Holiday Marketing Strategies for E-commerce: Our Top 5

E-commerce — put simply, selling products and/or services online through a web storefront — is very popular today. Its worldwide sales have been growing steadily over the past decade and reached almost $5.8 billion in 2023. 

E-commerce is convenient for the buyer and reaches globally. There are some constraints (e.g., shipping), but overall, e-commerce is successfully expanding nowadays. However, the competition in the field is fierce, which makes strategizing and marketing exceptionally  important. 

We come forward with top 5 marketing strategies that, as an e-commerce business, you can choose to employ during the holiday season. After all, holidays are a time when more purchases are made. It is important to use that to your advantage.

Prepare Your Website

E-commerce businesses rely on their websites for most of their interactions with clients. It is only natural to pay attention to what can be done with the website for the sake of holiday marketing. 

New design

The most obvious thing to do is to “decorate” the website for the holidays. You can use the images of the common holiday decorations to announce that you are celebrating the holiday together with your clients. Display videos and gifs as well. But do remember that there are limitations to what a user’s device can handle.

Holiday section

Why not have a separate section for holiday gifts and other items relevant to this time of the year? Your website can only become more useful if it offers more opportunities for gift picking. You can also use the section to promote the more unusual gifts, showing clients how to be creative in gifting. 

Gift guides and bundles

The same can be said about gift guides. Recommend things from your store that can be used as gifts for particular people.  You can describe an item as the perfect gift for a mother, for example, and provide guidance on how to choose a gift for a spouse. Don’t forget about bundles, too: they are usually popular due to the reduced price of individual items, and they can also make a wonderful gift or gifts.

Filters

You probably have filters on your website; add a few that would help with choosing a gift. You can offer filters for gender, age and other characteristics of the person who the gift is intended to. Make your website easier to navigate while shopping for presents, the user experience is bound to improve. Which is one of the best ways to ensure that you have happy, loyal customers in the future. 

Design and devices

Make sure that the website has a design that enables buyers to use it on mobile. Not everyone uses a desktop to purchase gifts, so you need to accommodate those with smaller screens. An app could help too if you want to go that route. Just remember that you need to make the user experience as comfortable and positive as possible.

Christmas is a magical time of year… I just watched all my money magically disappear.

Unknown

Let’s Go Viral!

Advertising during the holidays is a must. It is difficult to choose between the many methods available for an e-commerce business, so be prepared to use a few. Here are just a few opportunities we think are too good not to exploit. 

Influencers 

Influencer marketing is widely beloved by advertisers. People listen to influencers, and that makes their testimonials an effective form of advertising. Of course, you need to find influencers that your target audience likes. That means a lot of research. In addition, not every influencer will agree to work with you. But with some effort, you can arrange for some holiday influencer marketing. 

UGC

User-generated content (USG) is extremely useful. When people like your product or service enough to make content about it, you have stricken gold. To make it more likely, incentivise USG. Launch a giveaway, create a hashtag, and promise discounts and bonuses to the people who produce the most popular USG. Tie it in with the holiday theme, and there you have it: an opportunity to go viral. 

Feedback and reviews

Feedback will not necessarily help you go viral, but it will help with figuring out which marketing campaigns work, and which ones do not. Gathering feedback during this time of the year is very important to see how effective your decisions have been. As for reviews, they can fulfill the same role while also attracting clients. And when those reviews are made on social media, the chance to go viral is there.

Discounts and Loyalty Programs

Discounts

Nowadays, it seems almost impossible to have a holiday marketing campaign and not offer discounts during the holidays. Nor is it really possible not to have a strategy for that time of the year. Everyone is doing it; you cannot be the odd one out! Discounts are good for driving sales, and they also improve customer experience. They are there to celebrate the holidays, and they act like a magnet for buyers. 

Loyalty programs

Loyalty points are also a good option to motivate purchases. Simply make a holiday — or all of them — into a period when the client gets double or even triple points. This way you also motivate clients to come back and spend more in the future. 

12 days of Christmas 

A very common approach to specifically Christmas is the 12 days of Christmas method. It is supposed to mimic the advent calendar in a way. You offer a specific item with a discount every day for 12 days. Each item gets one day to shine. Make sure to communicate in advance what and when goes on sale! This way, people will have less chance of missing out.

You do not have to use this specific method, but you will probably have to use some sort of discount program. It is better to strategize how you are going to manage discounts in advance. 

Exclusivity and early access

You can also offer exclusive discounts to your most loyal customers. It can be people who have made a certain number of purchases or who have spent a certain amount. To show them that you appreciate them, offer exclusive perks — and make sure that they know those perks are exclusive. 

The Client's Comfort: Gift Cards and Returns 

As an e-commerce business, you want to make your contacts with clients as convenient as possible. Two tools can help with that: gift cards and a good return policy. 

Gift cards

People do not, in fact, dislike gift cards. In the UK, gift cards are among the most desired gifts, followed by money and body care products. Electronic gift cards are a wonderful option for those who do not have the time or opportunity to learn about the gift recipient's preferences. Additionally, gift cards are great for last-minute purchases when the stock is already depleted by faster clients. 

Returns

Sometimes a gift is not quite suitable for the one who receives it. It can be the wrong size or simply not the right style or type of product. You need to be aware of that and allow for returns or exchanges. Make them as easy as possible and maybe even extend the return window specifically for holidays. That will make your clients very grateful.  

New Product or Service

New Year’s Eve is a good time to create or otherwise introduce a new product or service. You can increase the hype for the new item in the time leading to its reveal with a lot of advertising and hints at what it is going to be. Establish a date for the reveal; let the anticipation build.

The only drawback of this strategy is that creating a new product or service is costly and difficult. To make this approach less complex, you can tweak an existing product or service instead. Or even simply change the packaging to something fun and suitable for a holiday.

A small but important step is to add the opportunity to gift-wrap your product. Offer the options of different boxes and wrappers that a customer can easily choose between at the check-out stage. Some of them can even be free! The important thing is that you make the purchase easier for the client. 

In Conclusion 

The strategies we focused on are the website, advertising, discounts, client convenience and new products. You can do more, of course, but these are our top picks. 

If you want your strategy done by a professional, you can place a Task with Insolvo.