If you run an ecommerce website, you may want to run seasonal promotions for your product range to maximise sales at the times when they are most in demand.
Whether it’s Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, or any other occasion, you’ll want to begin your promotions at the right time, but when exactly is the right time to begin optimising for seasonal events?
Here we look at different online platforms and when you should begin your marketing campaigns.
Search engines are notoriously unpredictable with regards to indexing new content, so the more time you can give them to pick up your promotions the better.
Usually, you would look to begin setting up your campaign around 3-4 months before the event. This will give you time to create your promotions and for Google to pick up and index the content.
Initially you will want to decide which products to include, research relevant seasonal keywords e.g. Christmas toy sale, and design your landing pages with optimised content.
If you have run a similar campaign previously, you can check Google Analytics to see where your traffic bagan to pick up and when it peaked. If this is your first seasonal campaign, tools such as Google Trends and Google Keyword planner allow you to view search volumes over several years.
Once the event is over, don’t unpublish the page as you can reuse it the following year. Keeping the page live will also give you a head start with your Google rankings.
If you’re beginning your seasonal campaign at the peak of the season, it’s not too late to promote your products in the search results.
The beauty of Google Ads campaigns, or PPC, is that as soon as your campaign has been created, you can set it live and it starts appearing in search results immediately.
You can create holiday specific ads with extensions including images, call out messages such as Receive in time for [event], and products discounts.
Again, social media is something you can update in real-time, so you can begin your seasonal promotions either in the run-up to or during the event.
You can post to your social media pages so your followers see the promotions in their feed as well as creating boosted (paid) ads that can be targeted to Facebook users that fit your customer demographic.
Email Marketing
If you have a database of email addresses from customers and visitors, you can begin sending out promotional emails in the run up to the event and during.
Many companies are now sending emails to opt out of marketing for more sensitive events such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Valentine’s Day a couple of months before. This gives people time to respond before you begin your campaigns.
Usually, in the months prior to the event, the email marketing is less frequent and more spaced out, gaining pace the closer you are to the date.
It isn’t uncommon for companies to send multiple marketing emails in the same day during events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the week before Christmas. This type of marketing should be reserved for really special promotions though as you don’t want to label yourself as a spammer and have recipients clicking unsubscribe.
Let us help you promote your business
Whatever time of the year you choose to promote your products or services, 123 Ranking can assist. Contact us today on 0333 320 8099 to discuss your online marketing requirements and receive a free, no obligation quote.
