Find out all the tips, stats, and resources at your disposal to get ahead of the competition this festive season.
First of all, you need to understand what type of Christmas shoppers make up your customer base. Are they the early-birds, the late-leavers, or the sporadic-shoppers? Each type will have their method of buying presents, whether they get their shopping done as early as possible, whether they like to leave it to the last minute in order to hopefully jump on some deals, or whether they like to shop bit by bit. Considering this, 11% of shoppers plan their Christmas shopping months before the season begins. Tools like Google Analytics and our very own Client Centre can help you discover the best platforms to advertise on, ensuring your business is promoted to the audiences most likely to convert into a customer.
38% of Christmas shopping has already been completed before Black Friday. Luckily for you, Black Friday is still 3 weeks away, so there’s still time to promote your products/services and get those early-bird and sporadic-shoppers in-store or online before the discount madness begins. Launching marketing campaigns earlier to get your brand out there can be hugely beneficial, and they don’t necessarily have to be Christmas themed to begin with. Starting your business marketing campaign in August/September with non-Christmas themed content, but promoting products/services that would be perfect gifts, will help you catch those early-bird Christmas shoppers. Although admittedly it’s now November, there’s still an opportunity to market your products/services to the potential shoppers you want to convert into customers, and now you can make it festive!
8% of people say they do most of their Christmas shopping on Black Friday. So as well as showing that these people must be incredibly brave, this information also suggests there are a good number of people that hunt for discounts and offers in order to keep their Christmas spending as low as possible, although, it still seems most people don’t focus their shopping efforts on Black Friday deals. Creating compelling limited time offers and utilising advertising tools from social media and search engines will help promote what your business has to offer to the audiences you want to target. Another point to make is that Black Friday isn’t the only discount shopping day that the public get a bit manic about, Cyber Monday has also become a huge shopping event that increasing numbers of people are getting on-board with, and takes place the Monday after Black Friday.
40% of Christmas shoppers who make decisions in-store use their smartphones for research as they shop. Not only does this mean the design and navigation of your website is more important than ever in order to create a more streamlined online customer experience, but it would also be worth thinking about offering a free and fast Wi-Fi connection that makes it easier for customers to access your website.
87% of shoppers still search online for Christmas-related shopping after Christmas. This is an interesting statistic, and proves that running campaigns into the New Year can be hugely beneficial. As the Boxing Day sales begin, more and more people look to treat themselves. Continuing Christmas campaigns and encouraging shoppers to get a little something for themselves can firstly, help distinguish your brand from competitors and all of the ‘we have perfect gifts for your friends and family’, but also secondly, helps to generate purchases both pre-Christmas and during those post-Christmas sales.
Customers adapt their shopping habits each year, which makes it difficult to predict high-street footfall and online orders. As frustrating as this may be, businesses can still work to encourage customers into their establishments or onto their websites, through digital advertising, search marketing, print advertising, and a variety of other methods. If you’d like to find out more about how you can attract the right audiences for your business not just for this Christmas, but all year round, contact us today.
*All of the statistics above have been collected from the Think with Google Marketing Cheat Sheet 2019
