Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Olivier Stapylton-Smith, Founder of Moteefe.
The festive season might be a few months away, but to take full advantage of it, you’ll need to start thinking now about how you can make huge profits through great design and targeted advertising.
With £25 billion being spent between the 13th November and 24th December, we’ve come up with 5 great tips for a successful season of sales.
Most consumers start thinking about Christmas shopping in the middle of November, so you’ll need a robust plan in place weeks before. Why is this important? Simply put, there are going to be hundreds, if not thousands of brands vying for your audience’s attention in these crucial months. Make you’re serving them with relevant ads BEFORE your competition get the opportunity to. When they’re ready to start shopping, you’ll be in their thoughts at a critical time.
In addition, think about the other events in the fourth quarter. Apart from Christmas, you have Halloween and Thanksgiving; both are huge in the US. If America is a key territory for you, start to consider how you might adapt your best-selling designs with a reference to these events. Remember that October 31st and November 25th (Halloween and Thanksgiving) aren’t traditionally strong dates for sales, so be sure to take this into account when building your ads.
Whatever you do, don’t forget about Black Friday! Almost $5 BILLION was spent in 2016 in the UK and US alone in just one day. Make you’ve thought through your campaigns in enough time to take advantage of the spending frenzy!
Keep in mind cut-off dates for postage to make sure your buyers receive their items in time – any sales made after mid-December may not make it in time for the big day due to local postage services.
Keep an eye on your regular campaigns; when buying for others at Christmas, your audience might treat themselves to a gift to reward themselves for finishing their shopping in an afternoon. We’d recommend keeping your non-seasonal campaigns running throughout, but make sure to test to see if it’s worth the ad spend.
You know better than anyone which of your campaigns have sold the most. Why not relaunch these with a festive twist? What worked before can work again, and updating your designs with a snowflake background or Santa hat can work wonders for sales.
Huge in the UK and US markets, an ‘ugly’ Christmas sweater can be the number one purchase in the Christmas season. Worn for the Save the Children charity in the UK on the middle Friday of December, what used to be seen as a knitted horror and dreaded by many is now a super-cool fashion statement. With many High Street brands creating a range of designs and slogans for their ranges of ‘ugly Christmas jumpers’, jump on the bandwagon and create limited edition designs that appeal to users interests and can’t be found anywhere else.
Remember, these designs will always work best on sweatshirts and potentially on t-shirts. Don’t forget kidswear too!
Want to know how to make your own authentic Christmas sweater? Follow our tutorial from last year and create your own.
Spend a little extra time creating each campaign to make sure that every section is optimised for customers to hit the all-important ‘Buy Now’ button. This means having an engaging title, a thorough description and a wide range of products and colours. With a battle to get your designs in front of customers, make sure they convert by having everything available for them. All they need to do is sit back, relax and wait for their items to arrive.
Here’s to a big Christmas season of sales!