Bad economy or not…It’s time to prepare for the holidays
October 7th, 2008 by Caryl FelicettaThere’s a chill in the air. Lowe’s has their Christmas lights on display. But wait, Halloween is still weeks away. No matter…the holiday season is upon us. If you are selling products online, you should be in “Holiday Prep Mode.”
This season is bringing far greater challenges than any we have seen in the Internet economy. With economy “isn’t great” to say the least. So customers are looking to cut their shopping budgets. And they have a lot of choices, so you need to provide them with a comfortable shopping environment, great prices, and overall an experience that far outshines that of your competition.
Here are 3 things you should be doing now to prepare for the holiday season.
1. Testing 1, 2, 3. While larger organizations often have teams focused on testing and modifying their shopping carts on a regular basis, many small businesses rarely go through such regular processes, and others admit to testing their sales process once when their site was developed, and then never again. Every business owner who has a website should be extremely familiar with their online sales process and to the only way to gain that familiarity is to actual experience it. That means ACTUALLY going through the whole process and buying something!
Test the sales process. Test the communication process. Test the overall experience. Over time you may find that some internal processes have changed and those changes may indicate that some upgrades to your online process are required. You may also find that server upgrades, modifications to processing and security, and other behind the scenes technical issues may need attention. If you cannot test your site, ensure you have someone in your organization that is responsible for doing so, or discuss a maintenance agreement with your development firm.
2. Promotion. Prepare all of your promotional efforts now and have a clear plan for when they are to move on to customers. That doesn’t mean you can’t insert a promotion in along the way, however you’ll find that it makes planning much easier to know that starting November 1, you will be running a print ad with a code for a discount, banner ads through the months of November and December for the hot products of the season, etc. Customers are looking for the big deals now more than ever. That may be why they shop your site over a competitor’s.
3. Reach a new audience. Is anyone out there? Is this thing on? If your recent promotional efforts have not brought in the customers, don’t expect they will now. Try some new avenues, such as blogging or social marketing to reach new customers who may never have heard of you.
Do you have a search marketing program in place? Is it effective? Make sure you are evaluating that program now and planning your budgets for the season. People are searching everyday for the products you sell. Make sure you are sending them to the closest match to their request, with the right message, and clear calls to action. Simply sending them to your home page isn’t enough.
These are the basics. Each of these topics can be expounded upon many times over. Unfortunately, as basic as they are, many companies do not have clear practices in place, and rarely practice all 3.
You can be a casualty of the economy or you can come out a winner. Do what you need to win.
