January 2, 2023
8 tips to get your website ready for holiday seasons
Create your own website: 8 tips to get your site ready for the holiday seasons
8 tips to get your website ready for holiday seasons
In this blog article, you'll learn how to prepare for Black Friday, Christmas, or other special holidays, avoid losing customers during the campaign and achieve great results.
Black Friday is a sale that takes place in November, the day after Thanksgiving.
Originally, Black Friday was popular only in the United States. However, in recent years, this tradition has spread all over the world. Last year, retailers in Germany alone took in 4.9 billion euros in sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
All the more reason for you to get involved with this. So let's take a look at how you can prepare your site for these special promotion days. The following tips apply not only to online stores but also to landing pages or websites. Likewise, it is not relevant whether you are yet to create a website or already have one.
Christmas holidays and New Year's Eve
The time between the Christmas holidays and New Year's Eve is quieter for most companies, but this is exactly when you can benefit from online marketing. Because many companies are closed during the holidays and at the end of the year, this is the perfect moment to draw attention to yourself and create a great website!
How to prepare for the Christmas holidays:
- Introduce Christmas discounts! Basically, the use of discounts is always great to encourage new customers to place their first order in your online store. Besides discounts, you can also introduce coupon promotions. This makes it easier for customers to buy and can also be a great Christmas gift.
- Christmas advertising is another great way to attract customers! Candles are lit in homes, alleys smell of Christmas pastries, and streets are festively decorated. Why not your website too? Create digital Christmas decorations and give your customers a pleasant experience while they are on your website.
- Think of special gift ideas for your customers. Use your creativity and stand out with your packages. This way, you can make it easier for your customers to make a purchase decision and find the right Christmas gifts.
- Create an Advent calendar with 24 doors on your website! Here you can also give away great discount promotions or freebies. Freebies are a profitable online marketing tool, especially during the Christmas season! This is a (digital) giveaway. As a business owner, you offer a sample of your product for free and receive the email address in return. Want to learn how to create freebies? Then be sure to check out our blog article: Create great freebies in just 5 simple steps.
After the Christmas holidays, the new year is not far away. And the start of the new year can also offer you great opportunities to advance your business and your ideas. Small businesses in particular should take advantage of the New Year, because it's an event that has a big impact on many people.
How to prepare your website and business for New Year's Eve:
- Send New Year's greetings to your customers and draw attention to yourself. You can send them by email or by post. You can also create and upload them directly on your website! This is a sure way to please your customers.
- You can also use a newsletter to do great New Year marketing. Tell your customers about what happened in your company. Create a short review of the year. Were there any special events or new services/products that came out? And what is planned for the new year? Tell them about upcoming projects and great products that they can look forward to. And don't forget to thank your customers for their trust and great collaboration. As a thank you, think of something you can do to show them your appreciation.
- Think of promotions that will help customers achieve their New Year's resolutions. Many people decide to renovate, clean up, or change some of their habits in the new year. Think about what might be meaningful to your customer segment and understand their needs.
- You can also set a goal to win back lost customers. To do this, introduce appealing welcome-back promotions that also tackle specific New Year's resolutions.
- Create digital New Year's Eve decorations on your website, such as photography and videos, to highlight the emotional aspect of the change and to engage your customers.
How to prepare for online holiday sales
Before you create a website or revise your existing site, consider what goals you want to achieve with a sale. Choose the right products that will drive more traffic and higher profits. Prepare your website for the sale, think about possible scenarios and create contingency plans.
Then, if something goes wrong during the sale, you can make quick decisions and get out of any predicament. How carefully you prepare and plan everything will determine the success or failure of the campaign.
In this blog article, we will show you 8 tips on how to get your website ready for holiday seasons. After reading this article, you will be able to apply our tips.
1st Tip: Set measurable and achievable goals
Before you even start a campaign or create your own website, you must, of course, determine the purpose of the campaign. Why do you want to run the campaign, and what result do you want to achieve? "Selling as much as you can" is not a realistic or truly measurable goal.
To create your own website or launch a specific campaign, the SMART method can help you. This method is often used in project management for setting goals, and you can take advantage of it.
