Håkan Thyr, Director, Strategic partnerships, EMEA at ChannelAdvisor, offers some top tips for online marketers looking for extra visibility during peak seasons.
Valentine’s Day may have been and gone for another year, but already marketers have moved on to the next date in their diaries – Easter. Even before the last of our Christmas decorations were being taken down in early January, supermarkets and online stores were awash with chocolate deals galore.
Seasonal marketing presents a lucrative opportunity for retailers to tap into the year’s events to drive sales, customer engagement and new avenues for revenue. However in today’s digital economy, when loyalty can be built or broken in a matter of tweets, retailers need to be changing up their tactics if they want to elbow their way to the top of the pile of brands looking to steal the hearts and minds of shoppers. Here are some tips from Hakan Thyr, Director of Strategic Partnerships at ChannelAdvisor for marketers looking to maximise their seasonal marketing strategy all year round.
Get a move on with mobile
There’s no doubt mobile is transforming all industries, particularly commerce. In fact, new data published by the IMRG suggests that mobile has now become the preferred choice for consumers when shopping online, with almost half of all UK online retail sales now made through mobile devices.
In the digital age, where the mobile experience has a significant impact on brand perception, customer loyalty and sales conversion, if a website isn’t ready for mobile it can potentially do more harm than good. This has become even more of a prevalent issue following Google’s initial roll out of its so-called ‘mobile-first’ index. Now, the search giant has split its search results, known as an index, into two distinct versions: one which will show mobile results, and a secondary one for desktop. This means that if a brand’s website is not optimised for mobile, it will appear in the desktop index, but not in the mobile index. Any brand that is serious about ensuring visibility and reach needs to build a responsive and mobile user friendly site to avoid losing out on mobile visitors during seasonal periods.
Use keywords wisely
Google Index isn’t the only thing that the search giant is shaking up. The tech heavyweight regularly alters its algorithms, meaning brands need to keep up with how the changes might affect their visibility in searches. Getting keywords right ensures your products and services are visible to a mass customer base, which can ultimately have a significant impact on revenue, sales conversions and customer engagement.
During seasonal periods such as Easter, Mother’s Day or Christmas, it’s likely that customers will be looking for specific gifts. It may be obvious, but start with words customers would use to find your product or services, and then adding more detail about the product or service you are trying to sell. So, let’s imagine you are a supermarket selling a particular brand of Easter chocolate. What is special or different about the chocolate you are trying to sell compared to others in your stock? This means thinking about everything from the brand, price point, health benefits (or lack of!), or commercial themes such as flavour, shape and colour. Adding this information to a product listing ensures that Google can give a retailer rankings for its products against niche terms that other brands might be using. This then helps a retailer to work out whether they are describing their products in the right way and can be searched for by shoppers.
Embrace the marketplace
Whether its eBay or Amazon, it’s more than likely most of us have bought something from an online marketplace. These one-stop-shops, which act as intermediaries for individuals and business to trade with each other, have become a mainstream way of shopping as consumers look to locate gift ideas, specific items or promotions and offers during seasonal periods.
Marketplaces can provide multiple benefits for businesses, whether big or small, looking to reach more customers and grow. These sites offer a wealth of services and tools such as ‘buy it now’ buttons, multiple listings, analytics and auctioning primed to offer convenience and ease for sellers. According research by retail consultants Rich Insight, 4 in 10 online sales will be solely from marketplaces by 2020. As these shopping portals continue to gain momentum, taking advantage of everything they have to offer will ensure brands have access to a constant supply of customers using these channels.
Change the pace with social media
In 2016, we saw the likes of John Lewis, Taco Bell, Disney and even PWC experiment with social-focused marketing strategies, harnessing the power of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to keep pace with consumer behaviour and trends. Now more than just a place to connect with friends and sharing updates, social media enables e-commerce providers and retailers with an opportunity to promote their product catalogue, engage shoppers and drive online conversations.
Dynamic adverts are one marketing strategy that is proving a popular tool among marketers. But what exactly are they? First offered by social media giant Facebook, these ads allow businesses to promote their entire product catalogue yet are personalised and targeted to a customer, based on their browsing activity keywords and purchase history. The perfect example of the delivery of the right marketing message, to the right person, at the right time, these super relevant ads can offer huge benefits to businesses in increased customer engagement often resulting in greater sales conversions.
Practice multichannel marketing
The age old saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” takes on many meanings here! Consumers now expect to be able to interact with brands in a number of different ways, so selling your products and services, or communicating with customers via just one channel will no longer cut it. Instead, brands must make sure their marketing strategy incorporates all channels, whether its email marketing, SMS, marketplaces or social media, to ensure potential customers can interact with your brand wherever you are, however they prefer, at any time. Multichannel marketing has a wealth of benefits for businesses including reach – making products and services visible to wider, and potentially new, customer groups – increased sales conversions, better brand presence and high search engine results.
By Håkan Thyr
Director, Strategic partnerships, EMEA
ChannelAdvisor