As we know, 37 percent of the world’s population is now shopping online. Holidays like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and New Year, are days on which nearly unlimited sales and shopping take place. Over the years, e-retailers have adopted, and are using, cutting-edge technology to their advantage; they also focus on various holidays and events for successful online business.

Nevertheless, pressure on businesses to perform may build up during the holidays due to the higher volumes of traffic, sales and support tickets generated. If you are not prepared, this pressure can cause nightmares. To save you time, we have put together some of the best holiday e-commerce marketing tips and checklists that can help you increase sales and maintain an edge over your competitors.

Plan Your Holiday Marketing Campaign

From display ads to re-marketing emails and promotion codes, create a ‘complete’ special holiday campaign to take advantage of the holiday shopping trend. Also, make sure your website can handle the increase in traffic that occurs during the holiday season, by performing or getting regular website maintenance throughout the year, especially just before the holidays. Important dates to keep in mind during the holiday season are:

Solid Web Design

Website design directly affects conversion rates. User experience and user interface plays a key role in the success of a website. Since mobile commerce because popular, a growing number of consumers have used their mobiles to make at least one purchase online. As the sizes and capabilities of all the different mobile devices differ, getting the design and interface right can be a time consuming process. Good design is especially important for your mobile e-commerce site, because a delay of even one-second can affect conversion of a sale by 20%.

Health Of Your Products

Measuring the health of your products is important at any point in a year, especially during the peak holiday season. The data you collect, measure and analyze can help you make informed decisions during the holidays. Although products that remain popular during the 9 months leading up to the holiday are the ones that would get you the best sales, checking the data you about the products you list on your website is equally important. Replacing incomplete, outdated data with updated information as soon as you can will propel you down the path to success.

Customized Email Marketing Campaigns

E-mail marketing does a good job of driving sales during the holidays. According to Shopify, e-mail marketing accounted for 24% of holiday sales during the 2018 e-commerce season. Plan your email campaigns and tweaks them to get better results by:

• Customized Email Template

  Most brands change the color and themes of their website according to the holiday season. You can do the same with your holiday email marketing campaigns. Let us face it. If your emails are still the same, your subscribers will soon get bored. It is good to change your email templates regularly. Use holiday email templates, to get much more attention and open rates.

• Exclusive Offers For Subscribers

  You can also surprise your subscribers by emailing them information about exclusive holiday offers. Getting something for nothing is not just a pleasant feeling; it is a way to show your subscribers you appreciate their patronage. Offering discounts can even help you generate more revenue.

• Test Your Campaigns

  Try out your email marketing campaigns by sending test emails to close confidants, use the feedback you gather from them to tweak your campaign. You do not need to wait for the holidays to try out your email marketing campaigns. Get an idea of what your subscribers liked during earlier holidays. That way, you can determine which products, services, and campaigns get the best response and take steps to drive more sales before the holiday starts.

Checkout Optimization

User experience, from surfing to buying a product on your website should be easy and simple. Trust plays an important role in selling online and sending a buyer through a non-branded or a third-party payment gateway can quickly undermine customer trust.
Buyers want to be sure of whom they are buying from, as well as whether the transaction they are engaging in is secured or not. Therefore, you must enable an SSL certificate on your website and check that the checkout on your website is an extension of your brand. Your checkout page must have a consistent look that matches the colors, fonts, buttons, design, and logo of your website.

Last-Minute Holiday E-Commerce Optimization Tips:

1. Put Up Banners

   Banners are a good way to inform customers about sales, approaching deadlines, and promotions. You can use ideas in your banner content, such as:

   • Discount Codes:
     During the holidays, you can add discount coupon codes to the banners on your website, so that buyers find them easily while browsing your website. You can also include a countdown timer to create a sense of urgency.
   • Sales or Promotions:
     To get more sales you could provide offers in all categories, like a buy one – get one.
   • Free shipping:
     Shipping costs remain one of the main reasons for cart abandonment. Free shipping gives a new user a very good reason to shop from your website.
   • Guaranteed Delivery:
     If you can guarantee delivery before Christmas, a banner that tells customers in advance increases the chances of more visitors and conversions.

