By Jennifer Gavens:
With fall fast approaching and the smell of pumpkin spice in the air, we can’t help but feel relief that we’re one month closer to seeing 2020 in our rear view mirrors. But before we get to the ball drop everyone’s waiting for, we still have to make it through one of the craziest seasons of the year. The holidays.
As marketers, the holiday season can be an overwhelming time filled with the daunting task of developing campaigns that will help drive sales and stand out amongst the competition. Plus, with the uncertainty of COVID-19, the only certainty is that this is likely to be a holiday sales period unlike any in our lifetimes. That’s where we come in. We’ve put together a digital ecommerce strategy planning guide that outlines each step needed to prepare your brand for a successful holiday season. Just remember, the sooner you start the better. The holidays are just a couple months away!
Step #1: Learn From Seasons Past
As the saying goes, you must learn from your past to plan for the future. This is true with any ecommerce campaign. Before selecting KPIs, channels or even designs, it’s crucial to take a look at last year’s holiday campaign to understand the good, the bad and the let’s never do that again. Here are a list of questions to ask yourself while reviewing your campaign:
Overall, was the holiday campaign successful?
Did it perform as expected or did it underperform?
What metrics or KPIs were used to measure success?
Were they useful?
What were the specific successes and failures of the campaign?
Was there anything that didn’t work but could be improved upon for the upcoming year?
What was achieved (sell products, increase email list, drive traffic, etc.)?
How did each channel perform?
Was there one that stood out?
Was there one that failed?
Did each channel meet its intended goal?
How strong was your timing in preparing and launching your campaign?
All the learnings you discovered about last year’s campaign will be crucial for planning this year’s. The good stuff will become great and the let’s never do that again, will be used as learning experiences for the upcoming plan. For now, keep these learnings in your back pocket, as before we can build the plan, we need to understand the current environment for digital shoppers.
Step #2: Understand How The World Has Changed
To say 2020 has been a crazy year would be an understatement, so it’s not surprising that the behaviors of shoppers have drastically changed. While the holiday season is normally a time for new shopping behaviors to emerge, COVID-19 has also brought new habits to shoppers that will shape this year’s holiday shopping experience in a whole new way. Take a look at these key insights we have seen:
INSIGHT 1 - Shoppers Are Relying On eCommerce
As a shopper looking to stay safe during the pandemic, safety and avoidance of physical contact will be top of mind during the holiday season. Shoppers will be looking to spend less time in physical stores and increase their reliance on digital ecommerce or contactless services for a safe shopping experience.
What to consider:
Evaluate your digital shopping experience - As most shoppers will be using a digital device to shop, it’s important for your campaign to offer a seamless shopping experience on all platforms that is easy to navigate and does not cause any friction to the customer.
Incorporate new ecommerce channels - Giving shoppers the ability to purchase what they want, where they want and when they want, will be extremely valuable during the holidays. Consider adding new ecommerce channels such as Instagram Shopping and/or Facebook shops to provide more options to the customer.
INSIGHT 2 - Shoppers Are Open To Trying New Things
How many of us have tried Instacart or a meal delivery service for the first time this year? With the combination of COVID-19 and the holidays, shoppers will be looking for new products or services and will be more willing to try it than in previous years.
What to consider:
Spark new connections - Now is the opportunity to reach new audiences and introduce your brand to potential shoppers as they are inclined to try new things during this time. Attract attention to your brand through engaging ads on platforms people are already using such as Facebook Stories, YouTube and even Tik Tok to encourage product discovery.
Get a boost from influencers - Shoppers are known to research extensively when it comes to making a first-time purchase. They want to make sure what they are buying is the real deal. To validate their decision, they look to friends, family and influencers whose opinions they value. Working with influencers is a great way to connect with a new audience and share your brand’s message while overcoming questions of credibility. (And work with existing customers to shore-up your Google and Yelp reviews; your customers look at them).
