With the holiday season soon arriving across the country, it’s important for marketers to consider their holiday promotions and review their strategies for achieving success over their market competition. Shop.org has recently forecasted that digital shopping will increase by as much as 11%, with the advancement in mobile purchasing and online shopping as a means to accessing the top brands. This means it’s imperative to avoid mistakes in holiday marketing campaigns. Here, we’ll look at three errors companies make year-after-year within their holiday promotions.
1) Not Aligning Budgets with Consumer Demand
Companies must closely analyze online consumer demand for their products and then commit to a marketing budget designed around this demand. In crafting their budgets, online campaign organizers must know the important dates on which their promotions will be most effective. They must also know how to balance their budgets for fluctuations in demand over the holiday season.
2) Poor Planning for All Campaign Disasters
Effective disaster planning is critical throughout the year for all organizations. But for online retail companies, disasters that occur during the holiday season can have a particularly devastating effect on business. The disaster might just be the site going down for a few hours over a peak purchasing day. Or it might be the site’s shopping cart is not functioning optimally. It’s important to plan for these disasters and to delegate responsibility to technical teams before these problems arise.
3) Ineffective Campaign Management
One problem often encountered during the holiday shopping season is when companies don’t respond adroitly to fluctuations in product demand. It could be a specific product is selling out quickly and campaigns need to be optimized to promote new products. Or it could be that a specific product is not selling as well as expected, and a new point of focus is required. Campaigns must be monitored and managed closely on a day-to-day basis throughout the holidays to ensure optimal results come January.
The holiday season presents many opportunities for online product promotions. But success only comes to companies that analyze their resources, review the mistakes others have made in the past, and optimize their campaigns on a day-to-day basis. Strong holiday promotion performance is tied closely to effective planning and a commitment to market research.
