Is Your Website Ready To Maximise The Impact Of January Sales?
In this strangest of years, people are turning to their computers to shop. According to the Office of National Statistics, online sales rose to a record 22.3% this March in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. With your Christmas digital marketing all wrapped up (excuse the pun), your thoughts should now be turning to next month’s New Year sales before you can truly switch off for the festive break.
With the vaccine launched but restrictions still in place, online shopping is set to remain popular for January sales. In the ‘before times’ (remember those?), such events were typically highly overcrowded. So many shoppers will no doubt want to enjoy their retail therapy from a safe distance.
You’ll need a different strategic marketing approach, and you’ll need to be ready to take on the competition from Boxing Day onwards to benefit from the increased number of bargain-hunters on the lookout for good deals. Equally, if you have older or Christmas-related stock you’d like to shift, now is your ideal opportunity.
Additionally, January discounts can build on the momentum of Christmas sales, while holding on to any new customers you may have picked up. You should be ready to market using the email addresses you’ve harvested during your Christmas campaign. Otherwise, sales could actually decrease, not least because it’s a time when people are often returning goods.
Finally, you’ll need to consider what sales and promotions you’ve already done this year (for example for Black Friday), and be sure that people will, realistically, be happy to spend money with you again.
Assuming that’s the case, here’s what you need to do:
Testing, Testing
Just as you would for Christmas or any other seasonal promotion, ensure your website can handle the spike in traffic. Understand your website hosting capacity and be sure all your online purchasing systems are working as they should. Test and test again, and have technical support on hand if you need it.
Use PPC Advertising
Use Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising to get your pages picked up and show that you have a sale on. You can also use these ads to promote a selection of your best-selling items. At the same time, use social media and email marketing to build pre-sale anticipation.
Packaging Your Offers
Consider how you could make your promos more attractive, whether by calling your sale a ‘winter clearance’, including a free gift, adding free shipping or bulk-buy reductions or vouchers and discount codes. Alternatively, if you run a loyalty scheme, you could incentivise that.
Promoting The Right Products
Given the time of year, anything that promotes health, self-improvement, organisation and the like stands a good chance of doing well. Equally, why not even consider launching a fresh product at this time of year? It could be a smart move.
New Year, New Content Marketing?
It could be the perfect moment for your website to launch something fresh, whether that’s a video or blog series, social media account, podcast or anything else. It could be linked to the January mindset and could include tutorials or ‘how to’ articles appropriate to your sector. Any of these could draw attention to both your January sales and your website more broadly.
Summing Up
Front Page Advantage has many years’ digital marketing experience across widely different industries, and knows exactly how to ensure a website is ready to make the most of seasonal promotions. Talk to us today; we can help you build sales rather than succumbing to a post-festive slump.