The holiday madness is now upon us! If you make mistakes with your holiday marketing campaigns, you will lose out on a lot of revenue. To earn the most revenue around the holidays, it is essential to provide excellent customer support, stand out from the crowd of competitor emails and more. Here is the second part of our list of potential mistakes to steer clear of this season.
This checklist is intended to help you avoid some of the most common and most damaging holiday marketing mistakes. We want to help you plan ahead for the rush that is starting now! See "10 Holiday Marketing Mistakes to Avoid: Part 1".
6. Not Having Enough Customer Assistance Available
All throughout the holiday season, customers are frantically trying to make purchases. During this time, websites go down, purchases are unable to be made, shipments are delayed, customers are confused and panicking about last-minute gifts and all manner of glorious holiday chaos is unleashed. If your staff is too busy to answer questions and provide excellent personalized customer support, your holiday revenue will suffer. Potential purchases will be lost and some customers will choose to shop elsewhere.
If you have enough staff, dedicate a few staff members exclusively to customer service during this time of year. If you have a limited amount of staff, ensure that all staff members take turns doing just customer service throughout the day. Provide an instant chat service on your website so customers with questions aren't tying up your phone lines.
7. Not Training and Preparing Staff Ahead of Time
In preparation for the holiday season, many businesses hire additional staff to help with the influx of customers. Although in many cases this is a necessary step to deal with all the extra business, this often backfires because the new staff are not properly trained. They do not know where to go when customers encounter problems, they do not know how to handle shipping issues or customer complaints and customers get frustrated dealing with new staff.
Of course, it is not possible to train new staff quickly enough for every possible problem they will encounter. That is why it is crucial to provide new staff with the knowledge of where to go when a customer has a question or issue that they can't handle. Inform new and current staff that the holiday season will be hectic and that challenges will inevitably arise. Keep staff aware of all big holiday sales and marketing promotions that are happening so they know in advance. Prepare staff for what to do when POS systems go down, when items don't ring in correctly, when customers complain, when shipped items go missing and any other big potential problems you expect to face.
8. Having Ineffective Email Subject Lines
At this time of year, your customers are being saturated with holiday marketing emails from every business they shop at. Many emails are overlooked or simply deleted before they are opened. In order to captivate customers and boost ROI from your email campaigns, you need to have a subject line that immediately grabs attention and makes customers want to open the email. Without an awesome subject line, many of your emails will just be deleted.
Be careful to avoid spam word or expressions in your subject lines or your emails may not even make it to customers' inboxes. We have a whole list of spam terms right here. These phrases will often trigger spam filters and will certainly affect the potential revenue from your holiday email marketing campaigns. Try to keep your email subject lines concise, informative and enticing. For example: "Half Off Coupon for Any Holiday Gift You Choose."
9. Failing to Capitalize on Mobile Marketing
The vast majority of customers now use their mobile devices for browsing the internet and shopping. Not paying attention to this market can be devastating to your holiday revenue. Ensure that you capture the mobile market. Make all your holiday emails mobile-friendly so customers viewing them on their phones can easily take advantage of special offers.
Don't forget about text message marketing! While emails may be deleted or just unnoticed, the majority of all text messages are opened within only five minutes of being received. Text messages are ideal for quick promotions, exclusive limited time offers, holiday greetings, personalized coupons and so on. Text messages are simple to create and automate with a comprehensive marketing solution.
10. Neglecting Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofits work hard all year round to provide support and guidance to individuals and groups who otherwise would lack the resources they need. Since the holiday season is the most profitable time of year for businesses, it is also one of the best times to show your support for those who have less. This is not just a good marketing opportunity to build customer loyalty and trust. It is also a great way to be an engaged corporate citizen and contribute to your community.
Set aside a portion of your holiday revenue to go to local nonprofit organizations. Talk about your strong community connections on your website and your social media pages. Stay true to your commitments and build an ongoing relationship with the local nonprofits you support.
Simplify Your Holiday Marketing
We hope our holiday marketing mistakes checklist has helped you prepare your own holiday campaigns. If you truly want to make your holiday campaigns the most efficient and effective they can be, try an all-in-one automated marketing solution.
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