Q4 Ecommerce Strategy: Tips to Get Your Business Ready for Q4
By Abhinav Girdhar | Last Updated on March 31st, 2024 8:28 am | 4-min read
For online retailers, the end of the year is when they generate a significant portion of business revenue. Holidays and events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas falling in the Q4, give eCommerce businesses of all sizes to grow their online sales. Many online sellers, especially those who are not having a solid action plan, find it hard to keep up with this holiday season. According to Google, up to 50% of this year’s sales will likely happen during the holiday shopping season. Your marketing efforts during Q4 could make or break your fiscal year.
To create an effective marketing plan for Q4, your ecommerce calendar is more important than anything. Q4 is packed with festivals and holidays that you should use to grab customers and boost online sales. As a result, it's critical to know when these holidays are. A well-organized marketing calendar can be a great tool for knowing when to launch new campaigns through social media and other digital marketing channels. With competition so tight, you must strategically target holidays and events throughout Q4 to successfully grow your online business.
According to studies, 57 percent of online retailers notice an increase in sales during this quarter each year. So, every online store needs to create a solid marketing calendar to take advantage of the opportunity and avoid any last-minute hassle. Creating a calendar will keep you on track. After all, without a strategy, you’re rushing around and wasting time deciding on what to do next.Whether you’re selling luxury items or books, show your customers what your product is all about. Professional videos give you a competitive advantage in the marketplace and drive traffic & increase conversions. it can attract potential customers to your website, increase sales and turn cold traffic into hot leads.
Make videos to highlight your product. If you have a great product with features making it better than the rest, you should have a video to display this for all to see. Infomercials work so well because they’re considered more effective than just simple videos. They take the best features of a product and focus on them in an entertaining way that draws people in. if you’re unsure how to make a compelling product video, follow these tips: Conversions are abetted by a well-designed eCommerce checkout process. You've put in a lot of effort to get people to visit your eCommerce site. You've spent a lot of time and money selecting and developing your items, writing marketing copy that speaks directly to your ideal customers, and creating a clear and straightforward purchasing path. If your checkout page is not well-designed, all your efforts and money can go in vain.
According to the Baymard study, the average cart abandonment rate is over 70%. In upcoming years, one out of every five customers will have abandoned their shopping basket owing to a "very long/difficult checkout process."
Through ensuring that your checkout process is smooth and easy to navigate is of paramount importance. If your checkout process is simple and easy to navigate you can convert those would-be-abandons into valuable sales.
Here's how to make your eCommerce checkout process more efficient and provide your customers with a pleasant shopping experience: If you’re not upselling to your customers, you’re missing out on a LOT of revenue. Upselling has been shown to improve eCommerce revenue by up to 30%, with targeted product recommendations accounting for up to 30% of sales. Furthermore, selling to existing customers is far easier than selling to new consumers. Therefore, there is no reason why upselling and cross-selling shouldn't be a part of your business strategy.
You might be surprised to know that most major firms are already utilizing these two qualities, albeit in a subtle way. According to a study, the top three factors that can improve customer experience include improving customer retention (42%), improving customer satisfaction (33%), and increasing cross-selling and upselling opportunities (32%).
Here are 8 last-minute strategies to help you make the most of Q4
Tip #1 - Pay Attention To Your Calendar
To create an effective marketing plan for Q4, your ecommerce calendar is more important than anything. Q4 is packed with festivals and holidays that you should use to grab customers and boost online sales. As a result, it's critical to know when these holidays are. A well-organized marketing calendar can be a great tool for knowing when to launch new campaigns through social media and other digital marketing channels. With competition so tight, you must strategically target holidays and events throughout Q4 to successfully grow your online business.
According to studies, 57 percent of online retailers notice an increase in sales during this quarter each year. So, every online store needs to create a solid marketing calendar to take advantage of the opportunity and avoid any last-minute hassle. Creating a calendar will keep you on track. After all, without a strategy, you’re rushing around and wasting time deciding on what to do next.Tip #2 - Distribute Your Marketing Budget Carefully
Your marketing budget is most likely one of your biggest expenses. But how you spend it can have a big impact on the success of your brand. To ensure you get the most bang for your buck, think carefully about how to divide your budget among different platforms. A carefully considered budget ensures that your marketing efforts go as far as possible. Therefore, it is extremely important to be careful about how you spend your marketing budget. To allocate your marketing budget strategically, you should look at the best social, search, display platforms to buy media for your brand. Google Analytics can help you here to get accurate data. However, it is highly recommended to spend 90% money on cold traffic and 10% on re-targeting. Re-targeting can be more effective than reaching out to a fresh audience in some cases. On top of that, retargeting efforts are cheap compared to most types of online advertising. You should re-target those who have:- Visited your site in the 365 days
- Visited your specific product category
- Brought from in the past 6 months
- Clicked on your ads on social media
- Followed you on any social media platform
- Abandoned their cart
Tip #3 Make Compelling Product Video
Whether you’re selling luxury items or books, show your customers what your product is all about. Professional videos give you a competitive advantage in the marketplace and drive traffic & increase conversions. it can attract potential customers to your website, increase sales and turn cold traffic into hot leads.
