5 to-do’s to boost your online Christmas trade.

It’s impossible to ignore the sheer size of the opportunity presented by online shopping in the last two years. We live in a consumer-driven world with a whole new set of demands – So how do you capture your passing online customer and then retain them leading into the Christmas season?

So how can you increase your online sales?

Use social media to your advantage.

Your marketing strategy shouldn’t be to post on social platforms. You need to come up with a plan and use each platform to your advantage. Think about what you’re selling and work from there. For example, if you run a clothing boutique or furniture business, you’ll want to focus on visual platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Your best engagement will likely be on Instagram, and your best performing ads will probably come from Facebook.

Test out each social media platform, and recognise where you get the best results on sales and engagement.
Create user-generated content: Your customers and loving followers will post content on social media, make an effort to reshare that content with your audience.
Study your analytics/ insights: See which demographic engages with your content on which platform and be strategic with what you continue to post.
Get interactive: Give live streaming on Facebook & Instagram a shot and use it to do Q&A’s with customers – let them ask you questions about your products.

Don’t forget to be locally relevant.

Being locally relevant is essential to your online marketing plan if you also have a physical business location. Localising your e-commerce site means making your online content related to your local audience and customers. Local marketing helps to secure your business in your local community.

Add your location to your website & social platforms.
Add yourself to third-party websites and local directories – so you don’t miss out on any potential buyers.
Make sure you add Google my business – GMB is a free tool that lets you manage how your business appears on Google Search and Maps.
Use social media to promote your location – by tagging your business name, tagging the location of each post.
Use Local SEO to optimise your website to position for locally-relevant terms and keywords.

Keep returning buyers through intelligent remarketing.

Remarketing is the perfect vehicle to remind your buyers that they have purchased from you before and prompt them to remember why they should buy again. ( in a non-pushy way). Remarketing is cost-effective and drives results.

Use remarketing to target users who have visited your website, or specific pages on your website, with ads to bring them back to convert into sales:
Pay attention to who is opening your Email/CRM: retargeting allows you to show ads to subscribers who have opened your emails.
Social Media Retargeting displays ads on social networks to users who have visited your site without converting.
Use your social media content as an organic way to give your customers all the tools they need to make good use of your product/service and will ensure they come back.

Add Live chat to your website!
Live chat gives your customers the chance to interact directly with your business one-on-one in real-time. Much like their in-person experience, you – the vendor – can answer their questions and offer information so your customers can make an informed choice. You can even use the live chatbots to answer basic questions, pointing customers to your FAQs.

Be competitive and optimise your checkout process.
If you want to build a successful sales process online through the Christmas period, you need to make sure your checkout process is straightforward to use. The last thing you want is buyers abandoning their carts and leaving your site to find another store. So make sure you eliminate any distractions so they can concentrate on buying, use a progress bar, and remove the need for shoppers to register before checking out, keep the process simple and transparent and reduce alternative navigation in the last stages of the buying process.