly, the holiday spirit seems quite subdued.

Many of the big-boxers – Amazon, BestBuy, and the like – seem to have sparse holiday messaging and specials. They are taking the scattered snowflake approach. Target.com is pushing their Christmas message more strongly.

I can’t believe it won’t be long before we are hammered with the holiday sales blitz -  uh, I mean, spirit.

If you are a “little box” retailer it is time to get on your game. In the words of GaryVee it is time to Crush It!

We won’t repeat all of our past holiday strategical offerings, but in this year of high unemployment and frosty revenue forecasts, do your best to make some low-cost, high impact moves and dress up your website with your best holiday cheer.

We have two quick suggestions.

Task #1: Make sure you do in fact have a holiday strategy.

If you just passively sit on the sidelines and hope that holiday shopping is just going to happen, you are likely to be in for a few lumps of coal and not much else.

Task #2: Start to tune  your site with some up-beat holiday cheer. Make it clear, when your shoppers arrive, that you are ready for them with the best you have to offer.

If you want some feedback on your site and your plans, let us know. We would be happy to talk.

Some online retailers have marketing campaigns that run on autopilot all year. Surely, you don’t count yourself in that group (nudge, nudge).

If you aren’t tuning and tweaking for key seasonal holidays, your campaigns are likely underperforming. As we head into the holiday shopping season, which is just moments away, it is a good time to assess your big three of SEM: Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click, and Comparison Shopping Engines. Do you have your titles, descriptions, and ads tweaked to give you maximum exposure?

For an overview of our recommendations, please head over to our HEROweb Marketing & Design article archive and take a look at Q4 SEM (Search Engine Marketing) Pointers.

As a follow-up to our last post, here are some more timely actions you can take to build your holiday ecommerce sales.

1. Tune your pages with keywords relevant to holiday shopping. You really want to get moving on this one since it can take some time for your site changes to be reflected in the engines. (Thanks to Dennis Bandy of Denlors Tools – http://www.denlorstools.com -  for this suggestion.)

2. If you are running Pay-Per-Click campaigns, consider creating some holiday-centric campaigns. Also monitor your campaigns and be prepared to make other adjustments based on holiday shopping behavior.

3. Make sure that your holiday messaging is not just on your home page. If you have done a good job of SEO, you likely will have shoppers arriving directly on your product pages. Make sure that you have holiday messaging and any specials clearly communicated throughout the site. Some users will never see your home page.

4. Ramp up your response time. Be prepared to answer customer questions rapidly. Shoppers are often looking for an easy path to get their shopping done. Adding Live Chat to your site could be a great move for the holidays to improve your responsiveness.

5. Put some clear info on your site about final ship dates and other specifics about product delivery. Many shoppers are nervous that their purchase will not arrive on time. If you provide clear information, you can put your customers at ease.

Do you have any other tips you would like to share. Please add a comment to this post!

Ok. Ok. I know the calendar has not yet flipped over to October, but if you have not yet started contemplating your holiday ecommerce strategy, it is time to get going.

With all the funkiness in the financial markets and the presidential race leaving many in suspended animation, there is no question this year brings with it a few added complexities. But business is business, and now is the time to plan out your course for online success. Here are a few areas to consider:

1. Have you started preparing your website messaging to reflect the upcoming holidays? Letting your customers know that you are welcoming them for their holiday shopping is key. This can be accomplished with good copywriting and some accompanying holiday-themed images.

2. Have you thought about which products will be your best sellers? You want to be pushing those on your home page? If you have relevant holiday related products, be sure those are also front and center, and not buried somewhere on your site. Any great gift ideas should be featured on the home page.

3. Have you considered what kind of specials might work well for you at this time of year and how you can promote those either via email marketing, search engine exposure, or other promotions on your site? If there is anything you can do to specifically cater to holiday shoppers (perhaps with gift wrapping or special shipping arrangements), take a few minutes to create a well-optimized page explaining what you are doing.

4. And how about email marketing?  Now is the time to start crafting your campaigns for the next few months to drive holiday traffic to your web site. A well-timed email blast will work wonders. You don’t want to overdo it, but think about a schedule for holiday email blasts and start preparing your copy.

If you do your preparation now you will be ready to roll out your marketing when the time is right and might even have a little time left over to do a little of your own stress-free holiday shopping!