Make videos to highlight your product. If you have a great product with features making it better than the rest, you should have a video to display this for all to see. Infomercials work so well because they’re considered more effective than just simple videos. They take the best features of a product and focus on them in an entertaining way that draws people in. if you’re unsure how to make a compelling product video, follow these tips: - Set your goals for your product video
- Identify your target audience and value proposition
- Talk to your customers.
- Take ideas from your competitors
- Talk benefits, not features
- Choose words that reinforce your central idea
- Get an outsider’s point of view
- Have a compelling call-to-action (CTA)
Tip #4 - Perform Website Optimization and Testing
Another key strategy that is an essential part of any eCommerce plan is to optimize and test your website. Make sure your website is mobile and tablet-friendly. Check out how your site looks on mobile devices. Ideally, you should have a mobile app. Appy Pie's no-code mobile app builder allows anyone to create you can use to create a mobile app for an eCommerce store in just a few minutes. During the holiday shopping season, your website may see a large boost in visitors. If your website gets an unexpected spike in the number of visitors over a short period, how well are you equipped to handle it? Therefore, it's a good idea to do tests ahead of time to ensure that your website can manage a spike in traffic without crashing.Tip #5 - Make Your Checkout Experience Smooth
Conversions are abetted by a well-designed eCommerce checkout process. You've put in a lot of effort to get people to visit your eCommerce site. You've spent a lot of time and money selecting and developing your items, writing marketing copy that speaks directly to your ideal customers, and creating a clear and straightforward purchasing path. If your checkout page is not well-designed, all your efforts and money can go in vain.
According to the Baymard study, the average cart abandonment rate is over 70%. In upcoming years, one out of every five customers will have abandoned their shopping basket owing to a "very long/difficult checkout process."
Through ensuring that your checkout process is smooth and easy to navigate is of paramount importance. If your checkout process is simple and easy to navigate you can convert those would-be-abandons into valuable sales.
Here's how to make your eCommerce checkout process more efficient and provide your customers with a pleasant shopping experience: - Allow guests to check out
- Make use of Google Autocomplete.
- Display Errors Using Inline Validation
- Show the Checkout Status
- Showcase Any Available Offers or Coupon Codes
- Don't limit yourself to simply credit and debit cards.
- Offer Social Login
Tip #6 - Know Your Top Sellers
The rule of thumb is to sell what is selling and sell even more. You may have got hundreds of product categories on your eCommerce store. But you don’t get an equal number of sales for each category. So, you need to identify which category outperforms others. Once you know your top-selling, you need to promote them the most. To find your top sellers, you need to consider various things such as historical product data, potential success in the future, cumulative sales, etc. Of course, there is much more that you need to consider while deciding on top-selling categories, but these are some of the most basic forms of data that can help.Tip # 7- Be Prepared to Upsell
If you’re not upselling to your customers, you’re missing out on a LOT of revenue. Upselling has been shown to improve eCommerce revenue by up to 30%, with targeted product recommendations accounting for up to 30% of sales. Furthermore, selling to existing customers is far easier than selling to new consumers. Therefore, there is no reason why upselling and cross-selling shouldn't be a part of your business strategy.
You might be surprised to know that most major firms are already utilizing these two qualities, albeit in a subtle way. According to a study, the top three factors that can improve customer experience include improving customer retention (42%), improving customer satisfaction (33%), and increasing cross-selling and upselling opportunities (32%).Tip #8 - Improve Your Website Security
Website security is a non-negotiable feature of any eCommerce store. If your eCommerce website security is not up to mark, it can be a more lucrative target for cyberattacks. So, you must secure your website, which entails putting safeguards in place to prevent hackers, malware, and other internet pests from infiltrating it. Otherwise, your data may be compromised, your website may fail, and you may even lose money. Fortunately, there are a few basic steps you can take to improve the security of your website. Let's look at a few of the most popular ones including:- Make your website compliant with PCI DSS standards
- Take and maintain regular backups
- Use a content delivery network
- Select a safe web host
- Add SSL certificate
- Select a secure eCommerce platform
- Secure user access
- Don't store important information
- Test for vulnerabilities
- Ensure that your website complies with regularity bodies
- Take and keep backups regularly
- Make use of a content delivery network (CDN)
Final Thoughts
Prepare for the Q4 early so you can have a more successful and stress-free period. Planning for your final quarter can help you in avoiding costly mistakes that will affect both the company and you personally. Early planning for Q4 puts your company in a far better position for success without sacrificing too much. If you want to boost your eCommerce sales in this Q4, you should use Appy Pie Connect. Appy Pie Connect helps you time and money by driving eCommerce sales with automated workflows between your online store and the tools you use every day. Integrate over 300 apps and automate eCommerce operation in minutes- no coding required.Related Articles
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