It’s only August so you’re thinking you have plenty of time to get your site ready for the holidays – think again. Now is the time to make sure that your site is optimized for the traffic that is soon to come your way. The following are a few quick pointers to ensuring you maximize this years’ holiday season.

Learn From The Past

Review last years sales and marketing efforts during the holidays. What products sold best? Which email blasts brought the most traffic to your site? Where were your shoppers most frequently visiting on your site? How consistent were you with your holiday promotions or messaging – were messages in line throughout your tasting room, wine club, email & website communications? What promotions worked best: Shipping discounts? Product discounts? Unique gift selections?

Optimize Your Site

Rethink your keywords and keyword phrases with holiday shoppers in mind. Put holiday keywords in place now – they can take time to propagate with search engines. “Christmas” is, undoubtedly, the most commonly used search term, along with “holiday gift”, “Christmas gift”, and “gift for dad”.

Also try “wine-lover’s gifts”, “gifts for red-wine drinkers”, and “wines to go with Christmas dinner”. Place those relevant words or phrases within the text of your website, in product names or categories, or in the meta-tags for your site. Be creative and use keyword phrases, which are often better for Search Engine Optimization than single keywords.

Make Decisions Easier

Do the heavy lifting for your customers. Create seasonal categories for your web store. Many shoppers already have some parameters in mind when they get to your site: “I need to get a gift for my aunt and I don’t want to spend more than $50.”

Use categories that describe the recipient: “Gifts for the Family”, “Gifts for Chardonnay Lovers”, “Gifts for the Connoisseur”. Or help online shoppers find gifts for different budgets: “Gifts under $50”, “Gifts over $75”. Avoid generic categories like “Gift baskets” or “Wine and Food Gifts,” which may be more easily passed over. The more relevant you can be to your shoppers’ needs, the better.

Be creative in your gift offerings. Think about gifts you’ve received in the past, or gifts you’d like to give. What combinations are most appealing? If you offer wine products only in your store, consider various varietal combinations or selections which you don’t normally offer.

Any allocations left over? Offer those to your best customers as a thank you opportunity at the end of the year. As well, if you offer additional merchandise in your tasting room or online, incorporate them into appropriate gift packs: “Spa Day for the Ladies”, including a nice sparkling, bath soaps and lotions; “A Day on the Links” for the guys, including a red wine, golf glove and hat - just to name a few ideas.

If appropriate, dress up your site for the holidays. This could be as simple as changing images to be more holiday friendly, but can also be more elaborate including holiday appropriate copy, holiday-specific ad banners, etc. This tells holiday shoppers that you’re ready for them. And be sure to follow suit with an email template that echoes the same look and feel.

Give shoppers what they want right away. Most holiday shopping is done for someone else, so use banners or call outs on your homepage to guide shoppers towards your gift selections; don’t leave them searching – or worse, leaving! Provide shipping information, such as order and delivery deadlines, upfront - on your home page, at the top of your shopping or product pages, and in every email you send. Let them know what your return or refund policy is. Answer their questions before they have to ask… or before they decide to leave for the next site.

Getting a jump on the holidays necessitates that you start planning now. In addition, if you engage design or content consultants to assist in your business, you’ll want to get on their calendar right away. Planning ahead can be the difference between a very profitable holiday season and one that falls flat.

Cheers,

Kristi Taaffe; Vice President, Marketing - Inertia Beverage Group

As the Director of Marketing for Smith & Hawken, Kristi spent five years modernizing and accelerating their Direct-to-Consumer sales, helping make Smith & Hawken one of the leading outdoor living brands in America. Prior to this, she led marketing for Wine.com, and other early e-commerce players like PreviewTravel.com (now Travelocity). Most recently, Kristi oversaw the Consumer Relationship Marketing division at Foster’s Wine Estates, where she led direct sales and marketing for nine Foster’s brands, including Beringer Vineyards, Chateau St. Jean and Etude Wines, among others. Kristi lives in Marin County with her husband and two children and is Vice President, Marketing at Inertia Beverage Group.

This entry was posted by admin on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 8:05 pm and is filed under AdWords, Clients, Direct Sales, Email, Keywords, Marketing, On-Site SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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