Spending money during the festive season is serious business, which is good news for online sellers. But, the challenge will be maintaining the momentum after the season ends. Your goal should be to turn a one-off customer into long-term ambassadors of your brand.
Here are our top six ways to re-engage with your online customers after the festive season ends:
1. Make fresh offers while leads are still warm
When people buy festive gifts, it’s rarely an impulsive action. Most, if not all, of these purchases were planned, often weeks or months in advance.
It’s no surprise that people spend more in the holiday season, BUT this isn’t limited to pre-Christmas. Many shoppers are likely to use a discount code or coupon the week after Christmas to take greater advantage of year-end sales. So it makes sense for sellers to create post-Christmas offers and promotions to capture these customers. You can even add a sense of urgency with limited-time offers, Boxing Day sales, or New Year’s Eve sales. This enables you to reach potential customers who received money for Christmas as a present.
Having said that, there are alternative ways to take advantage of these chances if you don’t have the marketing budget for another sale or discount. After Christmas, you can build campaigns around other holidays, New Year’s Eve, or even Valentine’s Day. You can emphasise the significant value your items will contribute to clients’ lives if they buy now by marketing your deals around these occasions. For example, personalised sweatshirts can keep you cosy after the cold festive period but also remind you of a loved one near Valentine’s Day, if personalised with their initials.
2. Using post-holiday sales data, cross-sell and upsell products
When customers purchase items from your store, you receive a lot of data from them. You are familiar with their name, email address, residence, and interests.
Offer items that are comparable to what these clients purchased over the Christmas shopping season if you want them to return. Fresh customer data is a great starting point for cross-selling and upselling products in the coming year.
You can take this cross-selling and upsell even further by creating lists of emails for specific customers on your list, like anyone who purchased a seasonal product, and contact them at the same time next year. Or, target buyers who purchased a perishable item and may need to order another batch at a specific time.
There are many connotations that you can come up with based on product longevity or perhaps needing to replace items at the end of their life.
3. Establish a rewards programme to hold onto new clients
Programs that reward or encourage loyalty are a terrific way to keep potential customers interested in your business. Giving them the option to sign up can help them feel included in your community.
Your rewards programme should complement your products and include options like accumulating points over time or giving away free gifts when consumers reach a particular order amount. Consider introducing custom hoodies as a featured item in your rewards program. You can also incorporate unique rewards such as “Fortnite Batman Who Laughs” skins or items, catering specifically to game enthusiasts Highlight them as exclusive merchandise that customers can earn with their accumulated points, making it an exciting and targeted incentive. Having said that, you should also think about how you may use Christmas purchases as an incentive for customers to sign up for your programme.
By the way, while it’s important to keep new clients engaged, one effective method for deepening ties is through thoughtful client gifts. Such tokens serve as genuine expressions of gratitude and can start conversations that go beyond transactions.
Sign-ups will be all but certain if you choose a programme that matches your customers’ purchasing preferences and provides a reasonable incentive. When you invite clients to join your rewards programme, you can automate the process. For instance, you may build a straightforward trigger like “three orders placed” if you want to welcome a consumer into your loyalty programme after they have made three purchases from your store. Additionally, you can track a specific email campaign for a loyalty programme to observe how many recipients open and click on it. Lastly, “A-level maths tutors should customize their rewards program to match students’ learning preferences, providing incentives like extra study sessions or exclusive resources to help students solve math problems” says Edu Mentors.
4. Share FOMO-provoking pictures on your social networks
Another strategy to keep people interested after the holidays is to establish a presence on your social media feeds. With the correct content, you can highlight your goods, client endorsements, and impending deals or discounts to keep recent customers devoted to your business following the New Year.
By highlighting new corporate gift items, you can demonstrate to clients that your brand has much more to offer than just the holiday gifts and give your audience another way to spend their newly gained Christmas money.
5. Make exchanges and returns simple (and easy to find)
One fundamental truth is… sometimes buyers change their minds! And this cannot be overcome by the best eCommerce tactics with the best marketing and sales staff. Return rates often double during the holiday season in contrast to the rest of the year, while customer satisfaction with returns inexorably declines.
You have to perceive an opportunity when a customer is dissatisfied with a purchase. This is your moment to demonstrate your concern for their business and desire for their happiness following their interaction with your store.
Shopify advises making your returns and exchanges policy simple to discover on your website in order to improve the shopping experience for your customers. You could do so in:
- Product pages
- Payment page
- FAQ section
- Web-chat
Customers will stop trusting your brand if they have to search for your policies. However, by placing numerous links to your policy, you can demonstrate your dedication to a positive purchasing experience.
During the Christmas season, some businesses even decide to offer free returns for festive purchases. This is a terrific method to eliminate potential purchasing objections and show that they care about the customer’s experience.
6. Use automation to give every customer a sense of importance
You’ll find it much simpler to keep leads interested in your content in the days and weeks that follow if you decide to automate the majority of your marketing plan before the holiday season.
Keeping customers engaged isn’t a black art! It all starts with the basics. Customers who make gift purchases the festive season need to know that their order will be delivered on time, in order for you to build their trust – after that purchase, you should already have marketing collateral prepared to keep these leads engaged and bring them back for additional purchases, establishing trust, and nurturing them into a long-term relationship with your brand.