If you’re planning on sending a Valentine’s Day promotional email to your customer base, you’re not the only one. According to a recent survey conducted by Constant Contact, 68 percent of small businesses plan an online Valentine’s Day promotion. Since it’s quite likely that your email won’t be the only one landing in your customer’s email inbox over the next few days, it’s important to make it stand out.

Constant Contact’s Valentine’s Day email templates can help. With choices from simple e-cards to newsletters, these templates can get your message across with eye-catching pink and white, hearts and flowers.

Template Examples: 

With just ten days left until the holiday, it’s not too late to prepare an email and send it using these or 8 other easy-to-use templates. Email promotions can definitely help drive traffic to your site on this important gift-giving holiday. 

What do people search for around Valentine’s Day? I checked the search phrase “Valentine’s” on the Digital Point keyword tool and found the following list of holiday-related phrases: 

Phrase                            Hits Per Day

Gift Valentine                2,676

Valentine’s Day               1,277

Craft Valentine               1,217 

Valentine Hearts            725

Valentine Poems            560

Gift Idea Valentine        436 

Valentine Graphics        426

Gift Man Valentine        556 (see, it’s not only men who have a hard time deciding on gifts!)

Candy Valentine            187

Chocolate Valentine     152

Gift Romantic Valentine  134

Unique Valentine          126 (now there’s a good term to optimize one of your gift pages for!)

For the greatest impact, work any of these terms into your page titles, product descriptions and other on-the-page content. But, I would think twice before optimizing that power tool set or vacuum cleaner for Valentine’s Day. My local newspaper insists on running an ad each February for a store advertising specials on vacuum cleaners with the headline, “Give her what she really wants!” Guys, I’m here to tell ya, don’t fall for it!  Let me know, do you intend to send a Valentine’s Day promotional email?

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It’s not too late to send out a holiday email promotion if you haven’t already. People are either still shopping or just getting started, and there’s a good chance they’re looking for something easy. Now is a great time to remind people of what you have to offer, especially if it’s a deal like free shipping or gift wrapping.

Make a list of all the things about your site that are gift-friendly and send out a postcard to your email list. Make sure to remind people that you have gift certificates, can customize something, or have guaranteed Christmas delivery. Making your holiday email look festive is part of the fun, and we touched on that in a previous blog post about using Constant Contact‘s holiday email themes.

If you have some great stocking stuffer ideas or items that you know are popular gifts, point those out.  Offering a discount is a good way to get visitors back to your site this time of year. And when they get there, greet them with a site that’s ready to accommodate holiday shopping, with links to the items you featured in your email right on the front page. Don’t make them have to search for the items or deals you tempted them with in the email! If they were tempted enough by your email to click through to your site, there’s a good chance they’re interested enough to buy. So remove all obstacles and prepare for some late season sales!

Tags: Holiday, Email, Promotions, Seasonal, Emails

Looking for a quick and easy way to get some holiday traffic to your website? Email cards have measurable results, they don’t take as much time to read as a newsletter, and get your name on your customers’ radar as they prepare their holiday shopping lists.

Email promotions are easy anytime, but are especially welcome this time of year as people are faced with holiday gift buying. People are looking for deals, unique items they can’t get in their local stores, and ways to save time. You can offer them all three things! Customizing a seasonal themed email card or promotion is easy to do with Constant Contact’s themes, and they can be customized to suit your needs and desires.

Here are some sample themes:

Using one of these templates, you can offer a discount code for customers buying Thanksgiving themed-items, or free shipping up to a certain date in December, for instance. These email promotions shouldn’t be too “hard sell,” just customize a short, tasteful e-card and watch your traffic increase as customers return to your website to see what you have to offer.

Hopefully, you’ve read MightyMerchant’s article on optimizing your site for the holidays. The article suggests restructuring your site with gift shopping in mind, such as moving popular gift items to the front page to make them easy to find, or tweaking your product descriptions so they reflect gift-giving. When a recipient of your holiday offer clicks your e-promotion to visit your website, greet them with a website that looks like it’s ready for the holidays. Combining site optimization tactics like this with a targeted holiday email card is a great way to boost your sales this time of year.

Here are some more of Constant Contact’s holiday themed email templates:

Now is the time to get started on holiday marketing. Even if customers don’t return to your website right away, the email from you will be in their inbox, and they’ll turn to it when they’re ready.