In our last post, we discussed what mistakes you shouldn’t make when selling products and services online during the holidays. For many brands, avoiding the negatives is enough to turn a profit and enjoy a good holiday sales season. However, many brands want to take it one step further and truly maximize their selling potential,

Planning for holiday marketing efforts is a key component of any successful sales season. With the holidays now open us, it’s time to handle your brand’s marketing efforts like a boss. To help you do that, we’ve put together a few tips that you should incorporate into your holiday marketing planning beginning today.

Provide a Holiday Feel

When people land on your website during the holiday season, how does it make them feel? Many brands understand that seasonal influence is important: by providing your website with a temporary facelift that embodies the holiday shopping season, you can convince more shoppers to stick around and commit. In addition to this, pinging your website with holiday-themed images and elements makes it easier to incorporate other marketing tactics seamlessly with the look and feel of the website. Considering how relatively easy this step of marketing is, there’s no excuse not to provide your website with a bit of holiday cheer.

Put Discounts Up Front

If a crucial component of your holiday season marketing strategy involves discounts and deals, then you want to be sure they’re as obvious as possible. When people land on your main page or any section of the website, the first thing they should see are the great deals you’re providing. Whether it’s a store-wide discount or special offers on select items, make sure these deals are front and center. By emphasizing visibility, more customers are likely to take advantage of your deal. When combined with off-site marketing promotions, this can be a powerful one-two jolt to your bottom line during the holidays.

Take Advantage of Email Marketing

Many websites don’t have the advantage of using established email lists, but virtually every online store has collected email addresses and information from all of their customers. During the holiday season, competition is key: you must fight for every inch of visible real estate possible. By reaching out to these past customers and pinging your website (and its deals) into their inboxes, you can maximize sales and generate more activity for your business. In addition, this form of marketing tends to be highly effective given the email addresses are for people who have demonstrated past interest in your brand.

Be Dominant on Social Media

Whether it be through organic social media outreach or paid marketing tactics, you can’t afford to cede ground on social media during the holidays. Through platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, you can target unique audiences with multimedia, great ad copy and other elements of persuasion. You can be sure that your competitors are reaching out to shoppers on social media: be sure to do the same!

There’s still time to improve your holiday marketing efforts. By following the broader points of advice above, you can extract additional value from each marketing campaign you embark upon both this year and beyond.