- Specific: Goals should be specific and concrete. Example: You want to create your own website and sell sustainable clothing there.
- Measurable: Determine measurable metrics. Example: Number of wool dresses sold.
- Attractive: Only if a goal is also attractive and achievable can the necessary motivation be mustered to reach it.
- Realistic: It must be realistic to achieve the goal with the available resources. Example: You can create your own website with your existing resources.
- Deadlines: Set deadlines by when a specific goal should be achieved. Example: I will create a website by January 31.
Set goals for your holiday promotion. This way you will be able to check afterwards
whether the campaign was successful or not. Your goals will also make it easier for
you to determine and derive actions and plan your marketing campaigns. Setting
goals is also helpful if you want to create a website (e.g. a separate landing page for
the promotion). For example, if you want to offer a discount code for the promotion,
you probably need to create appropriate graphics, advertising campaign and texts
beforehand. An advertising budget must be defined and it must be determined
through which channels the campaign will be played out. All this requires precise
planning.
2nd Tip: Choose the right product
It is advisable to offer a discount on products that are particularly popular with your customers. It also makes sense to offer a discount on items that are profitable for you. In this way, visitors will look at the popular items and then pay attention to other offers - this increases the chance of a sale.
In this context, a product bundle is also a great option for your website. Especially if you already offer several products in your online store anyway. Product bundles are a popular sales strategy in e-commerce. You combine multiple products into one product set/product bundle offer. The combination of multiple products at a usually lower total price is meant to encourage customers to buy more. For example, if you have an online store for beauty products, you can bundle matching products (shower gel, body scrub and body lotion) and offer everything together for a lower product price. You could also visually match the packaging to the promotion. Of course, product bundles also make sense without a corresponding promotion. So if you want to create a website, check if a product bundle would be a profitable idea for your business.
Another strategy is to draw buyers' attention to a certain product or category by offering them a discount for it. This has many advantages: The buyer gets curious, tries it out, and may buy at full price next time.
If you are new to creating a website or online store, you usually don't have a lot of data to choose the ideal product for a discount promotion. Just choose the product that you think your customers will buy at a discount.
3rd Tip: Check the availability of your products/service
To create a successful landing page or website, you should check the availability of your products regularly. Especially during the promotion, keep an eye on the availability of your items.
For example, set up an automatic product booking in the catalog after a customer adds the product to the shopping cart. This will help you avoid situations where a visitor adds an item to the shopping cart, continues browsing the site, and then can't buy it because it's sold out in the meantime.
It's always best to make sure there are enough items before the promotion. The same applies, of course, if you offer a service. Because if the customer wants to buy your product and thus signals willingness to buy and the product is no longer in stock, this leads to frustration. Your potential customer, who would have been willing to buy from you a moment ago, will now probably buy from the competition. But the negative buying experience in your store is still stored as an experience. That's why it's so important to create a positive buying experience.
4th Tip: Prepare your site in advance for the sale
Do you want to create a really successful website? Then you should already update your online store before the "big rush". To do this, you can follow these 5 simple tips.
1: Mark reduced items with "SALE" and clearly show what the old and new prices are.
2: Create a separate section on your website with the special offers for the promotion day.
3: Add call-to-action buttons. This way, users can quickly get in touch with you. For you to create a successful website, you should include special buttons and contact forms on your site. Then, when the customer has purchase-related queries, you can respond to them quickly.
4: Use bundled product packages to give your customers a special shopping experience. To do this, you can sell products that go well together and create a special bundle price. Of course, if you are creating a new website, you can use this strategy from the beginning.
5: Offer gift wrapping! Especially at Christmas or Valentine's Day, many users purchase an item or service as a gift. Through special gift packaging, you can leave a positive impression on your buyers.
Also, read our blog article: What really matters in a landing page for businesses (and what doesn't).
5th Tip: Check the mobile version of your site
Do you want to create a website that converts leads into paying customers? Then you should definitely make sure that the mobile version of your landing page/site is optimized for mobile viewing.
