Andrew Madeira-Silva December 15, 2020 
Are you feeling less holiday cheer this year? It’s okay, a lot of us are. 2020 has been a wreck and taken a toll on a lot of people’s mental health. Now that the weather is colder people are stuck inside and looking to find happiness wherever it can be found.
Stress shopping and gift giving is at an all time high because people are spending money on gifts that they otherwise could have spent on travel. This trend presents you with two opportunities. First off, you can take advantage of this trend to make more sales. Secondly, you can update your website to spread holiday cheer – helping lift people’s spirits while also lifting your reputation.
Holiday Theme Design Adjustments
You don’t need to give your site a complete makeover, but some (reindeer) bells and whistles will go a long way delivering some holiday cheer. Little things like using festive colours and fonts can evoke holiday emotions from your customers. Holiday emotions like the spirit of giving, which will give you a leg-up on selling gifts as well as the appeal of your holiday promotions.
A Social Media Holiday
Since we haven’t been able to have a very social holiday season, it has become an increasingly social media holiday season. Time spent on social media has increased by nearly 10% compared to 2019, so it’s a better place to reach your customers than ever before.
Use your social media channels to engage in the holiday spirit with your audience. Check out the in-app features like polls, stickers, or countdowns and leverage them to touch on those holiday emotions. Social media is also a great place to discuss and keep your audience engaged about the holidays. Think about doing some holiday giveaways that encourage your followers to tag their friends on your page.
Bundles, Deals, and Discounts
If you can’t beat them, join them. This mantra is especially true of holiday bundles and promotions. Everyone else will be offering them, so if you want to remain competitive you will have to as well.
Package up products that compliment each other as a bundle and tweak your copy to sell it as the perfect gift. You can even include some items that don’t typically sell, ensuring that you offload more of your product. By doing this, you help your customer alleviate the stress of trying to find the perfect gift and make it easier for them to enjoy the holiday season. Check out the video below highlighting how to add customizable gift bundles as an option at checkout!
Holiday Emails
While your customers are writing letters to Santa, you should be writing letters to them. Emails during this time of year are a great opportunity to speak to your customers in an authentic way and spread the joy of the holidays while giving them an idea of your personality.
Just be genuine, like you’re wishing them a happy holiday from your family to theirs. Including holiday themed graphics with a friendly and sweet message can also help get them in the spirit. You should also be sending out emails about your promotions, but keep those separate from at least one authentic non-selling holiday spirited email.
SEO-HO-HO
If your search engine optimization isn’t where it needs to be you will surely miss out on holiday sales. You need to be thinking about the phrases that people search this time of year compared to the other eleven months and incorporate those words into your copy.
Check out this list of some of the most searched phrases during the holidays.
Loading Speed and Cart Abandonment
You need your site to be running as fast as Santa’s sleigh these holidays. Just to give you a sense of how important this is, 40% of shoppers will leave a site if it doesn’t load in 3 seconds. Even more terrifying is that as little as a ONE SECOND delay can reduce conversion rates by 7%.
So make sure that your site speeds are fully optimized for desktop and mobile in order to reduce the amount of carts abandoned these holidays.
Analyze and Improve
Google Analytics is a great tool to measure the success of the changes you make during the holiday season. If you’re not already using this tool, get started ASAP. Everything from SEO success to conversion rates and time spent on pages can be measured with Google Analytics.
If you’re not familiar with the program that’s alright, Google and LinkedIn both offer phenomenal courses on how to use it.
So this holiday you’ve got two great opportunities. You can sell products, and you can sell happiness and holiday cheer. People are looking for that sense of happiness wherever they can find it this year, and by making some small changes to your site, you can help be part of the solution.
The holidays are pretty much here, so you should start making these changes to your site (December 17, 2020). As always, if you have any question or want to reach out feel free to get in touch directly – we only succeed when you succeed.
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