The holidays are coming and people are more willing to spend money for gifts for themselves, their families and their friends. Hence this is a great moment to have one last sales boost and get your own holidays reward. All you have to do is follow a few guidelines and make sure that you create a proper marketing mix, adequate to the holiday spirit.
The main point about holiday sales is not to give the impression that you are all about closing the sales. Even if this is your obvious final purpose, adopt soft sales strategies and focus on your customers more than ever. Join them in the holiday spirit and focus your social media sharing plan on having fun, celebrating and being generous.
So, this being said, let us get started with the 5 effective tactics for driving more sales during the holiday season through the social media.
1. Embrace the Festive Spirit
The first step everyone takes as the holiday season approaches is to update their cover photo with a festive image. Take a look at your own friends’ personal profiles and your competitors’ pages. Everyone is embracing the festive spirit and so should you. It is one of those simple things which everyone notices – especially if you fail to do them.
Updating your cover photos across the social media takes just a few minutes, but sets the mood for your entire holiday season promotion. You can focus on a slogan, or on your relationship with your customers and develop an integrated cross-channel campaign having this as its core element.
2. Use Hashtags… Lots of Them
Hashtags are now used in Twitter, Facebook and Google+. They are the social media equivalent of keywords for SEO and they work just as effectively. Many companies promote their holiday sale season through hashtags. In this way, they help their followers become the first to know about special discounts, product bundles and exclusive offers.
For example, the #christmasspecial or #giftidea hashtag will attract people who are really interested in buying gifts for Christmas. Do a little research on popular hashtags on Twitter and apply them all over your social media channels.
3. Reward Your Customers
Give and ye shall receive is a great saying, and it’s even applicable to engagement on the social media. Active followers who like, comment and share your content frequently help you build awareness, popularity and, ultimately, gain more clients. So, you should express your gratitude to them.
Now is the best moment to mention your most active followers, those who have shared your posts the most, those who made the most interesting comments and those that participated in most of your polls and contests. Offer them a special gift – either a freebie or a special discount – and they will continue to be just as active in engaging with your page (or even more so).
4. Organise a Holiday Special Contest
One last big contest to end the year and win amazing prizes – this is one of the most effective strategies for creating a powerful traffic and sales funnel. Some people may not have the patience to wait until you announce the results (and there is no guarantee they will win) and will go ahead and purchase your product at the special holiday discount price.
5. Use the Facebook Shopping Cart
Make it easy for people to complete a purchase without leaving Facebook. With the new payment facility implemented by Facebook, you can now allow your followers to go through the entire buying process within the social media platform. This is a very effective way to make sure that they do not lose interest in completing the purchase by having to go through many steps.
These simple tactics will help you put your followers in the right mood to consider buying a few gifts for friends or for themselves from you, taking advantage of the special discounts and being assured that you are doing everything to offer them the best deal possible.