- The holiday season is typically defined
as the last 61 days of the year,
covering the months of November and December.
In this very small window,
some industries can see up to 30% of their years
total revenue, which is huge.
In e-commerce, preparation is key to get ahead
and capitalize on the increased demand
that most companies experience during the holidays.
So how do you better prepare for the season
that can make or break your company's year?
Let's get into it.
- So we advised you to conduct a situational analysis.
If you're not sure,
a situation analysis can help you map out
how you can leverage your strengths
and seize opportunities to be successful.
And this will put things into perspective
and keep you from getting confused
by all the data involved with your business.
There are three main models
to perform a situational analysis.
The five C's model, the SWAT analysis,
or the Porter's five forces.
All three work exceptionally well
to outline strategic opportunities in your current business
and will help you to find where your business is currently.
It's also a good idea to keep tabs
on what your competitors are doing.
Doing a competitive analysis periodically is another way
to make sure that you get ahead of the competition
and stay there.
Additionally, if you were in operation, evaluating how well
your holiday e-commerce strategy worked last year
is also great insight on what to do for this year.
- Then, identify your business objectives.
Without knowing where you're heading,
you're going to run around in circles
or run into declining performance.
Setting proper goals need to become
second nature to your business,
whether they are related to customer service satisfaction,
or sales quotas, your goals should always be smart.
So smart being an acronym, S is for specific.
Your business goals must be clearly defined.
Measurable.
Don't set increased website traffic.
Instead, try increased website traffic by 10%
month over month.
Attainable.
While everyone loves an optimist,
it's also important to stay realistic
while setting these goals.
Relevant.
The goals that you set should help your company
move along that path.
And lastly, timebound.
This will keep you on top of things
and keep the goal from eventually fading in the background.
- Now you'll wanna determine your KPIs.
Each KPI tells a different story of the same action
that takes place inside your e-commerce store
and in order to run your site successfully,
you need to identify what does and doesn't work,
why it works and whether it will work again.
And while five KPIs are not nearly enough
to get the whole idea
of how an e-commerce store is performing,
some examples of KPIs most relevant
throughout the holiday season are
revenue or sales, site traffic, including source,
conversion rate and that's the total number of visitors
divided by total numbers of conversions.
Also look at CTR, click through rate,
and lastly, cart abandonment rate.
- Then experiment with different marketing tactics.
So marketing tactics are the strategic actions
that direct the promotion of a product or service
to influence specific marketing goals.
And much like KPI,
there is a long list of tactics
that can be used for any given strategy.
With your goals defined, your metrics ready for measuring
and your direction set,
you are ready to begin experimenting.
So some things you can try are
adjusting the price of your products and services,
collaboration's or influencer marketing,
doing contests, or even just paid ads.
Another important thing to remember is mobile optimization
for your e-commerce site.
These days it's essential that websites and ads
be optimized for all devices.
- Now it's time to do the thing.
Make sure anyone involved is on the same page as well,
but once you've settled on your strategy,
make sure to stick to it.
And if you make any changes mid season,
you'll run the risk of any data collection
not being accurate for next year.
- Each holiday e-commerce strategy varies in cost,
effort and effectiveness, depending on its execution.
So finding the best plan for your brand
will be trial and error.
However, once you iron out all the details,
thanks to your e-commerce data,
you will begin to see results
that you can replicate all year long.
- All right, that's a wrap,
but your journey doesn't have to end here.
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Thanks for watching.
This is The Journey.