How will you encourage online sales this holiday season? With many students possibly not coming back after Thanksgiving, it is important to have a plan to help drive traffic to your website. We have put together five ideas to help you engage customers and drive website traffic.
Five online promotions
- Bonus time
Makeup counters in department stores are most crowded when they offer a free gift with purchase. College stores can do the same. Select some older inventory that you want to get rid of and turn it into a free gift with purchase promotion. This will encourage more sales and website traffic.
Simply, set the parameters for this giveaway: when will it run, will there be a minimum purchase amount required, etc. Start advertising the event ASAP to build up excitement. Send emails, share it on social media and use any of your normal advertising channels to help spread the word about this great deal. - Secret Santa Sale
Holidays surprises can be a really fun part of the season. Set up Secret Santa care packs that people can order through the store website and ship to anyone they choose. You can offer a variety of care packs. Consider themes like self-care, game night, movie night, etc. This encourages people to send gifts to friends or family members they haven’t been able to see as much as they would like this year and maybe reach out to people who might be having a hard time this holiday season. - ‘tis the season for charity
A simple way to help customers give back and encourage people to buy from your store is to partner with a local charity. Give customers the opportunity to round up for charity on their holiday purchases. This not only gives back to the community, but it also helps encourage people to check out what the bookstore has to offer. - Holiday sale doorbusters
Even though people might not be able to come into your store, you can still offer fun holiday sales. Select some doorbuster items and set up online ads on Facebook, Instagram and Google, letting people know about the sale and the limited quantities available. A good doorbuster deal might get people on your site to see what else you have available. - Email campaign with specific gift suggestions
According to the Holiday Report: 2020 Pricing and Shopping trends, 70 percent of U.S. consumers will actively seek promotions and coupons this holiday season. Take advantage of this by sending promotions and coupons to different segments of your mailing list. However, you don’t have to stop there.
A lot of people aren’t sure what to give this holiday season. Offer suggestions that might help shoppers in the emails. For example, if you are emailing students, offer suggestions for gifts that their parents might like. If you have a parent email list, offer suggestions for the bestselling products for students. By personalizing the emails for each group, you can quickly show shoppers that the college store has items for everyone.
Gift guides and promo codes could also be added to your emails about end-of-term buyback and rental return. That way you still give students the information without increasing the number of emails you send out.
