Mother’s Day can generate substantial revenue for fashion and lifestyle merchants. In this post, I’ll offer 18 tactics and strategies to spur ecommerce sales during this important shopping holiday.
Products and Packaging
Add products. Merchants should add new products that appeal to moms, stepmoms, and godmothers. IF you cannot create an entire line, consider adding gift items to existing categories.
Create gift sets and baskets. Every holiday — especially Mother’s Day — is an excellent time to bundle your products, create gift baskets, and make additional site categories to increase your average order. Gift sets should appeal to varied demographic segments and price points.
Deploy upsells and cross-sells. A compelling upsell strategy for Mother’s Day is critical. Suggest gift sets and baskets to everyone who shops in your store during the Mother’s Day season. Also, add relevant cross-sell items in the checkout that also function as standalone gifts. For example, if you sell apparel or beauty, an exclusive candle can be either a cross-sell item or a present by itself.
Use special packaging. Mothers are women. They value beauty and attention. Customized gift tissue, wraps, plastic bags, and hand-written cards will cost you a couple of extra dollars, but they will perform miracles. Those items will also save your customers’ time in wrapping and presentation.
Also, include a free quality gift in every order. Making an order look like a present and including a free stylish gift dramatically decreases return rates.
Gift baskets, gift sets, and special packaging are among the many promotions that appeal to Mother’s Day shoppers.
Marketing
For any holiday promotion, merchants with limited budgets and personnel should concentrate on customer retention rather than a separate acquisition strategy. Large retailers should run Mother’s Day pay-per-click campaigns, shopping feeds, and Facebook ads.
Make a separate website category. Your site must have a specialized, keyword-optimized category for any major holiday. It will create a better customer experience and help with search engine optimization.
Place a keyword-based gift guide on the website. Having a gift guide is a common ecommerce practice. But in 2018 this tactic should provide an excellent value to shoppers.
Gift guides can come in different forms, such as a graphic, an infographic, a blog post, a downloadable document, or a video. The guide should list products and showcase their benefits.
Also, comprehensive gift guides can attract links and otherwise perform well in search rankings. Influencers and social media users can refer to them, too.
Lead magnets can be very productive for online merchants. Retail customers appreciate valuable information. They will exchange their email address in exchange for ebooks, guides, and other helpful collateral. Providing worthwhile content also generates trust from shoppers. It can separate a niche retailer from a massive competitor.
Produce videos for YouTube. Repurposing your gift guide or lead magnets into YouTube videos will create exposure. (YouTube is the second largest search engine, after all.) If you don’t have a guide, shoot videos of your latest collection or product line with explanations of benefits.
Follow common video-optimization practices of using keywords (including file names) and writing original descriptions. Also, consider little-known tactics such as front-loading keywords, generating engagement (especially comments), using a small number of highly specific tags, creating eye-catching thumbnails, and making your video longer rather than shorter. Consider using extended descriptions — i.e., mini-blog posts.
Launch a dedicated Pinterest board. A Mother’s Day board on Pinterest will produce constant traffic. Even if Pinterest is not a primary social media outlet for your company, with few or no followers, your board will still generate traffic from the Mother’s Day-related keywords.
Use on-site marketing. Place promotions on your website and make them highly visible. They should be smaller, however, than exclusive offers for existing customers.
Emphasize email marketing. Increase the frequency of promotional emails to compete with other retailers. If shoppers value your store, they will happily receive your emails. Also:
- List the benefits of your products and your store in every promotional email. This could include, for example, providing gift wrapping, free gifts, and free returns and exchanges.
- Segment emails by time zones to send them at the best hour for conversions.
- Include special offers and cross-sells in all transactional emails.
- Make abandoned cart emails a significant part of your Mother’s Day strategy.
Consider influencer marketing. If you have relationships with influencers, let them run your campaigns. But avoid testing new audiences, as Mother’s Day shoppers tend to buy from merchants that they trust.
Social media. Beyond Pinterest and YouTube, which I’ve discussed above, consider these social strategies.
- Instagram. Split your gift guide into series of Instagram posts and use branded and longer-tail non-branded hashtags. Mix informational and promotional posts.
- Facebook Group. If you have an engaged community, a Facebook Group can be one of the best places for Mother’s Day promotions. If not, start building your group now to prepare for an upcoming holiday.
- Snapchat. Showcase your Mother’s Day products.
Retarget visitors to your website with appealing ads and offers on Facebook and Google search.
Local SEO. List your promotions and products on Google My Business.
Shipping and Customer Service
Offer shipping promotions. Offer free ground shipping 10-12 days before Mother’s Day and free 2-day shipping a few days beforehand. If you have sufficient margins, offer overnight shipping a day or two before Mother’s Day to attract last-minute shoppers. Make all shipping promotions prominent in all categories and shipping-policy pages.
Free returns and first exchanges. This will attract and comfort shoppers.
Enhance customer service. Consider using a 24/7 call center during the Mother’s Day shopping period. Otherwise, extend your customer service hours and make sure to answer all questions on social media within 30 minutes.