Optimise Christmas revenue: Turn dull campaigns into data-driven bliss

By Santa’s beard, it comes across quickly, doesn’t it? People are working around the clock to maximise Christmas sales. Marketers and brands who get smart and optimise campaigns with a dash (-er, Donner and Blitzen) of data are going to extend Yule joy to their whole team. 

Here’s how to optimise your Christmas revenue and turn dull campaigns into data-driven bliss. 

October, November and December can bring in massive sales and companies can’t afford to miss out on this golden goose. 

While these tactics can be used to boost revenue over a single event, they can also be seen as best practises for increasing sales over a long-term basis. 

Behavioural Data Makes Those Bells Jingle

It’s been discussed before, but one of the most effective ways to use data to craft intelligent campaigns is through the use of behavioural data to increase the likelihood of a sale. 

Website personalisation matters because it makes customers feel special. And when do you want to feel the most special? Why at Christmas time of course! 

Data can be used to display personalised content to website users, and that’s been proven to increase engagement, conversations and micro conversions. 

It might sound like a lot of hard work, but it’s nothing compared to the efforts Santa goes through to deliver millions of presents to the tightest deadlines possible. 

Get Personal With Sms Marketing 

As we all know: good things come in small packages, and SMS marketing is an excellent channel to fetch those holiday shoppers on the go. We’re sure that you already have plan for it, but there are ways to sleigh your SMS performance: 

• Analyse reports to get the perfect timing, content and CTAs. Do your open rates skyrocket during the morning or during the eve? Did a particular call to action leverage higher click-throughs? The proof is in the pudding! Or well, reporting. 
• Use audience data. Has this customer made a recent purchase? Does this customer open emails and other SMS? Do they hit the right demographic for this particular message? These are all things that need to be considered. 
• Use dynamic content to get on a first-name basis. Christmas is the time for love and personal appreciation, so why not do the same for your customers?
• Connect SMS to your e-commerce flows. It’s easy to forget a gift or two in the basket, and a simple SMS reminder might just do the extra trick! 
• Adapt it all to the mobile format. If you send a message with a special offer, make sure it’s easy for the customer to complete the purchase on their phone! That means a fully optimised, mobile-friendly website and a short message. 

Be Targeted With Your Recommendations

Customers are more likely to spend money when they feel engaged with a business, and around Christmas you can leverage that to create campaigns that feel cosy and provide targeted and useful recommendations. 

Product recommendation tools are super powerful bits of kit that learns and recognises each individual based on their actions. That gives marketers an edge because you can show products and content based on specific customer behaviour across platforms and channels. 

In the fight for Christmas attention, being able to deliver these personalised services could be the difference between striking out and striking gold. 

Maximise Your Christmas Emails 

Email campaigns have been around since the dawn on digital marketing, but they need to be managed well. Here’s how you can stand out with some clever tactics: 

A/B test 

Want to increase the likelihood that your subscribers open and unwrap your emails? In that case, you should give A/B testing a go! By experimenting with your subject line, headline or content, you can find out which variation of your campaign gives the best results. 

Segmentation bumps up the relevance 

Using segmented emails is another must-do. They perform better than non-segmented campaigns and that will allow you to create personalised emails that fit within your pre-defined profiles. 

Get creative with your copy and graphics 

Get creative with your copy! Engaging copy, combined with segmented emails, feel personal and give each customer what they want in the lead up to Christmas is the best way to go about things. 

Make sure your email campaigns are as full of virtual mistletoe, tinsel and fake reindeer ears as possible and help people get into the spirit of things. Once they start clicking on your email, then your marketing software can come into its own. 

Psst! As an APSIS One customer, you’ll be able to access FREE festive templates and jolly image bundles directly from the Email tool. Want to get on the sleigh? Explore APSIS One today! 

Turn Discounts Into Subscriptions 

A gift for auntie Anna, uncle Urban, sister Susan, cousin Charlie and mama Mona. 

The uptick in spend during Christmas is no joke – especially not for your wallet. But people don’t want to be a Grinch, so they tend to seek out bargains that give an extra bang for the buck. 

Every retailer knows that a discount can pack a serious punch. But if you want to go beyond the momentary thrill of increased sales, you can easily create a pop-up for non-subscribers that offers them an extra 10% if they would sign up to your newsletter. 

Not only does this tactic give shoppers an extra reason to shop with you, but it also provides you with their contact details and their explicit consent to keep the conversation going post-Yule.

Spice Up Your Inspirational Landing Pages

For some people, shopping for Christmas gifts comes as naturally as walking. But as most of us have experienced one, twice or even every year, it’s hard to find the perfect gift for every person in the family tree. 

Inspirational landing pages and gift guides are commonplace for marketers. But do you know how to add extra spice (and insights!) to make your visitors shop? 

Create landing pages that centre on personas 

Create gift guides geared toward targeted personas or certain price ranges, and include them in your segmented emails, social posts or pop-ups! 

The perfect source of behavioural data 

Landing pages are an easy source to gather up Santa’s favourite snack: cookies. Not only do they keep the jolly man fed, but cookies (with consent, of course!) can also help you track activity on your landing pages and throughout your site.

Then what? Well, you can use it to craft personalised offers, set browse abandonment flows in motion and retarget the products on social media. 

Turn Abandoned Browses And Carts Into Glee

As people research and compare retailers, the need for retargeting spikes. You’ve done all the hard work in getting them to your website in the first place, and completing the sale is so, so close. 

But what happens if customers go through to your website but don’t spend anything? Or even worse, put something in their cart but then just leave it dangling there? 

Don’t worry, this happens to everyone. And the upside is that If someone has spent time on your site, it stands to reason that they’re interested in your product. 

The good news is that you can use recovery tactics to get that sale back! Use the power of data and product recommendations to send friendly emails that recover carts or bring browses back to your site –and toward the purchase button. 

Optimise Retargeting Relevance And Ad Spend 

In this scenario, users will be shown your adverts as they browse through other sites like Facebook or Instagram. These potential customers are 70% more likely to convert versus those who haven’t been served with retargeted ads. 

But… Social media can be treacherous Krampus land, and your money might end up sitting in the wrong lap. 

So, if you want to make sure that your ads reach the right people, you need to be able to use data to include and exclude audiences from viewing your adverts. Not only will this save customer frustration, but it’ll save 25% of your ad budget, too. 

Our gift to you…

A smart marketing automation platform does more heavy lifting than Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder and Blitzen–and all of Santa’s little helpers–combined. And it just so happens that we have our very own little gift for you. So if you want to create true Christmas magic with short notice, you can sign up for a FREE 14-day APSIS One trial today!