New Year is a time when your existing and prospective buyers plan for the year ahead. Kick-start 2023 by planning and implementing effective marketing campaigns to boost your ecommerce business sales and stay ahead of the competition.
Discounts, coupons, and offers excite everyone and on average 4 out of 5 first-time buyers end up making a purchase once they receive an offer. We have put together a list of 10 effective promotional campaigns that will make heads turn and get your ecommerce business new sales.
Let’s dive in!
1. Google My Business offer posts
One of the most visited websites in the world, Google is not only a great search engine but also a great way to promote your business. The Google My Business account dashboard lets the owner create four distinct social media posts:
- Offers
- Updates
- Events
- Products
Google My Business post is a great feature that enables brands to connect with their customers directly. You can advertise a sale or special offer on your Business Profile using the “Add Offer” post type. These posts are a great way to inform your target consumers about ongoing offers and subtly nudge prospective buyers to check your website and make a purchase.
Stephen Einhorn, a London-based jewelry brand uses Google to promote certain product categories in the run-up to major sales events like Christmas. The link shared here takes the readers to a page where they can browse gift ideas.
2. Buy one, get one free deal campaign
One of the most common forms of advertising is the “buy one, get one free” (BOGO) promotion. Creating a sense of urgency by offering two popular products at a discounted price for a limited time can increase sales. Businesses commonly refer to buy one get one free (BOGO) promotions as “self-liquidating” because of the stock they can clear with them.
Customers who regularly buy Ahava products may want to take advantage of this sale and stock up. The layout is straightforward, and the CTA is easy to understand. There is an additional incentive to buy in bulk because of the free shipping offer.
3. Cashback campaign
Cashback campaigns are an effective way to retain customers, build loyalty programs, and drive more traffic to the website, especially during the holiday season and around New Year’s.
How does cashback work? Say a customer visits your website and purchases a product for $100. You give them $10 back in the form of wallet points or, you have set the campaign to use on the next purchase.
This way customers get a feeling that they have been rewarded for shopping on your website and since they have credits, they come back to your site again to make a purchase. A win-win for both customers and the brand.
4. Flash sales and discounts campaign
Who doesn’t like a bargain deal? Especially on high-priced products which they have been eyeing for a long time. Well, we are talking about flash sales here.
These are sales that ecommerce brands run on their website for a limited period of time varying from a few hours to days at the max. The discounts offered are significantly higher than other promotional offers. The hook here is the availability of the offer for a limited time, creating a sense of urgency among customers, often resulting in impulse buying.
Flash sales campaigns are a brilliant strategy to sell any excess stock lying within a brand. In fact, many ecommerce brands suggest that their sales grew almost 2x during the holiday season due to a flash sale campaign.
ColourPop Cosmetics, a leading ecommerce DTC brand does a brilliant job of announcing its flash sales. It clearly highlights the most important information in the copy which is, the duration of the sale, products on sale, the discount being offered, and the minimum selling price of the products on sale. Not to mention the beautiful color scheme.
5. Charitable cause campaign
If creating a more positive brand image in the new year is on your radar then the charitable cause marketing campaign can help you achieve that. Essentially, a charitable cause campaign is one in which a brand takes a stand on a social issue that is important to its target audience and works to raise awareness of the issue and funds to research and develop potential solutions. One can look at it as a collaboration between a for-profit and non-profit organization coming together to promote a cause and reap mutual benefits.
From a brand-building perspective, a socially responsible business will always grab more eyeballs, and existing like-minded customers are most likely going to stick around. Why? They believe that your ideology and beliefs are the same as theirs and the connection deep down becomes an emotional one.
TOMS is an ecommerce brand selling shoes, accessories, and apparel of which shoes is their most sought after product. They ran a shoe giveaway campaign on Instagram where for every bare feet pic posted with #withoutshoes by a user, the company gave away a pair of shoes to a needy child for free. They have been running this campaign once every year since they started in 2002 to remind its target audience of their mission of providing shoes to those without shoes.
6. Loyalty Program campaign
Loyalty campaigns is a marketing campaign where brand not only rewards but also recognizes customers who engage with or purchase from a brand on a regular basis. What better time to start a loyalty program than at the start of the year? It’s like setting the tone for the entire year ahead. The benefits of a loyalty program are way too many. A few benefits that really stand out for ecommerce businesses are
- Loyalty campaigns when done right urge the customer to post positive reviews and experiences, as user-generated content.
