|
Well folks, it is
that time of year again. I know you are probably thinking "Come'on...it's
ONLY October"! Yes, this is true for consumers, but it is
quite different for businesses across the globe.
October Through December is one of the busiest times for web
sites and we need to beef up our holiday sales this year, after
seeing last year's economy practically do a belly flop. So if
you run a business, especially a web business, let's dust off
the spider webs from the virtual shelves and start promoting our
businesses to take FULL
advantage of the upcoming Holiday sales season.
In this article, I am going to report to you this year's holiday
trends, sales forecasts and also give you some low cost ways to
beef up your sales. So sit back in your office chair, kick up
your feet, pull the computer screen a little bit closer and
enjoy reading my article.
DM News is reporting that the National Retail Federation is
predicting a 5.7% increase in holiday sales in the upcoming 2003
season. 2003 spending is forecast to reach $217 billion for
combined online and offline spending. How does this impact your
marketing?
I cannot stress enough the need to get your Web sites up and
running so that they have time to be found and indexed by the
search engines before the holiday crowds start up.
October is the perfect time to test keyword phrases, marketing
messages and landing pages. Savvy search marketers are already
adding new phrases to their PPC accounts and devising multiple
landing page messages so that they can test their effectiveness.
Spending a little bit of time, effort, and money on this type of
testing right now will give you a better idea of what phrases
and messages will deliver the highest conversion rates, and the
highest profit margins when holiday shopping picks up steam in
late October.
In a PC Data survey of 5000 Internet users, 26 percent of the
respondents said that they already have begun their holiday
shopping, indicating that the race has already begun.
Another 40 percent of those who responded to the PC Data poll
said that they plan to begin shopping before Thanksgiving.
Additionally, almost half said that they plan to do more
shopping online this year than they did last year, with only 14
percent saying that they plan to spend less.
PC Data asked respondents to indicate what types of merchandise
they have purchased online in the past week, and if the
purchases were gifts or for themselves. Almost 70 percent of
those who bought toys said that the purchase was a gift.
Almost 26 percent of the respondents had purchased computer
software, and 23 percent said they had bought music. Other
popular items included books (18 percent), videos (13 percent)
and computer hardware (12 percent).
For the third year in a row, women were responsible for the
majority of online purchases, and increased their share of
buying to 60% from last holiday's 56%. This is a significant
trend given that in 1998, women accounted for only 39% of all
online holiday transactions.
Popular web sites ares spending an estimated $20 million (US$)
to promote their sites this year. Even though most of us are not
fortunate enough to sink that much hard-earned money in to
marketing our sites there are some low-cost ways that we can
start promoting today. The sooner you start, the better prepared
you will be and the better you stand to profit once the busy
season finally hits.
10 Ways to Beef Up Your Holiday Sales This Season:
1. Customize your ads and web pages to appeal to holiday
shoppers. This will show visitors of your site that you are
ready for the holiday season. You don't have to change every web
page that you own or every sales copy either. A good rule of
thumb is to upload ONE holiday sales page describing all of your
special offerings and then place a
Holiday Graphic on your home page to reflect the event. I would
also recommend uploading the same graphic on each of your main
web site pages so that no matter which page a visitors lands on-
they will also see your holiday sales message.
2. Add a Christmas Countdown script to your website. Set it to
countdown the remaining days until Christmas. This will remind
them how much time they have left and encourage them to act on
your offer quicker.
3. Remember that not everyone celebrates the same holidays that
you do so be considerate and refer to all of your special
Christmas sales as "Holiday Sales" instead. Be sure to
point out that just because they do not celebrate the holidays
when you do , that it doesn't mean they cannot enjoy the rewards
the season brings.
4. Offer a free gift card service. Consumers, especially
Internet surfers, love free stuff. Offer a gift card service
that your visitors can use to send their loved ones holiday
greetings. You will find your site being visited more often and
even linked to by happy users :)
5. Perfect your newsletter/mailing list subscription pages and
be sure to market your site to bring in a flood of new readers.
6. Add a "Refer-a-Friend" script on your subscription
pages to bring in even more readers and advertise your holiday
sales to them every other day. Usually with subscription html
code code you will have a variable that returns the new
subscriber to your "Thank you for joining page". If
you know what I'm talking about here...Customize your thank you
page with the following "Thank you for subscribing...as a
special Holiday Gift We would like to offer you a bonus digital
product package worth over $600 just for telling two of your
associates about the BN4OM Newsletter" Then underneath that
statement, install your refer a friend script and direct the
script to send those who use it to the digital product download
page. Naturally, you will have to customize my statement above
with your own details but I think you get the idea. This
increased my new subscriber rate by 45% when I installed this
technique on my site. If you are not sure what I'm talking
about, ask your web designer who should be more than qualified
to help you
install this feature.
7. Partner with other complimentary sites. Dedicate a section of
your website to that company's products and have them do the
same. Alternatively, you can both agree to promote one another
via your mailing lists. They always say to keep your friends
close, but enemies closer and I agree completely. If you join
forces with a site that sells the same type of product that you
do, you can completely benefit from receiving their targeted
traffic. Jump in there and make friends. There's enough room for
everyone to coexist happily on the net :)
8. Get dressed up in your holiday best. Put your visitors in the
holiday mood with tasteful Christmas graphics and colors. Be
careful not to overdo it - too many graphics can slow down your
site and chase your visitors away.
9. Give some of your older products as gifts. It's a perfect way
to save a little money and promote your business at the same
time. Be sure to apply viral marketing techniques to each
product you give away so that future downloaders will know where
to go to find the creator. Usually eBooks and software with
giveaway rights provide significant site exposure. By
"viral marketing techniques" I mean a graphic or at
base minimum your web site's name or company name at the top of
the product pages. I use this in all of my software and ebook
products and receive an upwards of 10,000 extra visits per month
on SDTadvertising.com.
10. Add exposure to your business by selling your products at an
online auction house, such as eBay.com. The traffic that comes
to this site looking for Christmas gifts can't be beat. Dress
your auctions up for Christmas and be sure to offer an optional
gift wrapping or gift card service.
So there you have it. No matter what you decide to do with your
site this holiday season, the important thing to remember is you
need to start working on it now. By late October, we will be in
the full swing of things and you don't want to get caught coming
into the game 2 hours late. Take a deep breath and formulate
your plan on paper first. Once you have a great sales offer you
can proceed to working on the "beefing up" part.
Here's wishing you the best this holiday season. Stay safe, hug
your loved ones and enjoy this joyous time of the year.
Michelle
Admin of SDTadvertising.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author: Michelle Utter has been working online since the year of 2000.
With a Bachelor's degree in International Business she offers up
her marketing and business skills to the Internet community and
has already helped thousands of Internet Entreprenuers to gain
exposure for their sites.
Visit her most popular site at: http://sdtadvertising.com
Come join her and subscribe to the BN4OM newsletter for more
information and training for the upcoming holiday sales season.
Find out more here: http://sdtadvertising.com/newsletter.html |
