It’s the most wonderful time of the year. For retailers, though, it’s also one of the most stressful. The holidays are crunch time—a chance to either finally come into the black or multiply profits for a banner year. With concerns about a recession looming large, now is the time to maximize earning potential.
The National Retail Federation projects that 2022 holiday season sales will approach a trillion dollars in spite of inflationary concerns. Those dollars aren’t spread equally, though. They disproportionately go to companies with the right ad strategy. In today’s competitive market, multichannel sales separate the wheat from the chaff and may help determine which companies are flush with cash in the new year.
Now is not the time for a half-hearted, played-out advertising strategy. Customers expect you to innovate. They expect an exceptional shopping experience. They also want to feel like they’re getting a deal and for holiday shopping to be as easy and stress-free as possible. Learn how the right holiday multichannel sales campaign and strategy can help you realize your goals for the season and beyond.
Develop your multichannel sales plan.
Today’s retailers invest significant time and money into ad campaigns. They may design and test a strategy months before they roll it out. To compete with the best, you need a comprehensive plan. Begin sketching out your holiday multichannel sales campaign as early as possible. Data is crucial here.
You’ll need to identify:
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Target demographics: Who is buying your products, and who might buy them with the right strategy?
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Personas: Which groups are you speaking to, and what do they want to hear?
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Shopping preferences and styles: How, where, and why do your customers shop?
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Customer needs: What problem does your product solve, and how can you get customers excited about this?
As you develop your plan:
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Set clear, specific, measurable goals. This empowers you to objectively test whether a strategy is working. Don’t resolve to “make more money.” Set a goal of increasing profits by X percent.
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Divide each goal into actionable steps.
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Set benchmarks and timelines for measuring those steps, including by looking at data.
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Continuously revise your plan based on the data. In today’s competitive market, there’s no such thing as a set-it-and-forget-it sales strategy.
To get the most out of your plan, you should create a formalized system for tracking results. Schedule regular meetings with stakeholders, and be sure each meeting has an agenda outlining what you’ll be discussing and what you hope participants will leave the meeting knowing. As data from your work begins rolling in, you may need to edit this meeting strategy to include more frequent meetings or new and different participants.
Show that you know your customer.
Effective advertising begins not with a huge marketing budget or eye-catching visuals. Instead, empathy is the foundation. You must understand your customer and their needs. Some questions to consider include:
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What problem does your product solve?
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What role does your brand play in your customers’ lives?
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How do customers feel about your brand?
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What are your customers' pain points?
During the holiday season, it’s especially important to focus on how you can lighten the load. Everyone wants to spend more time relaxing with friends and family, but end-of-year work commitments, caring for children, and the realities of holiday shopping can make relaxation feel like a pipe dream. What can you do to make buying your product easy and to offer more stress relief than your competitors?
Some things to consider include:
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Can you offer add-ons that make holiday shopping easier, such as gift wrapping or prepackaged gift cards?
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How can upselling help your customers knock out all of their shopping? Consider offering free or discounted products or bundled deals.
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How can you make buying your products easy? Offer shipping, including free or discounted expedited shipping, as well as in-store shopping. Consider building upon these basics with curbside pickup for those who would rather not stand in busy lines or home delivery for in-store purchases that are bulky. Many stores also now offer same-day delivery by partnering with local driving services.
Remember that what’s convenient for one customer is not ideal for another. Some people have still never shopped online, while others can’t imagine stepping foot in a retail store during the holiday rush. Draw on customer data to develop several different buyer’s journeys. Then use that data to develop ad creative that speaks to customers’ needs. Remember that this content can be in apps, in stores, in a circular, online, on social media, and anywhere else you recruit customers.
Learn how RevJet helped Nordsthrom modernize and scale its ad creative strategy.
Implement effective multichannel sales tactics.
Holiday season sales are most successful when you maximize your opportunities to connect with customers. This means developing a holiday multichannel sales campaign across personas and channels. Some effective strategies to begin implementing include:
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Create conversations on social media. Consider using your platforms to gain more information through polls.
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Take advantage of ad extensions that immediately boost the power of your ad strategy.
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Prioritize customer experience. Individual interactions and communications, both in person and online, are more effective and inspire more brand loyalty.
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Respond to customer feedback and listen to customer concerns. Customers who email you or post on social media with concerns or complaints are basically giving you free data. You have a chance to turn complaints around, pivot to talking about a product, and understand why your customers buy (or do not buy) your products. Don’t ignore this powerful opportunity.
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Track every interaction with a product through the full buyer’s journey and product lifecycle. You may identify specific bottlenecks that help you refine your creative strategy.
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Think beyond product tracking online. In-store digital ads, displays, and promotions should be incorporated into your strategy to drive seamless hybrid retail experiences. Not everyone shops online, and if you cater only to online customers, you’re excluding a large customer base.
Knowing your customers empowers you to build consistently stronger customer experiences. Want to know exactly what draws in new customers and whether any of your creative content might actually be undermining you? Ad testing helps you see what’s working and for whom. Learn more by reading our whitepaper, Beyond Basic Ad Testing: A Proven Framework for Perpetual Digital Creative Optimization.
