Many retailers are wondering how to create an effective holiday eCommerce marketing strategy as they prepare for the holiday season.

Brands are under pressure to find creative ways to attract attention to their stores, given the increase in online competition and higher number of shoppers shopping online.

Your brand will be able to use all or some of these cost-effective strategies for holiday eCommerce marketing strategy. This will ensure that your brand has an omnichannel marketing plan that is sure to generate huge sales and hopefully some holiday cheer.

These are our top tips to generate more buzz about your brand and make holiday shoppers happy.

1. Use images taken by real customers to share your marketing messages

User-generated Content (UGC ) – the photos, videos, and posts that people share online every single day – is the most trusted, engaging, and influential content consumers want, and it’s something brands can’t make.

Because UGC is abundantly available, it keeps your content feeds fresh. Better yet, people are 5.9x more likely to say it’s the most authentic content compared to influencer content.

Your omnichannel holiday marketing strategy should include real content that is created by brand fans. This will not only increase engagement, but it will also excite your loyal customers. It’s not unreasonable for customers to want their favourite brands to include them in their marketing channels. You can post customer UGC in social media posts, as well as Stories and Snapchats. This shows potential holiday shoppers how much you love your customers’ latest purchases.

2. Social media platforms allow you to run contests and give aways

Hosting a friendly competition is a great way to get people into the gift-giving spirit.

Holiday marketing strategies with social contests, especially those that offer prizes, are smart because:

• Engage your followers (and their friends) in a fun and exciting way
• You can increase brand awareness by encouraging people to share the competition promotion within their networks.
• Create new content for brands to use in their marketing campaigns

Use a hashtag to encourage people to share photos of holiday decorations or the best gifts they have ever received. If you want to create a social competition that is successful, keep the barriers to entry low while the inspiration content high.

3. Make your ads more authentic and relevant

UGC can be used to personalize your Facebook ads and increase clickthrough rates . It has also been shown to lower the average cost of clicks by 21%.

UGC is the most powerful form of visual social proof and it’s also a highly effective way to make your paid social and digital ads stand out from alternative stuffy commercial content.

A shouty, cheesy advertisement is more distracting than scrolling through your social media timeline full of posts from family and friends. Traditional stock images can alienate your audience. It is also less likely to get positive engagement than something more authentic and relevant.

There is nothing more authentic and relevant than content written by people who care about your brand. It has been used by leading consumer brands to great effect.

Toyota increased Facebook’s ad performance by 444 percent after they switched stock photos for UGC. Air France positively affected every Facebook metric– Lowering their cost per acquisition and click-through rate, while simultaneously increasing their click-through rates.

Instead of opting for stock images or plain professional photos of products, take advantage of the images your customers are already creating around your brand and products. See the difference it makes in your paid holiday campaigns.

4. Your website should be visual and shoppable.

The homepage is what people see when they visit your website, regardless of whether they are searching organically or through a paid campaign. It’s important to offer visitors a website homepage that is user-friendly, inspiring, and compelling during a holiday season.

You can do this by showcasing UGC visuals across your eCommerce homepage. There are plenty of UGC examples out there of brands already using this strategy. You could feature real customers using your products—highlighting the perfect stocking stuffer or the best gift-wrapped bundles of products. People are going to be relying on brands for gift ideas and UGC is the perfect way to inspire others by showing the creativity of your customers.

You can take this strategy to the next level. To make your homepage more shoppable, add interactive ‘Buy Now’ buttons or ‘Learn More’ calls-to-actions to cut down on the journey to purchase. In just a few clicks, it helps users move from point of inspiration to point where they can buy.

5. Display social proof on product pages

Did you know that 72 per cent of customers say they want to see real customer videos and photos on eCommerce websites when making buying decisions? Social proof is an important tool eCommerce managers have at their disposal.

Having featured images of real customers wearing or using your product on your product pages helps provide third-party validation and unedited views that online shoppers look for when making online purchase decisions.

UGC can help set expectations for your customers and lower return rates. It might even encourage them to share their UGC after they make a purchase.

You can also use social proof to increase product page conversions rates:

• Reviews and ratings
• You can count the number of people who have purchased the product.
• The product won awards

6. Profit from transactional emails

It is extremely important to use the right content when you promote specific products in your email (such as the one below), but what about transactional emails. Transactional emails, by their very nature are short in content with a specific purpose – order confirmation, shipping notification and membership notices.

Although transactional emails are individualized (i.e. addressing the recipient by name), they often aren’t personalized (containing information that a specific individual may be interested in).

It is a great opportunity for you to surprise your customers with a personal message, as they are less likely to expect transactional emails.

Reaffirm that they purchased from you because of their great experience (and by sharing reviews and visual UGC).

Email recipients can be encouraged to share their product experiences on social media in order to get your brand to reshare them on its marketing channels. People feel valued and heard and are more likely to take action and get involved. You just need to ask.

Conclusion

Holiday season is a competitive time. What better way to promote your products than with the endorsement of satisfied customers? Promoting holiday eCommerce can increase excitement and converts.

source https://www.nosto.com/blog/holiday-ecommerce-marketing-strategy/