If your business is planning on taking advantage of one (or more) of the post-Thanksgiving shopping days—Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday—then your marketing team should already have started putting together campaigns and planning promotions, deals, and giveaways to entice consumers to spend their holiday money with your company.
Have they also made sure that your web presence is set up to support those marketing campaigns and help you succeed this holiday season? Here’s how to set a foundation throughout all channels and platforms to build your holiday marketing on.
Search Engine Accounts
Search engine optimization is a year-round priority. Higher rankings in page results for consumer search results often causes higher viewership and increased revenue in the long term. An often-overlooked aspect of search engine marketing is local accounts. Google Local allows businesses to claim their business, edit pertinent information, such as hours and street address, and even add photos or a virtual tour, all for free. Bing Places for Business is also a free account where businesses can make sure accurate information shows up on Bing.
As more consumers use mobile to shop locally and immediately, having accurate information be presented to a potential customer as soon as possible is of utmost importance. Claim your business’ local accounts on Google and Bing and edit to the most up-to-date information. When a potential customer can see your location, hours, and phone number without having to click to go to your website, it makes it much easier for them to get to what they want: the perfect gift.
Call Button on Mobile
Just like consumers can call your business right from the search engine’s local account, adding a call button to your mobile website can make it easier for potential customers to get in touch with you. Creating a button that starts a phone call on a smartphone, or a link that does the same, will make it easier for people to communicate directly with your company, whether to ask a simple question or complete a complicated order. According to Consumer Reports, six in ten people get frustrated when they can’t locate a customer service telephone number—have yours available and help your customers start their interaction with your company frustration-free.
Link to Website on Social
This might seem like a no-brainer, but many small businesses don’t have their website on their social accounts. Just like having a phone number a simple click away, having a link to your company’s website on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media accounts is a necessity. You might publish blog posts or articles that point back to your website, but be sure to include your homepage address in the About section of the account. Make sure it’s as easy as possible for your customers to find your website.
Advertise Promotions Across Platforms
Once your marketing team decides on the holiday promotions, make sure to promote often, across platforms. If your promotion or deal is available to all consuemrs alike, promote on your website, via email marketing, and social media. If it’s only available to certain segments, such as email subscribers, promote signing up for your email list, teasing the upcoming special promotion.
If you don’t have special promotions running in the next few months, you can still advertise how your product or service is a great gift idea. Group together products that go together or have a high customer satisfaction rating and post photos on social media, especially Pinterest. Presenting gift-givers with inspiration on what to get those on their list can go a long way.
Calls to Action
When a visitor comes to your site, you want them to stay as long as possible. Having compelling content helps keep visitors enthralled, as do call-to-action buttons. Calls-to-action can be explicit, like a button, a graphic image, or a pop-up, or implicit, like a hyperlink tied to a few key words. No matter what kind of CTA you want to use, make sure it has compelling microcopy get visitors to click and leads to relevent content that will cash in on the promises of the CTA.
Once you have a solid web presence to act as your marketing team’s foundation, build upon that with your holiday marketing campaigns. Having seemingly small things, such as links to your website on social or call-to-action buttons, will make for an easy-to-use experience for your consumers, which will get them to their purchases faster and more willing to spread positive word-of-mouth testimonials.
Need help getting your holiday marketing started? Click on the button below to take advantage of our one hour free holiday marketing consultation.
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