A new year has begun, after the labours, joys and sorrows, of the busy and hopefully profitable fourth quarter, after Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas can we rest a little? Eh, no because the opportunities are not over yet.
January is the month of the winter sales, which represent a further opportunity to increase sales, building on the results achieved in the last quarter of the previous year.
Given the immediacy with which the two periods follow each other, it is crucial for your business that your marketing strategy for the winter sales be considered an integral part of Q4, in order to retain and push those you converted at the end of the year to a new purchase and reach out to those you failed to engage previously.
Here are five tips for an effective digital strategy during a sales campaign conducted via e-commerce channels.
Sales are a crucial time for an ecommerce store: they are an excellent opportunity to attract new customers, build loyalty, make margin and reduce stock. Here’s how to make the most of this opportunity.
1. Start before competition
You can reach customers before they are captured by other offers. Take advantage of the situation to collect leads by dedicating offers in advance only to those who leave you the contact and join your brand community. This is a move I especially recommend for brands whose products are also marketed by marketplaces or multi-brand online shops (e.g. you have a cosmetics brand and your product is marketed both on your official store and on the Notino marketplace).
2. Personalise the shopping experience
Take a data-driven approach and understand your customers’ preferences and purchasing behaviour. For example, if a customer recently viewed the ‘knitwear’ section of your site, plan to send a newsletter focused on this type of item during sales. Or implement functions on your site that suggest products based on browsing history. This is also a way to be more appealing than your competitors and distinguish your offer, making it more valuable. A study conducted by Epsilon reveals that 80 per cent of analysed users prefer to buy from brands that customise the shopping experience.
3. Use an omnichannel approach
The message must be consistent across all channels, both offline and online. Each department has to talk to each other in order not to make mistakes. I happened to see cases where on-site communication and online advertising had different and lower discount percentages than the discount codes spread with influencer campaigns. Result? There is a risk of alienating customers and throwing away the influencer marketing investment.
4. Embrace an ethical and sustainable vision
Emphasise, even with icons, that your products are sustainable: this will help build trust and establish an emotional connection with users. This is important, because today sustainability has become a key factor in the purchasing decisions of consumers worldwide. A 2023 survey (source: Pditechnologies.com) of US adults found that 74 per cent of consumers care about the environmental impact of the product they buy and 68 per cent are willing to pay more for environmentally sustainable products.
5. Spend the budget efficiently
Do not neglect or even put evergreen campaigns on hold: they are essential to maintain your brand’s visibility in the market and to retain consumers who are not exclusively interested in offers. Specifically for Google Ads campaigns, I recommend balancing your budget 60%/40% or 70%/30% between sales and evergreen campaigns. Prioritising sales now is essential to take advantage of the moment and above all to be competitive against the competition. Once you have started your campaigns, I recommend you take a look at your store’s traffic and sales data and plan your budget during traffic peaks to maximise conversions.
Two practical tips
1. Offering strategy
- If your goal is to get clicks and generate traffic to your website, monitor campaign performance constantly because these days the cost per click can go up and keep an eye on the click-through rate (CTR in acronym) of keywords and ads, pausing those that would compromise campaign effectiveness.
- If you want to prioritise conversions with Smart Bidding and have adopted a target cost per action (CPA) or target return on ad spend (ROAS) strategy, work on more realistic values by lowering the ROAS target or raising the CPA target to be more competitive in auctions.
2. Performance Max campaign structure
Divide your campaigns according to e.g. product price/product margin, so you have more control over how much you are willing to spend to acquire customers.
Don’t forget, of course, to test the site and check that the whole buying process works properly. Be convincing in your copy, communicating ‘urgency’ and using catchy texts that emphasise sales: don’t be afraid to shout your message loud, big and clear. Work with a flexible approach, constantly monitoring performance and splitting the budget where there is more scope for profit. (photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash)
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