2. Easy Return And Exchange Policies

   Keeping your return and exchange policy flexible and simple obviously helps in closing more sales. Indicate how long buyers have to exchange or return their products. If the contract duration is 30 days or less, you should consider renewing at least until mid-January. This would give recipients the time they need to unpack and appreciate their purchases and creates more trust for your business.

3. Integrate Live Chat Support

   Many users left e-commerce sites because of confusion or lack of customer support. If your store features live chat, now is the time to make sure a representative is available 24/7 to answer questions. If they are not, shoppers are apt to go elsewhere.

4. Take Advantage Of Social Media

   Video marketing is very effective. Video marketing results in an increase of 54% in brand awareness and 66% in qualified leads per year. You can create a short and appealing video to add to your Instagram, Facebook stories or on YouTube.

   Videos make it easy to establish and maintain a relationship with your audience. With video, you can share current product information, reviews of your products, services or features, and also the latest holiday sales offers.

5. Take Advantage of PPC

   Ideally, you would want to reach out to new customers who are interested in your products, besides interacting with people who already know about your business. Pay-per-click advertising can help you achieve that goal. We recommend that you schedule your ads to start 2-4 weeks before the holidays. You can use PPC advertising to promote your holiday offerings and draw attention to items you sell that people may consider as gifts. People going straight to a search engine to looking for holiday gifts, have a better chance of seeing your products at the top of the search results page, when they use keywords that you target.

6. Make Sure The Search Box On Your Website Works Perfectly

   Customers may search by category or click on products they find desirable on the homepage. However, a large proportion of potential buyers may look for specific products using the search bar on your website. Make sure that the search box is working properly and that it considers misspelled words as well. If someone misspells the name of a product, does he still lands to the right product page? Take care of these issues before the holiday begins.

Bottom Line:

Winter is near and so is the holiday season. Pull up your socks and give it your best shot. While we have covered most of the important tips for holiday e-commerce, you can always find new concepts to maximize sales.

The post How To Boost E-Commerce Sales During The Holiday Season (Tips & Checklist) appeared first on QualDev.

What are the most effective ways to promote a small business? Here are 9 things you can try to propel your growth, connect with the right people, generate leads, and attract more customers to your business.

1. Leverage Social Media Platforms

Today, more than 2 million small to medium-sized business use Facebook as their primary source of marketing. It is an inexpensive and effective marketing feature makes it a strong platform, allowing businesses to market their product virtually in front of millions of users. Businesses can use Facebook ads to target precise audiences in ways that are unmatched by other platforms.

You can create a Facebook group for your business, where you can offer advice and support directly to your customers. It is worth trying other social media platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram if you have a strong visual component. LinkedIn has about 500 million active marketers and can help speed up a marketing campaign with positive ROI.

2. Google My Business

Creating a company page on “Google My Business” and taking steps to improve the rank of your listing is one of the most powerful things you can do for your business. If we talk about targeting local customers, it is the most powerful strategy available to you. For example – If a customer is searching for keyword “Best Web Development Agency In New York” he will see a list of companies that provide the service, starting with those that are listed locally on Google My Business.

So, if you manage to rank your GMB listing in top 3, you can attract a large number of highly qualified leads, day in and day out, without to spending a dime on paid ads.

3. Focus More On Content Marketing

Experts say that content marketing provides the vastest commercial impact to any small business. It is the process of distributing valuable, relevant, and regular content to attract and retain a potential audience and drives profitable customer engagement.

Unlike paid advertising, content marketing tends to focus on long-term results. You can list your business on directory sites for more exposure. The initial rewards may be low, but in the long-term, you will see a gradual growth of visitors, potential leads and buyers.

