In the last post, we talked about the importance of reviewing and gaining insights from last year’s holiday sales, and we made a game plan for the new holiday season. In this post, you’ll learn to be prepared for emergencies and how to launch and manage your holiday marketing campaigns effectively. We’re here to help you tackle the holiday season with confidence!

This is a continuation from Part 1 of the post, and we highly recommend reading Path to a Happy E-Commerce Season, Part 1: Preparation before diving into the content below.

Be Prepared

Staff Adequately Based on last year’s performance, determine how many extra hands you might need this holiday season. Do you need one extra seasonal worker? Maybe even a whole new team? It is important to ensure your workforce is up to the task, since 96% of e-commerce firms plan to hire between 1-15 people for the holiday season. And above all else, make sure your new hires are qualified! Here are a few of the essential roles you will need covered during the busy holiday season:

• Online security contractors – to protect the security of your company and its information.
• In-house IT department lead – to help optimize your websites for the influx of customers and to fix/prevent crashes of your websites.
• Customer service team – to provide a voice to your customers that may need assistance with your products, where to buy, or anything in between.
• Product suppliers – to ensure that the products you want to sell are in stock and are available to customers when they want it.
• Marketing and PR director – to go over marketing plans!

Get Social Social media has never been more integral to building your business’s exposure during the holiday season. Highlight your visual products on platforms like Facebook and Instagram and use Twitter for quick and updates on your company and products. Make sure to tie your optimized website content to your social media posts for the highest amount of visibility and engagement!

Create a Content Calendar Posting every day is made easy by using content calendars and automatic scheduling tools for your social media posts. Pro Tip: Websites like Buffer and Hootsuite can help you prepare your posts ahead of time, so you can stay active on social media without having to spend hours scheduling content every day.

Be Accessible to Mobile Users Like we mentioned in the last post, more and more shoppers are diving into the world of mobile shopping apps. Make sure that the mobile version of your app or website is glitch-free, easy to navigate, and responsive enough to be viewed on a smaller screen. If your website hosting service does not automatically optimize for mobile, invest some time into creating a comprehensive mobile experience for your customers on the go.

Prepare for Emergencies With an increased influx of sales and customers, it is important to account for anything that might go wrong, from product shortages to website crashes to being understaffed at the busiest time of the year. Make sure you have all the essential staff and supplies you need for a successful holiday season!

Review Your Plan

Search for Vulnerabilities Are you losing money on any promotions? Are all your paid advertisements performing as well as you expect them to? Check often for any cracks in your system. For example, one big way e-commerce sites lose money is through shipping costs – figure out what works for you and your profit margins and stick to it.

Identify Key Content to Market What were your biggest products last year in terms of sales? How can you market the products you know your customers want to buy? Identifying what sells and what doesn’t will help you avoid the dreaded scenario of warehouses full of unsold product at the end of the season.

Don’t Just Sell Products, Sell Your Brand Customers nowadays are more interested in what a brand represents than just the products it sells. Create a story around your company, your employees, your values, and your products to ensure your customers keep coming back to a business they can relate to.

Track Social Media Make sure you’re getting enough engagement and change it up if some posts are not performing as well as you anticipated. Social media moves very fast, so checking campaign performance and making adjustments is often key to continued success.

Set Goals Given your company’s total opportunity and after selecting the specific products you’ll be promoting, set achievable and measurable goals for your holiday marketing.

Launch and Manage

Keep to your KPI’s Look at the key performance indicators you set up in the preparation stage and see if you are meeting your goals. Use Google Analytics to track sales and collect data from advertising to help you make decisions in the future.

Monitor Your Execution Make sure everything is running as expected. Monitor each of your holiday marketing tactics. Were your Cyber Monday sales so successful that you sold out of a high-demand product? Will you need to modify your free shipping offers as a result? Inspect everything and respond to any problems as soon as possible.

Monitor Events You’ve already brainstormed and planned out your holiday events and promotions, which are an integral part of your sales strategy. Now is the time to monitor any giveaways and promotions you have going on to make sure you aren’t losing profit at the expense of getting more customers. Does your rewards program offer enough incentive for customers to utilize it, or does it give away too much for you to benefit?

Listen to Customers What has been their experience so far? What changes do you need to make to ensure they will come back and provide positive reviews and word-of-mouth? Who are your shoppers and how can you tailor to them? A company that values its customers will generate brand loyalty, which is especially valuable for smaller e-commerce businesses.

If you follow all the things outlined in Part 1 and Part 2 during this holiday season, you’ll be in good shape. Preparing for the most wonderful time of the year can seem daunting, but it will be worth it when your program generates positive sales that are measurable!

Last, but Not Least…

Wish your customers happy holidays and a happy New Year!

If you would like to learn more about how Fujisan Marketing can help you successfully prepare and set up digital marketing campaigns for the upcoming holiday season, contact us at (844) FUJISAN or at contact@fujisanmarketing.com.