It’s that time of year again – the holidays are over and you’re faced with driving sales in the first quarter of the new year. If you’re a business owner, balancing your daily tasks after an exhausting holiday season can be challenging to say the least. However, there are many benefits to being prepared and ensuring all of your bases are covered well for January and February. In this blog post, we will discuss five ways to make the most out of customer data so that you can stay ahead of demand and maintain a positive customer experience.
Make your website visible
Don’t make people hunt for the products they are looking for. If you have great deals or limited-time offers, make them front and center on your homepage. Don’t waste valuable screen real estate on fancy banners that promote your latest line of sports equipment when customers are sending you traffic because they want to buy a specific type of snowboard.
Think about it this way- would you go to Best Buy if all they sold was TVs? No, because they need to ensure that every customer who walks into their store can easily find what they’re looking for and walk out with a new Plasma or LED set in hand. The same should go for an e-commerce store. Make product variations easy to find and understand. Don’t overcomplicate your site with many options unless they add value to your users (maybe they want to see all colors or sizes available for a specific item). If you need help, e-commerce companies can make sure their website is optimized for both customers and search engines.
Optimize your direct mail campaign
Everyone still needs direct mail solutions for their older customers and loyal followers, right? Even if you don’t, many other companies are using direct mail, and you should not be left behind. Make sure to capitalize on the potential of direct mail marketing after the holiday season to increase your base. There’s a reason that physical marketing is still around – it just works. If you’re only sending direct mailers to your male customer base to increase foot traffic, you could be potentially leaving money on the table by ignoring the female market. A new study found that females are more likely than males to have purchased something online based on receiving direct mail. This is because women tend to shop differently than men – they want product information available before making their final purchase decision.
Get rid of abandoned carts
This should go without saying, but if you have people interested in buying something from your store but leave without purchasing, follow up with them ASAP. This allows you to provide incentives for them to come back and buy at that very moment instead of somewhere else (I’m talking about Amazon Prime folks). Ensure that when you send out these personalized emails, they address any hesitations expressed earlier in the shopping process while also including reasons why their purchase is important.
Remind customers of past interactions
Customers tend to forget about you quickly if you haven’t reached out to them within the last couple of weeks, so make sure you reach out to them now and again throughout the early part of the year. If they purchased something from your site in December, be sure to send them a personalized email reminding them of this transaction and letting them know that you look forward to doing business with them again. This will not only build trust between both parties but let customers know that your company does care about customer retention – something that many e-commerce store owners neglect. Some good follow-up emails are: Thank You (customer bought), Happy New Year (customer bought), and Happy New Year (abandoned cart).
Promote special offers
Customers love a good deal so give them what they want. If you have an offer that will expire soon or something exclusive, be sure to promote it on all of your social media platforms and email marketing efforts. Make sure that this incentive is something customers can’t buy anywhere else – maybe it’s a limited edition line of products only available from your store. Regardless, make the most out of your sales by focusing on value instead of price since research has shown that consumers are willing to pay a higher price for a product if they think the quality is worth it.
Conclusion
Keeping your store up to date and constantly engaging with customers should prioritize all e-commerce companies. However, when the early part of the new year rolls around, it becomes even more important to have an optimized website that attracts both search engines and customers. Use these five strategies to not only attract new shoppers but keep them coming back throughout the year.
Founder Dinis Guarda
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