4. Create Listings On Coupons Sites

Whether you are selling a product or offering a service, you can use sites like Groupon that offer coupons to promote your business more aggressively. Coupon sites usually have a ton of traffic with potential leads searching for some discounts. Coupon sites are generally group offers by location and allow local, regional or even national companies to offer their members time-limited discounts and Gift Vouchers.

With listing on various coupon sites, you can ensure a massive presence, targeted local advertising, increased brand awareness, and the influx of new customers for your business.

5. Email Marketing Works Wonder

Most people who visit a particular site do not tend to buy products immediately. Collecting contact information for additional marketing and “lead nurturing” is the best way to sell your products via email marketing. Email marketing remains the highest conversion channel when interactions with potential customers if done properly.

So, you need to create an opt-in form so that a person can subscribe to your e-mail list, and so that get an opportunity to display the authority and credibility of your business, by providing them with worthy content via email.

6. Offer Free Consultation

When it comes to professional services, people want to leverage the experience and get relevant information before deciding on a product or service.

If you have managed to position yourself as an industry leader or as an authority in your niche, offering a free consultation is a great way to acquire new leads. If you have established a good interpersonal sales process, you can also convert a large percentage of potential customers.

You can offer a free consultation to potential customers both online and offline. You can advertise the offer through brochures, newspapers, posters or even by word of mouth; and, you can display it prominently on your website and on social media channels as well.

7. Offer Incentives To Staffs For Sales

Your employees know more about your product and service. They know the customer base as well. To grow your business you can offer your staffs a reward in the form of incentives. Some of them will take the initiative without financial motivation, but most will not, and those who bring new customers should be encouraged to repeat the process with a financial or substantial reward.

It is important to provide incentives to employees who recommend new customers. As with any type of compensation, incentives are about tailoring your company’s goals to those of your employees. So, when you meet your employee’s expectation, you meet your business goals as well.

8. Feature Your Business In Authority Sites

If you can write high-quality articles, sharing your experience in the form of a weekly or monthly column on high authority sites can do wonders for your business. By writing content for authority sites, you can establish constant contact with the audience in your niche and establish a genuine relationship with the readers of the publication. This audience starts thinking about you as an industry expert.

Local newspapers or non-profit magazines often look for a quality columnist. Among the most exclusive publications are Forbes, Inc. and Fast Company. These premium sites receive daily traffic in the millions and are exclusively maintained by unpaid experts. You can also hire QualDev Inc. for your internet marketing services if you do not have expertise in writing.

9. Join Business Groups

When you join business groups in your area, you get an opportunity to meet other like-minded people who are already running a business like yours. These groups provide an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas with other smart peoples. You can exchange references, find new talents, and identify new opportunities easily.

They can also prove useful for developing your network base in the city. Connections tend to multiply, and if your group takes networking seriously, you can leverage it to get 10x more customers.

Conclusion:

In this article, you have seen 9 different ways to promote your small business online, while all 9 might be not fit your unique business needs 100%, I’m guessing 4-5 of them will prove to be good for you and will provide you with enough to skyrocket your business.

The post 9 Amazing Online Marketing Tactics To Promote Small Business appeared first on QualDev.

Email marketing is in-arguably the most direct form of digital marketing.

Unlike the one-to-many communication model used across social media platforms, blogs and advertisements, ecommerce email marketing work on a simple, one-to-one basis.

If you perfect your email campaigns, you’re almost guaranteed to boost sales, improve customer loyalty and build your ecommerce brand image within no time.

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Whether it’s a monthly update, a welcome email or an upcoming sale notification, these email marketing tips will help you to boost your ecommerce sales and put your online business ahead of the curve:

Keep it personal

Emails are a direct form of marketing communication, so you’ll want to keep your messages light and personal. And it all starts with the greeting. Sending out countless detached, irrelevant emails isn’t going to get you or your business very far; customers like to feel as though you’ve carefully crafted an email specifically for them.

