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Holiday sales will increase by 4.1% this year according to a prediction made by the National Retail Federation (NRF). Another recent survey by Shop.org projects that online sales will increase by 12% during the holiday season, resulting in an increase of as much as $96 billion this year.

To take advantage of these trends, retailers should pool their resources and utilize the following marketing tactics to command a larger share of the budding ecommerce market during the holidays.

Broaden Your Social Influence

During the holidays, ramp up your social media profiles by updating your pages regularly and posting special offers and promotions to your social audience. Refresh the messaging from your email and print marketing campaigns to make it suitable for your social media audience, and make sure to announce important holiday deals or offers so that you can use social media to your advantage.

Update and Revitalize Web Content

Refreshing your content can be immensely beneficial to helping you gain a higher search engine ranking round the holidays. By updating your content with useful holiday gift ideas or other holiday-inspired events or stories, you can capture your customers’ attention. It may also help to tweak the search-related keywords that you are currently using to give Google more incentive to rank you for relevant industry search terms.

Harness Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing can help you boost your search engine rankings instantly. With search engine marketing, you can drive traffic directly to your website through ads placed on the major search engines. You can use the Google Keyword Tool to search for keywords that businesses in your industry are using to reach their target market and then place ads for those keywords using Google Adwords.

Refresh Directory Listings

Social media and search engines use different tactics to help customers find the products and services they need based on their geographic region. For this reason, up-to-date directory listings are essential to helping your target customers locate your business. You can take advantage of this marketing tactic by updating all of your listings so that they include a current business profile and contact information. The website GetListed.com can give you some insight into the information that the search engines currently have on file about your business.

Leverage Mobile Marketing

The first step to effectively using mobile marketing is to ensure that your website is properly optimized for mobile devices. You may also want to consider using text messaging to introduce special discounts, offers, or promotions to your customers. Consider adding QR codes to your marketing materials so that you can direct visitors to a specific page on your website.

Send Email Blasts

Using an email marketing campaign can help you reach out to your audience to let them know about any holiday specials that you’re running and to keep your business top of mind during the busy holiday season. This marketing tool is cost-effective, and it allows you to enjoy the benefit of being able to instantly get in touch with your loyal customers.

Offer Gift Cards

According to the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs, gift cards are used to purchase 18% of all gifts. Make sure to offer gift cards around the holidays, and you may even want to create an incentive offer that allows customers to receive a free gift card with the purchase of certain items.

Plan a Sale after the Holidays

The holiday shopping season is still in full swing the day after Christmas. ComScore noted that holiday sales totaled $7.1 billion on the day after Christmas last year, and you can give holiday shoppers the incentive to buy from you by offering special promotions or after-holiday discounts.

If you need to revitalize your marketing strategy, get started right away so that you can cash in on the holiday shopping extravaganza!

If you would like to learn more about our marketing services , please contact Net-Craft.com today.