Online Marketing To Add To Your Holiday Sales

[By Sarah Faglio]

The holidays are a hectic time of the year - for both customers and businesses.  While customers look for gifts to buy their loved ones, companies try and offer the best deals and stand out among their competition.  Companies use various marketing strategies to make sure that they take advantage of this profitable time of the year to drive sales towards their business.  It is important to increase their sales during these few months in order to gain the business in a time when masses of people are looking to buy.  The Internet has become a vital marketing tool for businesses who want to add to their holidays sales this year.

According to Deloitte's 25th Annual Holiday Survey of the 2011 holiday season, respondents' holiday spending intentions have improved.  The number of respondents who expected to spend more or the same amount as last year has risen 11 percentage points from last year's survey.  Also, expected sales on gifts is up 3% from last year, representing the first increase since 2004.  The survey also reports that respondents admit that technology has facilitated their decisions around whether and what to purchase. 

While in-store purchases make up a large part of holiday sales, online purchases have contributed to additional business that have been considered quite profitable for retailers.  During the second week of December, a total of $6.3 billion was spent online, which brought the total spend for the holiday season to $30.9 billion as of that week.  This is a 15% increase compared to the same period last year.  The top days for online holiday business surpassed last year's sales: 

• Cyber Monday (12.2.11) had $1.25 billion in sales, 27% increase compared to last year.  
• Green Monday (12.12.11) had $1.13 billion in sales, 19% increase compared to last year.  
• Free Shipping Day (12.16.11) had $1.07 billion in sales, 14% increase compared to last year.

Top 10 Strategies to Enhance Your Online Sales

1. Offer discounts for online purchases.
2. Send out targeted e-mails, to those who voluntarily provided their e-mail addresses, to advertise online sales.
3. Hold contests for free giveaways.
4. Provide free shipping for orders over a certain price.
5. Create clear navigation bars divided up into specific categories and search options to make it easier to explore options and find products of interest.
6. Use payment and money transfer services, like PayPal, to provide safety and security for customers' personal credit and debit card information. 
7. Use online shopping carts to make it easier for customers to view all their purchases before they check out.
8. Display product reviews under items to provide research to help customers make purchasing decisions.
9. Provide full descriptions for products so users are not left with any questions about the product.
10. Optimize keywords on website pages to attract and and convert the most targeted prospects. For example, by adding the phrase, "holiday gifts" or "great gifts for mom" to your page you are able to attract users searching for that term.

Online marketing and website optimization have significantly contributed to businesses' sales.  By using various marketing strategies, with a focus on top holiday shopping days, your company may be able to boost their sales and overall reach to potential customers.