- A well-managed and executed loyalty program campaign can get a business many customer referrals.
- Retaining customers is always a more cost-effective option than acquiring new customers and loyalty programs boost customer retention in a big way.
Sephora has one of the best loyalty program campaigns named Beauty Insider Benefits. A free-to-join loyalty program, members earn one point for every dollar spent which can be redeemed to purchase beauty products, services, and one-of-a-kind experiences. Sephora offers a wide range of products that are redeemable on the Rewards Bazaar, and also updates their redeemable rewards every Tuesday and Thursday morning.
This ensures customers keep coming back to them and are engaged with the brand. Bonus: Base tier members also get to choose between 3 options for their free birthday gift.
7. Joint promotions campaign
Ecommerce is a crowded place and at times cutting through the noise alone can be difficult, to say the least. Especially around the holiday season and new year when everyone is running offers, discounts, and promotion campaigns. Joint promotion campaigns are a great way to reach out to new audiences. Two or more brands from different industries offering complementary products come together and launch a joint sales promotion campaign. This is because they both have a product that is different yet complements each other and hence the target consumer is the same.
It is a win-win situation for both brands as it not only helps them reach out to a larger audience, but also helps them save costs on sales and marketing.
Casper, a renowned online mattress brand, joined hands with the famous furniture giant West Elm for a retail presence. All display mattresses on beds across all West Elm stores are Casper mattresses. This way they could reach out to a whole new segment of customers who were otherwise reluctant to buy a mattress online without actually trying it. That too, without having to lease a retail space and setting it up. For West Elm they get more footfall in their stores as people considering buying a Casper mattress would come to try them and end up buying some West Elm stuff too. Guess what, West Elm does not need to buy mattresses to set up mock bedroom displays in the store, in short a win-win situation for both.
8. Social media contests or giveaways campaign
As per Statista, a whopping 4.26 billion people were using social media in 2021, and the number is set to reach 6 billion by 2027.
Since the majority of your target audience is probably already on social media, it has become one of the most efficient ways to communicate with them. Organizing social media contests or running a giveaway campaign is an effective way to keep customers engaged, reach out to a new audience, and drive more sales.
Running a giveaway contest especially makes sense and tends to get higher engagement around a particular time of the year such as Christmas, New Year, Easter, and more. Starbucks does a great job of announcing a give-away on their Instagram page by asking people to share their Light-up Red cup entries. A great way to gather user-generated content and get your audiences engaged at the start of the year.
9. Branded gifts or bundles campaign
Getting more for less is a great way to attract potential customers to purchase more. It helps increase the average order value, generates more sales, makes the overall customer experience smooth and is an effective hook for customers to return. Also, giving promotional product bundles to prospective customers for free is a brilliant way to acquire new customers.
Body Shop does a brilliant job of product bundling with its seasonal campaign. It creates a bundle of its most used products along with an advent calendar which the receiver can use as a planner for the next year, it also has designed a special packaging for the holiday season and aptly named it as the “The Box of Wishes & Wonders Ultimate Advent Calendar”.
10. Referral discounts campaign
While retaining existing customers is important and cost-effective for a business, acquiring new customers and expanding your customer base is equally important for long-term business growth and profitability. A great way of doing so is to offer referral discounts to your existing customers. Incentivize your existing customers by offering them wallet points or a discount coupon/gift voucher for their next purchase when a referral of their purchases from your website.
Evolve skateboards offers a 10% off discount voucher to a buyer for their next purchase when they make a referral, and the person referred gets $95 worth of products absolutely free.
Closing thoughts
Marketing campaigns for ecommerce business when done right have the power to incite the most powerful force in human behavior – consumer HABIT. A campaign well implemented and executed at the right time drives eCommerce sales and increases conversion rates. Many campaigns in addition to generating more sales can also significantly help in building a positive brand image translating to better customer outreach, new customer acquisition, and forging a strong emotional connect with existing customers.
Still thinking, which New Year marketing campaign to use. We had suggest you to use two or more campaigns and expand your business reach. Let us know your favorite pick in the comments.
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