So you’re not exactly the best planner when it comes to social media. Everything is just off-the-cuff or when you get around to doing it. Although the clock is ticking on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, there’s still time for you to leverage your network of friends, fans and followers this holiday season to help boost your online sales.
Instead of throwing in the towel on holiday shopping and missing out on online sales for your business, I’ve put together a collection of 5 last-minute ways you can give your online shopping sales a boost.
What’s great is that these are items you can start implementing today or even tomorrow (after you’ve had your fill of Turkey and stuffing).
Remember, if you have trouble implementing any of these items, don’t hesitate to contact me for help.
Let’s get started with 5 last-minute ways you can give your online store a boost in website traffic and online sales this holiday season.
Use promoted posts on your Facebook Page
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Facebook Promoted Posts, they’re a way to get more of your fans to notice your posts in their news feed. Facebook Promoted Posts will also show up higher in a persons news feed. To use them, all you need to do is create a post on your Facebook Page and then promote it. It’s really that simple.
What’s the catch? The only catch with Facebook Promoted Posts is that they are not free. The typical cost is between $10 and $20 – a great deal if you ask me to help get your message out there to your fans. For those of you who want a quick tutorial on how to use Facebook Promoted Posts, here’s a video that covers everything you need to know to promote your Facebook posts.
Email your friends
Having someones email address is Internet gold. What this means is that you pretty much have direct access to them. While I don’t condone sending out a mass email to everyone on your email list, what I do recommend is to create a list of 5-10 of your most loyal friends. Compose separate emails to them (you can copy and paste the same information, just remember to replace their name).
In your email, let them know how excited you are about Thanksgiving (or any upcoming holiday) and then get down to business. Be sure that in your email you include any graphics along with any links to products. Additionally, don’t bombard the recipient with too many links.
While I realize you have lots of things to share with them, remember, you’re in a time crunch so keep things brief.
Here’s a checklist on what to include in your email to your friends:
- Salutation
- Subject line (Ex: Black Friday Deals, Cyber Monday Deals, etc)
- 3-4 sentences on why you are emailing them
- 1-2 links (that you have tested)
- A call to action
- A thank you note
Update your email signature
One of the most overlooked areas that we forget to leverage is our email signature. If you’re emailing your friends, be sure you have your email signature updated. I’m not talking about just updating your email signature on your main email account. Also update your email signature on your iOS devices or tablets while you’re at it.
So what links should you include in your email signature? Here are a few recommended items:
- Name
- Phone number
- Website address
- 1-2 social networks
Schedule out posts
While I don’t recommend scheduling out every post to your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn accounts, when you’re in a pinch (like you are now), Hootsuite is my favorite site to use. To schedule a post, all you need to do is add your social networks you want to schedule a post to, type out your update, select your network along with a day and time and click schedule. There’s also an autoschedule option, which will do everything for you except select the networks.
Create a flyer
This last option is an easy one to help bring offline shoppers online. It will take a little work on your part – editing the flyer and then posting it in obvious places, but the great thing is that they can pay BIG rewards because you have the opportunity to reach a lot of people in a short amount of time. Now magnify that when they tell their friends. BOOM!
To help you out, I’ve created a sales flyer – download flyer. To use it, simply edit the fields and replace the website with your own. When you’re finished, print out a few copies and head to your nearest Starbucks.
Note: be sure to ask them for permission before posting anything.
Whew! That wasn’t so bad now was it? 5 last-minute ways to boost website traffic and ecommerce sales this holiday season. Now imagine if you got ahead of the holidays?
What other last-minute ways do you use to get the word out about your online store? Leave a comment below.