Something as simple as adding the customer’s name in the greeting is a good start. Consumers would much rather open an email to read something like, “Good morning, Karen!” instead of a general mass greeting. With the right email marketing provider, a simple automated personalization tool can make this task easy.

Another way to keep your emails personal, yet professional, is to add dynamic content. Dynamic content is content that changes based on the preference or the demographics of your customers, which allows your business to target individual subscribers.

Adding dynamic content to your emails could be as easy as switching the image that is displayed for your male subscribers versus your female subscribers.

Make it clear as to who you are

Once you’ve selected a personal greeting, let your customers know who you are. The more information you provide, the less likely your email will be tossed into the spam pile.

Every person wants to know the following three things when they receive an email:

1. Who is writing to me?
2. Why are they writing to me?
3. What to do they want me to do?

You want to make sure the “who” part is answered almost immediately upon opening, as this is the basis for legitimizing the rest of the email.

Grab their attention

Think about the subject line before shooting off an email with something generic. It should be engaging and interesting enough for the receiver to open the email.

Remember, your email is competing against several other “unread” messages sitting in their inbox, so why should they open yours? The subject line is the first thing readers see – think of it as a first impression.

Keep it short and sweet

Keeping your emails concise is crucial. While you may be tempted to cram in as much information as possible, do refrain.

Follow these three rules to compose your email:

1. Exclusive: Let your readers know they’ve received this email because they’re special. For example, let them know they are the “first to know” about your newest products or offer them an “exclusive discount.”
2. Urgent: Try and make the proposition a limited-time offer.
3. Simple: Don’t crowd the email with too many visuals or information. Stick to one or two calls-to-action and one or two key messages.

Remember: People want to know who you are, why you are contacting them, and what you want them to do, all within a few sentences or paragraphs.

Double and triple check everything you send out

Sending an email with broken links or out-of-date information sends the wrong message. Be sure to check your links and proofread your copy before it’s sent out.

In addition, redundant coding and an excessive use of links, text, and images are practices that should be avoided. If you’re unsure about your emails’ link or image-to-text ratio, try running your email through a spam checker before sending it out.

A top email marketing platform includes spam check and preview tools so your email not only appears at its best but also reaches its intended audience. These checks also ensure everyone in your team (or appropriate stakeholders) can review before you hit send.

When done right, the direct and personalized nature of email marketing means you’re likely to see a boost in online sales. By following these tips, you’re setting yourself up for a successful marketing campaign.

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Check out this tips to learn how to avoid emails going to spam:

• Don’t buy or rent lists for email marketing. Yes, you can legally purchase lists of people who have agreed to email communications, but they aren’t likely to actually want your emails, increasing the likelihood they will mark you as spam.
• Don’t scrape sites for email addresses. This is always illegal.
• Don’t use all caps anywhere in your email or its subject line.
• Don’t use video, Flash, or JavaScript within your email.
• Don’t forget to include alt text in emails with images so they can be easily read by all email clients.
• Don’t embed forms in your emails; send recipients to a landing page on your site instead.
• Don’t use spam trigger words like “free,” “guarantee,” and “no obligation” in your subject line or email body. A good rule of thumb is, if it sounds like something a used car salesman would say, it’s probably a spam trigger word.
• Don’t use a red font when drafting your email. And not that a legitimate email marketer would, but also refrain from using a white font on top of a white background.
• Don’t use exclamation points!!!!!
• Don’t forget to use spell check; misspellings are yet another spam indicator in your email copy.
• Don’t jam-pack your email copy with keywords.
• Don’t use tons of images, or very large images. And remember, all images should have associated alt text!
• Don’t email people who have bounced repeatedly; it can cause your IP address to be blacklisted.
• Don’t include attachments to your emails. Just as with landing pages, send recipients to a page on your site to download whatever it is you want to send.

The post How To Avoid Emails Going To Spam? appeared first on QualDev.