Is your business ready? Consumers are starting their holiday shopping spree

Christmas shopping and websites didn’t always go together. For years, consumers had the option of ordering online for contacting a new business, but an unfamiliar audience only really took the online shopping and procuring services via websites in more recent years.

Now that we’re in the age of e-commerce and Amazon is the biggest company in the world, businesses are competing for the same customers who used to trample over each other in malls trying to get the best deal or the last trending toy.

This is not any different for those whose website is designed for lead generation.

Even if you’re already selling online, whether it’s a product or your service, you may not have all your bases covered. So today, I’m going to talk about what you can do to make sure your business is optimized for the biggest shopping/lead generation season of the year.

Did you have a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale?

If you did offer a discount or some other incentive for these two recently passed shopping days then you likely have a lot of abandoned carts or lead contacts that didn’t turn into clients or customers.

In online marketing, remarketing has become a great way to reach back out to people who expressed interest in what you do but for one reason or another never actually became a paying client.

If you examine who contacted you and what happened in between them contacting you or trying to make a purchase and them leaving without converting (this is when they become a client or customer) then you will see many opportunities to address what can be understood as gaps in the user experience.

Was your shipping too high? Was the way you contacted a potential lead too aggressive or too passive? Those leads would have become paying clients without that gap.

So fill the gap! Growing based on feedback is how good business evolves. Take the information and learn from it and then apply it.

The analogy many adhere to is a leaky bucket. If you have a leak in the bucket you should repair that leak before adding more water. Consider the holidays a coming storm with flood warnings!

Now if you have a repository of emails to reference you can draft an announcement about the change so it not only stops presenting a barrier for future leads, you’ve also let old failed leads know that you’ve changed, and they can return for a better experience.

How you go about reviewing falloff from lead to client will vary depending on your business. B2C e-commerce will be quite different from a site designed for lead generation, but the reaction approach and remarketing remain the same.

Set up your marketing now

If you haven’t already got your holiday marketing set up, you should start right away.

Things like your newsletter, social posting, content marketing and any other distractions from customer service should be set up to send on a schedule and then left alone while you focus on the customer.

In reality, having this work done in October is ideal but better late than never!

Don’t switch gears now on what tools you use but definitely set up a December schedule where all your sales and products and services are out there for everyone to find.

You miss all the shots you don’t take so now is the time to start sending out those emails and posting to your Twitter account!

Get in the spirit

It can be tough to navigate political correctness and the holiday season. Depending on your market and locality, having “Merry Christmas” can endear you to leads or throw up a flag.

You’ll know best which is right for you, but at the very least a cheery-themed website header update and associated social profile updates would be a great idea.

If you need help with this, get in touch and we’ll make sure you have professional social media profiles set up.

Do you have a roster of loyal clients you love? Let them know!

Do your due diligence on your clients and feel out how they approach the season. Then craft your materials and messaging so it aligns with their expectations for the season.

If you have an office party, take lots of pictures and get them on Instagram. Then when you have the more settled, posed for pictures you can add a gallery to Facebook.

Presenting your business in a positive way and showing off the staff having fun never hurts and clients like to see the people they’re trusting with their money or their business as happy.

This kind of year can be very stressful and it shouldn’t be. Whether you sell a product or provide a service, try and enjoy yourself so you don’t run yourself ragged and ruin your own opportunities to make new contacts and purchases.

(Featured image by Herry Lawford via Flickr. CC BY 2.0)

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DISCLAIMER: This article expresses my own ideas and opinions. Any information I have shared are from sources that I believe to be reliable and accurate. I did not receive any financial compensation in writing this post, nor do I own any shares in any company I’ve mentioned. I encourage any reader to do their own diligent research first before making any investment decisions.