INSIGHT 3 - Show what you stand for
When making a purchase decision, shoppers often look for special offers, recommendations and reviews. However, this year, COVID-19 and social justice campaigns have brought new considerations to the shopper’s mind; social responsibility and brand authenticity. Shoppers want to understand what your business stands for and what actions have been made to support the community. They want to be proud to support you.
What to consider:
Share your values and take action - In addition to your promotional campaign, consider incorporating a campaign that showcases and discusses your brand’s support of causes and/or community. Talk about what your brand is specifically doing and consider incorporating a fundraising opportunity for shoppers to donate to (or, if so inclined, donate a percentage of purchases to said cause).
So, now that we understand a little more about our shopper, we can combine this information with the results from last year’s campaign. Together, they give you a platform to begin building a strong digital ecommerce plan that will guide your brand to success this holiday season.
Step #3 - Time For the Plan
When you start to develop a digital ecommerce plan, you need to be clear on the end goal so you know what you need to do to get there. And a goal without a plan is a wish. As for that goal — do you want to drive sales, increase your email list, or build brand awareness? Something else?
There are many directions to choose from. Most of the time, holiday ecommerce campaigns focus on bottom-funnel goals like conversions and sales.
However, don’t leave top-funnel goals out entirely. Having a balance of brand awareness and conversions will work well for your brand to drive customers through the purchasing process. For instance, you could apply a small budget towards a top-funnel brand awareness campaign with a sprinkle of community involvement (hello insight #3!) and use the remainder of your budget for a hard hitting retargeting/conversion campaign. This will allow you to not only target existing customers, but also branch out your campaign to reach new ones.
Pinpoint who belongs in your awareness campaigns. Utilize first party data, competitive data/insights, and take advantage of the signals-based capabilities of major channels like Facebook and Google, which utilize customer data in real-time to show your ads to the right person, at the right time.
Remember, your campaign is going to be unique based on what works for your brand. Remember those findings from last year you put into your back pocket? This is where they come into play. If last year, you ran a strictly bottom-funnel campaign and you didn’t get the results you wanted, maybe this year consider adding in a top-funnel campaign. Or vice versa. Maybe, last year’s goal was too broad and this year it needs to be narrowed down.
Step #4 - Let’s Strategize
When it comes to reaching a goal, it’s all about figuring out the best channels and approaches to achieve it.
For a digital ecommerce campaign, there are many channels to choose from, each with a slightly different strategy and approach. When building your campaign, it’s important to determine which channel will be the most successful for driving consumers to your intended goal (and each channel may play a different role). For your reference, these are some of the top digital channels you could consider:
Organic - Traffic through search engines based on keywords and phrases. It’s important to utilize your site’s SEO capabilities so that the search engines rank your site as high as possible.
Email - A series of emails (promotional, trigger, etc) that drive traffic to your website. These emails can include messaging to introduce your brand or special promotions.
Paid Search (SEM or PPC) - Using search engines like Google or Bing to drive traffic to the site. These ads can include text, video or shopping ads.
Content Marketing - Creating content that is helpful or entertaining such as blogs, videos or digital downloads.
Social Media - Organic or paid content through social media networks (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc) that can be used to drive traffic to a website or retarget users based on their experiences with your brand.
Affiliates - Working with third-party vendors (rakuten, retailmenot, etc) to drive traffic and sales.
Direct - Those who come directly to the site without coming through another media channel. This channel is a great way to track any traditional marketing tactics.
Channels can also work together to accomplish a goal (or multiple goals). Here’s an example: If the goal was to grow your email list as well as increase sales, you might consider running a Lead Generation campaign on Facebook to gain more emails. Then reach out to those who signed up through an email campaign with a unique promotional code for them to use on their first purchase.
