Christmas is a significant period for most businesses due to the increased impact it can have on annual sales and brand awareness. According to Simply Business, more than one-third of business owners make more than 20% of their annual revenue over the festive season alone. However, this makes the competition throughout this time extremely aggressive, meaning it can be difficult for businesses to target online shoppers – even for the e-commerce giants!
For this reason, we want to help small businesses thrive by providing some easy ways to prepare for the Christmas season.
INJECT SOME FESTIVITY
Making minor design adjustments to your website, such as tweaking the colour scheme, switching to seasonal imagery and altering your copy to help your site appear more festive can be a really simple way to attract seasonal shoppers to buy from your website. If your landing page is looking dull and boring, visitors who are specifically searching for Christmas presents may not feel confident that you have what they need. So, try incorporating those classic Christmas colour schemes we all love (or hate) with some winter-themed content, and irresistible calls to action!
DON’T BE SHY. GET SOCIAL
Ignore what they say, it’s never too early to mention the C word when it comes to business!
Get your audience excited to shop seasonal products by teasing exclusive offers and items on your social channels. Social media is a valuable tool that can help build anticipation, excitement and a sense of urgency amongst your followers when it comes to the launch of your seasonal products. When the time is right, you can utilise your social media platforms to direct your followers straight to your website and encourage sales. You can do this using Instagram, Facebook or Tik Tok shopping, the link feature within Instagram stories, or simply leave a link within your bio!
SEASONAL SEO
If you feel confident enough, why not try tapping into some seasonal SEO? Try to include keywords that relate to your products and services, as well as use holiday shopping terms to promote your business across your website and socials.
However, please do this with caution and refer to our blog post Sink or Swim with SEO first, or if you are looking for a more hardcore approach this season, get in touch with our SEO experts The Click Hub.
SPEED THINGS UP
With an estimated 45% of the global population celebrating Christmas, it is vital to prepare your website for an influx of traffic during Q4. If your website appears to be sluggish, this may put visitors off from completing a purchase through your website and landing straight into the laps of your competition. With the current cost-of-living crisis in mind, you want to make sure you are doing everything you can to increase sales, not your bounce rate!
Take a look at a few quick tips on how to improve your website speed and page load times with our site speed blog post.
SLEIGH YOUR EMAIL SIGN-UPS
Yes, that really did just happen. All jokes aside, a series of well though-out seasonal email campaigns could be really great for business! By promoting your monthly newsletters and encouraging signs ups you can build a bigger audience, convert new customers and advertise limited discounts and sales. Encouraging your audience to subscribe to your newsletter is a fantastic way to make sure your shoppers don’t just stick around for the festive season!
We understand that the Christmas period can be tough as the demand for gifts is higher than ever. However, implementing just a few of the changes above could make a huge difference to the success of your business.
On the other hand, if you are looking for a more bullet-proof strategy this winter then get in touch with our web experts – we’d be happy to help!