Users have the ability to access your website from different devices - tablets, smartphones, or laptops. Your site should look good and load quickly on all devices. After all, you want to make a good first impression on your potential buyers. In the worst case, a "bad" page can deter a customer from making a purchase. On Onepage, all pages are already optimized for mobile view. So if you want to create a website with Onepage, you don't have to worry about that.
Do you want to learn more about how to successfully create a landing page/site? Make sure to read our blog article on the topic!
6th Tip: Announce the upcoming sale to your potential customers
An important aspect of creating a successful website is to draw attention to it. Especially with upcoming sale days like Black Friday, you should inform your potential customers in time - using all available channels: Newsletters, website, social media, or even via advertisements.
How can you draw attention to your sale?
- Informing about the upcoming promotion on your site is a very convenient solution. Visitors to your site are already interested in the products or your service. Promising them a benefit will encourage them to return to your website later and make a purchase. You can use different elements for this purpose. For example, place a countdown timer on the cover to mark the beginning of the promotion.
- Incorporate the promotion day announcement into the design of an existing cover on your homepage.
- Send a newsletter to existing customers.
- Place ads on social media.
- Post related posts on your social media channels.
Want to learn how to write compelling website copy? Click here and make sure to read our blog article on the topic.
7th Tip: Use customized product photos and graphics
Creating your own website is a lot of work, especially in the beginning. Good and high-resolution images are crucial for your success. Because they are the best way to draw the necessary attention of your site visitors to your offer, however, if you already have great product photos, you can add winter details to them, for example. In this way, you build a connection to the promotion day and adapt the design of your page.
So when you're creating a website, be sure to include customized graphics (as well as copy and promotional videos) for your promotional days. For example, if you're planning a discount promotion for Christmas, you can add a red 10% banner on the graphic. This way, the user knows directly what to expect and, in the best case, an action is triggered. The action that the user clicks on your graphic and maybe even buys your product.
The customized images create an appropriate atmosphere for the user. That's why the customized photos are also well suited for advertising on social media.
8th Tip: Involve your team
During the holidays, you can usually expect an increase in sales. Therefore, you should also prepare your team for it. Do you want to create a successful website? Then you should definitely pay attention to this important detail. To cope with the increase in sales, extra temporary help may be needed. Your team members will have an additional workload - you should communicate this to them ahead of time.
It is important to respond quickly to customer requests. After all, as the name suggests, action days do not last long. So if a customer writes to support and has a query, they should receive a response quickly. If the answer takes too long, they may not buy.
Update your prices in the online store at midnight sharp. This way, you won't lose buyers who are actively looking for discounts and want to buy right at the beginning of the promotion.
Create and customize your own website, but what to do after the promotion?
Even though the main part is done at this point, there are still some things to do.
After the promotion is over, you should remove the relevant content from your website, turn off campaigns and evaluate your campaign's performance.
To evaluate the success of a campaign, you can also start a customer survey. Ask customers who bought from you during the campaign how satisfied they were with the buying experience and if there is anything you can do better. This way you actively involve your customers and get important information.
Through the numbers, you can concretely track whether the effort was worthwhile or where there is still a need for optimization.
If you didn't sell all the products, you can either keep them and offer them during the next promotion or try to sell surplus products at a special price.
You should also inform your customers about the end of the promotion: Send them a newsletter and thank them. Now the real work begins. Convert customers who have ordered from you once because of the promotion into permanent customers. Therefore, think about which measures are necessary so that these customers buy again and remain permanently satisfied customers.
Conclusion
In this article we have shown you how to prepare your website for holidays in just 8 simple steps. You have many exciting options for this, but at the beginning you should always set your goals for the action. Based on your set goals, you can plan and derive further actions. Depending on what kind of product or service you offer, different actions can make sense for you. A crucial point, for example, is to use adapted advertising material (graphics, texts and videos) for your promotion. This will draw the customer's attention to your promotion and, in the best case, trigger a buying impulse. You should also prepare your website and staff for the upcoming rush and have enough products in stock.
On Onepage you can implement many of our tips directly! With Onepage we also offer you a possibility to create your own website or landing page completely free of charge - perfectly prepare your site with Onepage for the upcoming festive and holiday season now:
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