Ecommerce retailers spend a significant amount of time, effort, energy (and margin) planning and executing marketing campaigns around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and with good reason. Shoppers come out of Thanksgiving ready to spend, anticipating the year’s best bargains, promotions and deals to kickoff the holiday season. While a well-crafted BF/CM plan is a critical component to any retailer’s marketing strategy, it’s also worth considering how to carry that momentum beyond Cyber Monday, into the remainder of the holiday season and into the new year. Here are a handful of our favorite holiday strategies to boost revenue and conversions.

For a Higher AOV, Try Escalating Discounts

The retail landscape of the holiday season makes it difficult to create a promotion without some kind of discount, as shoppers are actively searching for deals and expect to spend less than full-price during the Holiday season. If your brand struggles to maintain a healthy margin when offering large discounts, consider an escalating discount to push customers towards a higher order value. An example of this in action:

  • 10% off orders of $100 or more
  • 15% off orders of $200 or more
  • 20% off orders of $300 or more

This type of promotion incentivizes the customer to do more of their shopping with you, and should help reduce the amount that the discount cuts into your margins, as a larger order value creates efficiencies in shipping, packing and processing.

Connecting with the Customer Through a Holiday Email Series

A great way to continue to connect with customers throughout the season is to take them on season-long journey through a cohesive, connected email series. Shortly after Black Friday, introduce customers to an email series that promises value throughout the holiday season, in the form of a holiday shopping guide and featured products.

For example, a post-Thanksgiving Countdown to Christmas series could include two emails per week featuring a rotation of great gifts that the customer might not have thought of on their own. Featuring individual products and a story behind what makes each a great gift creates an emotional connection with the customer. Rather than just lobbing brand-centric emails or discounts, contextual stories about a series of featured products might tip customer’s minds to think, “hey, that’s a great idea for Dad this year”.

As an added bonus, an email marketing platform like MailChimp or Klaviyo will let you set up and pre-schedule a series and let it run throughout the season, reducing your effort in the campaign’s ongoing execution.

A Different Sort of Sale: Last-minute Shipping Discounts

We’re all used to seeing individual products on sale, or blowout store-wide sales to kick-off the holiday season for those ready to buy on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But what about those last-minute shoppers? Rather than targeting the procrastinators with product discounts, consider offering a discount on expedited shipping, like next-day or two-day shipping, as Christmas approaches. Everyone wants to get their gifts on time, so a discount on faster shipping might steer a customer to shop with you, rather than running out to the mall in the days before they give their gift.

Execution of this type of discount can be a bit tricky, but Shopify Plus offers a slick way to discount shipping through their Script Editor App. With this app, you can write code to discount shipping based on certain restrictions, like a minimum order value, or only applying the discount to carts that don’t already have a discount code applied to them.

New Year, New You

If you’re looking to continue your momentum beyond December 25th, a great concept is to tap into customers’ New Year’s resolutions with a “New Year, New You”-style campaign. Start by promoting products that relate to self-improvement. Think about customers wanting to land that big job interview, shed a few pounds in the gym, or become more productive in their everyday life. Depending on the content of your catalog, you can use updated product photography to tell the story of how your featured items can help customers achieve their resolutions with renewed confidence, style and function.

This sampling of ideas will help you go beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday and skate through the entire Holiday season with Ecommerce success.

Happy Holidays!