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6 top tips to prepare a great seasonal campaign

Following our blog on our top 5 online shopping events to boost your sales this Silly Season, we’ve put together our 6 top tips for preparing a great seasonal campaign.

Plan your campaigns ahead of time

This time of year is frantic enough, so the last thing you want to be doing is creating a rushed campaign that doesn’t maximise your chances of boosting sales. If you can, start preparing for this period at least a month in advance to give yourself ample time to get everything done.

During the planning stage, consider things such as what your offers will be, what sort of creative will attract your customers, what messaging you intend to use, which channels will be most appropriate and of course, set yourself a timeline identifying when everything should be completed by – and stick to it.

Inform your audience

While this might seem like a given, many businesses under-advertise the fact that they’re offering these sorts of deals or leave it too late to gain enough traction. This is particularly important if this is your first attempt at running an online shopping event such as these, as you want your customers to be ready to buy once the sale begins. To help increase awareness, you could try running a social media campaign, utilising web real-estate to promote your intentions or creating posters and flyers for your brick-and-mortar stores.

Another great way to prepare your customers for your upcoming deals is to encourage online wish-listing in the lead up to the event which allows you to notify them if their desired product is included in your sale items. You can also try encouraging visitors to sign up to receive special deals without actually telling them what the deals might be. This will likely intrigue customers and encourage them to check them out once the sale begins.

Maximise your email campaigns

Email campaigns are a great way to keep your product top-of-mind at this time of year, especially if you’ve got a decent sized database to distribute your content to. Try to send your first email well in advance of your start date and follow it up with a series of emails that build anticipation and excitement towards your offers. If you need help boosting your database, offering special pre-sale vouchers for anyone who subscribes to your email can entice more people to sign up.

It’s also a great idea to focus any transactional emails you have in your schedule towards your seasonal campaigns and offer customised discount codes or coupons for future purchases. Adding a time limit will also help to encourage your customers to revisit your store in a timely fashion.

For those who have a traditional brick-and-mortar, offering in-store promotions email is still a great way to reach your audience and get more people through the door. This is also a great way to cross-sell your product as shoppers immerse themselves in your entire range.

Plan the right duration and offer

With the inevitable saturation of seasonal shopping events, it’s really beneficial to extend your offers beyond just the one day. This helps you to stand out amongst your competitors and allows your potential customers more time to make their purchases (or repeat purchases). It’s also important to remember not to go overboard with your specials for the risk of devaluing your brand.

Another way to maximise your shopping event is to encourage cross sales rather than simple discounts. While you might be seeing reduced revenue per sale with your discounts, cross-selling can help to level out the margins and see your business maximise this seasonal opportunity.

Demonstrate urgency

One of the best ways to encourage people to spend more money with you is to demonstrate the scarcity and urgency of your sales. When people feel that they’re going to miss out on something, it encourages them to act.

No one likes FOMO so use this to your advantage within your marketing messaging. To do this, you could include an expiration countdown for your specials on your website and socials. LiveReacting allows you to create and post live countdowns from a range of cool templates to achieve this sense of urgency.

Establish trust

When you’re running seasonal event campaigns, it’s likely that you’ll be speaking to not only your loyal customers but people who might not necessarily know who you are.  For this reason, it’s really important to demonstrate that your brand is trustworthy and that any transactions will be highly secure to encourage these potentially first-time buyers.

To build trust, utilise your website’s home page and about page to articulate the validity of your brand. This can be achieved through the inclusion of testimonials, staff profiles, the history of your business and other methods of social proof, as well as clear and accessible contact details.

If you missed our blog on the top 5 online shopping events, head over to the bloghere. If you need help devising and developing a strong and cohesive campaign, give us a call on 07 5576 7841 or email us today at hello@lemontreemarketing.com.au.