While I hate to write about Christmas in September, getting prepared for the Christmas season should start early so you can make the most of it.
- Opening Hours – Whether a shop, restaurant, or online-only business, having clear opening hours on your site really helps potential customers. And don’t forget opening dates, especially for the awkward time between Christmas and New Year (aka Twixmas), or for any late-night opening events.
- Last Delivery Dates – Knowing the last guaranteed delivery date is going to be important and, again, make sure it’s clearly published on the site to avoid disappointed/angry customers.
- Content Review – Now is the time to be reviewing and creating content for your site to make sure it’s had time to be reviewed and indexed in search engines.
- Changing Product Trends? – Are your best sellers going to change compared to last year?
- Customer Services – Are there better ways you can communicate with your customers – live chat maybe, or even using WhatsApp?
- Black Friday / Cyber Monday – (29 Nov / 2 Dec) This really isn’t an American trend I’m a fan of, but are your competitors likely to be running a BF/CM offer to bag some extra sales? And if so how can you compete? Store wide discounts aren’t always the most engaging unless it’s a massive offer, so could you set a threshold that people need to spend before offering a discount, or a different offer each day to keep things fresh?
- Engage Existing Customers – Inboxes will be awash with newsletters, and social media full of tempting offers in November and December. Start planning your marketing efforts now so you can hit the ground running.
- Christmas-ify Your Site – I’ve been doing this long enough to remember when a lot of our customers wanted to have snowing animations covering their site. You don’t need to go that far, but make sure your design assets are created and ready to go – banners, background images, icons etc can all benefit from a little bit of Christmas sparkle.
- Countdown – Create a sense of urgency on your site with countdown timers to key dates, such as the end of a discount or last day of delivery.
- A Customer’s for Life, Not Just For Christmas – Can you continue to engage customers into the new year via newsletters, social media or retargeting them via online ads?
This is just a small reminder to get ahead of the game and make the most of it.
