Get your Store Ready for the Holidays

Every year more shoppers go online to do their holiday shopping.

2020 is probably going to break all kinds of online shopping records because this year it is the safest way to shop for the holidays.

But to really crush your holiday sales goals this year you need to start preparing now.

So in this video we are covering my top 5 tips to get your store ready for the holidays.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO:
- PlaceIt get 15% off your first order with this link: https://bit.ly/3ebcQHn
- Our Full Pinterest Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdZSavWrx_HbhAhXhaJasHlJovRMMSbzG
- Video Tutorial on Setting up the new Facebook Sales Channel: https://youtu.be/MwVoHrQy2yM

View the Full Video Transcript Below

Let’s just jump right into it because we have so much to cover in this video.

Tip #1 is to start planning your unique promotion as early as possible.

The big brands have already been planning for months but no worries you still have time. The key I want you to know though with this tip is to not only plan in advance but to also come up with an exciting promotion your customers are excited about.

You want your potential customers to hear your holiday promotion and go “Yes I need this now”. It needs to be a no brainer kind of purchase that they are excited about and can’t wait to get it in the mail or give it as a gift to someone.

Let’s face it, a 15% discount code isn’t going to have that kind of response. Hell maybe even a 50% off discount code won’t get that kind of response.

So instead of slashing your prices to compete on pricing against your competitors, think of a way where you can add excitement or value to their purchase.

A few different examples of these promotions could be a limited edition product that you only create for this holiday season. You could offer specialty gift wrapping or have a portion of the proceeds go to a charity they believe in. Or maybe if they purchase during a specific time period they get free product personalization.

There are a lot of different ways you can make your holiday promotion more unique than just a discount code. So come up with a list of 3-5 ideas and actually send a survey to your audience to see what they are the most excited about.

Just try to think outside the box and make it more memorable.

Now that you have your promotion figured out you need to actually get your store ready for the holidays which brings us to tip #2.

So many times I will go to review someone’s Shopify store and they will have broken links and missing images. Don’t make this mistake for your store especially with an increase in traffic for the holidays. Make sure to go through and check every page of your site and see that it is working correctly and there will be no frustrations for online shoppers.

But there is more to getting your store ready for the holidays than just checking broken links because you want to make sure your store is styled for the holidays as well.

The best way to do this is through your website images but taking custom product photos for every season is time consuming and pricey.

Which is why I’m excited to tell you about the sponsor of this video PlaceIt. I’ve used PlaceIt for over a year now for my own Shopify stores and they make it super easy to create stylized lifestyle photos for your products.

I then use these photos on my home page, product pages, social media and paid ads and it really helps increase conversions.

Product photography can really sell a product so having your product on a boring white background isn’t going to be exciting for someone to purchase. So instead having it in a stylized scene or on a model can really help them envision owning the product and actually using it.

PlaceIt is actually offering my viewers 15% off their first order so if you are interested you can click here (https://bit.ly/3ebcQHn) to sign up.

Once you sign up on their site it is super easy and all you have to do is find your perfect photo, upload your design and size it correctly on the photo and then download the photo and you are good to go.

So check out all the photos they have available in my link below and start planning out how you can use them across your website and all your marketing efforts for the holidays.

Ok so we have covered two tips now to get your promotion and your store ready for the holidays and tip #3 is something I want you to start doing today. Yep TODAY!

Tip #3 is to start building your email list today and warm them up to your brand and that a big holiday promotion is coming.

I’ve stressed so many times on this channel how important an email list is for scaling your business but if you are new here and you don’t know then here is my 20 second pitch for why email marketing is important.

Building an email list is key because people are basically raising their hand and saying yes I give you permission please tell me more about your brand and your products.

With social media and paid ads it is super easy to get overlooked as people scroll through but with email marketing you are getting direct access to them through their inbox.

That is seriously so powerful!

So start today building your email list for your store and if you already have an email list then great. Make sure you are emailing them regularly and I would start dropping sneak peeks of what you have coming up for the holidays.

This way they know in advance that they want to buy from you so when they get a bunch of other holiday related emails they know to be waiting for yours and are excited for your holiday promotion.

Now let’s talk about paid ads shall we. This is a great way to send more traffic to your site to increase your sales however this time of year there is so much competition for ad space so it gets expensive fast.

Tip #4 is to make the most of your advertising budget by testing out different ad types and platforms.

Everyone always goes to Facebook & Instagram ads as the default when talking about paid advertising but these can definitely get pricey. So try out different platforms like Pinterest or TikTok.

I personally love Pinterest for eCommerce and have a whole playlist on this channel about Pinterest strategies for eCommerce so if you are interested you can check that playlist out in the info cards above or click the link here (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdZSavWrx_HbhAhXhaJasHlJovRMMSbzG).

Pinterest ads are a lot slower to get started though compared to Facebook and Instagram and you need to set aside around 2 weeks for testing. However they are so much cheaper to run plus your ads stay forever on the platform as people pin your content and save it to their boards.

So you can run your ads once and get clicks from them for years to come. Pretty sweet right?

This is why I recommend thinking about other ways to use your advertising budget this holiday season and don’t just go for the default ad platforms.

My one except to this rule is with tip #5 though.

But real quick before I share the last tip in this video make sure to like this video and subscribe if you are getting value from this video because it really helps my channel out.

My last tip is about using remarketing ads for people who didn’t buy from you at first.

I love to run remarketing ads on Facebook and Instagram and they are typically a lot cheaper to run because they already know you and have been to your website but they didn’t buy for whatever reason.

You can run remarketing ads by setting up your Facebook Pixel and embedding it on your site. A really easy way to do this now is by connecting the new Facebook Sales Channel by Shopify if you have a Shopify store and we already have a video showing you how to do that step-by-step.

So if you need that tutorial I will link it in the info cards above and the description below as well (https://youtu.be/MwVoHrQy2yM).

Once you have this setup though, Facebook can track your viewers of your site and you can create specific audiences inside your Facebook Ads Account.

So you can get really specific and target people who went to your holiday promotion page on your site in the last 30 days but didn’t purchase and you can show an ad to only those people.

It will be a much smaller audience than if you ran an ad based on their interests however these are very hot leads because they have already been to your site and therefore they are more likely to purchase from you.

This is another great way of stretching your holiday advertising budget so you can be really smart with what you are spending your money on.

Now we didn’t really talk about what makes a good vs bad ad in this video so if you are planning on running paid ads this holiday season make sure to check out this next video all about how to tell if you have a bad store design or bad ads that is hurting your conversion rate.

As always thanks so much for watching and I will see you in the next video!