Step #5 - Timing Is Everything
Black Friday, the biggest shopping holiday of the year, is two months away. And Cyber Monday is likely to exceed it by its largest-ever margin. With this limited amount of time left, it’s crucial to map out a timeline that organizes and prepares you for what’s to come. We recommend a gantt chart or a promotional calendar that outlines each phase of your campaign and how each stage ties back to your goals and strategy.
It’s important to consider how long each promotional campaign will run. Will there be a new one every week or every month? Are you considering a different promotion for each holiday? You may want to think about each campaign in terms of launch. For example:
Pre Launch - 0-14 Days
Launch - Day 15
Post-Launch: Days 16-20
By doing this, you’ll be able to have a better understanding of when all final assets need to be completed and ready to go live. With a timeline, you’ll also have a strong assessment of the scale of the project and how much work is required. If it seems too tight, you may have to consider cutting back on some things or if it doesn’t seem too bad, you might be able to add something in.
Step #6 - Bring On The Creative
Now that you have the goals, strategy and timeline put together, it’s time to get creative and ask yourself, what does the campaign(s) look like to you?
When it comes to visualizing the campaign, the first step is to ask yourself the following:
What is the idea or concept behind the holiday marketing campaign?
What products or services will I primarily be focused on marketing?
What are the promotions or key messaging that should be included in the campaign?
What is the broader, cohesive message that can bring it all together?
Once you’ve narrowed down the overall idea for the creative, you can begin working on specifics.
First, think about each channel.
What assets do you need?
Do you know the sizes and character lengths?
How often will the creative be swapped out?
Next, the overall design.
What colors, fonts and imagery do you want to use?
Will any of the designs change for the specific holiday?
Does any of the imagery need to be shot?
Will any video editing be needed? Animations created?
Then think about messaging.
What do you want your brand voice to be during each promotion/campaign?
How will it be adjusted for each channel?
Are there specific phrases/calls-to-action that should be included?
Finally, reorganize it again, and add it to your existing gantt chart timelines for each of the creative assets you need. Remember, every detail matters when it comes to a digital campaign.
Step #7 - Track And Measure
Everything is planned, the strategy is good to go, the creative assets are done and you’re ready to hit “go.” But hold up, there’s one final thing you need to do; set up your campaign tracking. Tracking will allow you to understand the successes and failures of the campaign. You’ll be able to see the users experience through the funnel and make adjustments throughout the life of the campaign.
Here are the top four effective tracking tools that help measure the success of your campaign. Keep in mind though, these tools vary based on which channels are used.
Website Analytics
As the most basic way to track your campaign, analytics can show you who is visiting your website, where they come from and how long they stay on each page. You’ll be able to understand which channels are driving best to your site and how shoppers are converting (and some demographics too).
Ad Network Tracking
All major channels, like Facebook or Google, provide tools for tracking your campaign. They can be set to analyze each of your KPIs and provide insights for how the campaign is performing.
CRM Tracking
As your campaign reaches more potential customers, it receives data about each individual that engages with your ads. CRM tracking organizes customer data and uses it for email or other marketing tactics. The data can also be analyzed to understand who your customer is — and to grow lifetime value with them.
KPI Tracking
If you want to see all of your data in one place, having a KPI dashboard is the way to go. It compiles all results from your various channels and puts it into one easy report to review.
The great part about digital campaigns is that they have the flexibility to be adjusted throughout their lifespan. Is a Facebook ad not performing the way you want it to? Optimize it, adjust it, or get rid of it and replace it with something new. Is a target audience or entire channel not performing to standards? Turn it off and move the budget to another area that is working. That’s what the data is there for, for you to learn, adapt and succeed.
Plus, remember step 1 from earlier? We couldn’t have gotten that data without tracking in place. It’s the circle of life in the world of digital.
The Wrap-Up
With the holidays fast approaching, it’s important to start planning your digital ecommerce campaign as soon as possible. For a final note of wisdom, remind yourself that holiday campaigns don’t have to be overly complicated, just focus on what you want to achieve and follow our steps for a successful holiday season.
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