Christmas is just around the corner. Customers are no longer just wandering around shopping centres hoping they will see the perfect gift in the window of a shop, now they have a digital assistant going around with them at all times (search engines on their smartphones). You can use Google to research anything you want to purchase without even leaving your home. This is why in this article I will be giving you 7 tips for retailers preparing for the holiday season.
1: Mobile Friendly
This is essential as a lot of the time people do their Christmas shopping research on the fly. If your website gives mobile users a bad experience they will move on to your competitor’s pages without a second thought.
2: Understand Who Your Customer Is
You can do this by creating a few customer persona’s. If you stop to think about who your customers actually are then you can get a much better insight into how you can develop a strategy that is more relevant to the people on the other side of the keyboard.
3: SEO Basics
Ensure that you have the SEO basics such as product descriptions, product images, page titles and meta descriptions are correct and relevant. If you get the basics right it will be much easier for your customers to find your site and navigate it once they get there.
4: Social Media
Be active across social media platforms. Your customer persona’s that you have developed will come into play here as it gives you an opportunity to target them with helpful advice and product ads.
5: Search & Display Ads
Using extremely localized paid search ads (Google Adwords) is a great way to get people into your shop while they are nearby and searching for gift ideas. Using display ads on sites where your consumer persona’s frequent is also a great way to build up brand recognition and for remarketing.
6: Click & Collect Buttons
Last Christmas click and collect options were huge for the retail section as it allows shoppers who have very little time to pay and reserve something in store for them to collect at a later date. I would advise every retailer to add it if even for the holiday season. However you must be sure you can deal with the demand. Overly long wait times and failed in store collections will damage your reputation.
7: Address & Opening Hours
If a customer wants to go to your shop after seeing your products, how easy is it for them to find it? Your address should be clearly visible and very easy to find for both people and search engines to ensure you don’t miss out on customers because they can’t find you. Many shops change their opening hours for the Christmas season, it’s a normal occurrence. However what also seems to happen regularly is that they don’t update their website & social media with these new opening hours. Google my business has launched a feature which allows you to show your holiday opening hours. If your shop is open but online it says you’re closed you’re asking to lose customers.
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