The holidays are fast approaching and with them means the start of the busy online shopping season. Each year the amount of revenue generated from online sales from the period right before Thanksgiving through the first few days of the New Year increases dramatically which means a great deal to a retail marketers bottom line. If one 
of your internet marketing strategies is to attract more online shoppers to your website, then there are a few basic “do’s” and” don’ts” that you should keep in mind as you gear up for the holidays.
Basic Do’s and Don’t Around the Holidays
Do- keep in mind that online shopping increases the day before Thanksgiving, peaks on Cyber- Monday and continues through January 4-5th.
Don’t- forget that most people are off from school, college and work during this holiday time, so their Online surfing patterns change. The Friday after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas will see more online traffic since people have the time off and depending on your target market, your customers could be online during these times so you may have to adjust your interactions.
Do- focus your online marketing on your main products and top sellers. Potential customers will be attracted to your main items and then will find your other items as they continue to shop.
Don’t- experiment with new products unless you’ve done your product testing. Many times, people want to break out something new for the holidays, unless you know it’s something that your customer base is looking for, it’s better to keep it on the shelf for another time. You are competing for holiday dollars and people are not likely to take gambles when they have a long list to buy for.
Do- focus on the customers you already have; they have purchased from you before and maybe likely to purchase from you again. They will often tell others about your products and services as well.
Don’t- over-post on social media, everybody will be increasing their posting during the holidays hoping to increase their visibility, but what it often does is turn-off potential customers and drown-out your message in a sea of other messages. What happens when you see posts from the same site over and over? If you are like most of us, you either turn them off or you tune them out.
Do- be unique with your posting, since you are going to limit your posts then make your advertising stand-out. Be the unique post that will most likely grab a potential customers attention.
Don’t- overpay of PPC, more website owners will be using PPC advertising during the holidays to help get their message out. If you decide to use PPC make sure to stay within your budget, more competitors in your market using PPC causes the PPC spend to go up. Remember PPC is just like an Auction, you are competing with others for Ad visibility and if you do not have a large budget you could get caught up spending more that you anticipated.
If you have a limited budget to spend on PPC:
– You can target your PPC Ads to age groups most related to your products.
– You can target your Ads for geographic locations
– You can target your Ads for certain times of the day. Maybe you focus your Ad Spend during 3 hours during Weeknights if you feel that’s when your audience might be online.
Do– Remember that Saturday November 30th is Small Business Saturday. Small Business Saturday is heavily promoted and people will be more receptive to support a Small Business – Veteran owned – Made in the USA.
Don’t– be afraid to promote that you are a Veteran Owned business. If someone is going to spend their money, what better way than to support Great causes!
Do- increase your network, even if you don’t make a sale make sure to add that person to your contact list. They might not be a customer this time, but they could be a potential customer in the future. Always be building your network!
Don’t – forget to build your social media network of businesses as well. As a small business owner you might find yourself with some extra time during the Holidays, spend some time increasing your social media network with out businesses that share similar interests to yours. Set yourself a goal to increase your number of connections by (X) amount and you’ll see exponential returns. Your network is not only about customers, but businesses as well.
By incorporating at least some of the do’s and cutting down on some of the don’t, hopefully you are able to have a more successful Holiday season this year.
TYFYS
DMC