After the busy Christmas period it’s likely that in the new year you’re going to see a slight drop in traffic, leads and sales. With customers well and truly spent up, avoiding anymore excess spending in order to pay off Christmas debts or even worse, customers returning items that they don’t want or need, for online retailers the new year period can be hard.
However it doesn’t have to be this way, unless you’re selling Christmas specific items, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be as competitive in the new year than throughout Christmas.
Announce An End of Season Sale
It’s common for stores to offer sales in the new year, from selling off Christmas stock to a more general end of season or end of line sale. Discovering old stock from the summer and autumn seasons, that might not have sold as well as you liked, as well as your leftover Christmas stock allows you to reach out to those looking to use Christmas money or gift cards, as well as bargain hunters looking for after Christmas discounts.
Launch New Products
New year is the perfect time to launch a new product or new range, while most businesses are recovering from the Christmas period, your business can easily grab consumers attention by showing off something completely new. A new product attracts people to your store without you necessarily having to cut your prices, encouraging people to your store right at the start of the year, building a strong customer base from the get go.
Don’t Go Quiet
You might be tempted to take it easy after Christmas, the festive season can be exhausting and January can seem like the best time to take a much deserved break, but don’t. Choosing to go quiet during the quiet months can lead to problems, the last thing you want is for your customers to forget about you, instead you should be aiming to keep engaging with your customers. Connecting with your customers one social media, your blogs and through email marketing are all ideal ways to remind customers of your existence throughout the year.
Retarget Christmas Customers
With Christmas comes an increase in customers and an even bigger increase in customer data. With more traffic and purchases, you may have seen more email addresses, order histories, abandoned carts, saved items and gained more insight into your audience demographic, which could all come in incredibly lucky. By engaging with these customers who have visited your site over Christmas you can retarget them and hopefully bring them back to your website at a later date.
Refresh Your Brand
As you would take your Christmas tree down in a brick and mortar store, with new year, comes a new opportunity to give your brand a little refresh. As your Christmas graphics and banners get taken down you can use this as a chance to show off new product images, new branding or even a site redesign. New year is the time of new life and new ventures, this shouldn’t have to stop at your website. Perhaps 2017 is the time to update your brand?
Who said it was impossible to generate sales in January? With a great plan, support and solid customer engagement, there’s no reason your profits shouldn’t be high throughout there year.
