We’ve got more holiday planning tips and advice. And in this blog, we’re sharing our holiday traditions! Follow along as we continue to share our holiday planning roadmap. ‍

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Your hard work now will pay off. Follow Megan McNamara, Enterprise Account Manager’s foolproof holiday technical checklist for email.‍

• Verify all subscription points are working correctly.
• Ensure your mobile website is functioning and creates an ideal shopping experience.
• Confirm your product files are up to date and being delivered successfully to avoid discrepancies within product recommendations.
• Review the performance of your product recommendation algorithms and adjust as needed.
• Review your cart and browse abandonment triggers and update them as needed.
• Re-stock coupon pools and unique codes for peak days and double-check expiration dates.
• Update promotion terms & conditions to match holiday offers and expiration dates.

Don’t skip these dos, either.‍

• Update all creative elements to a holiday theme – Email: header, footer, Social: profiles images, Website: homepage, popups.
• Motivate shoppers to buy from you by differentiating yourself from the competition. Communicate and support your value proposition, e.g., curbside pickup, free shipping, easy returns, gift wrap, wish lists, guaranteed holiday delivery, payment options, customer service contact details, product reviews, etc.
• Think about cart value segmentation. Analyze your percent of traffic by cart value, and provide different messaging in cart abandonment messages to help drive conversions. Consider offering lower value carts value props for reassurance and cross-sells, and higher value carts value props and possible special offers.

We’ve seen the explosion of eCommerce, as we’ve recently lived through quarantine orders and social distancing. Kyle Newton, Account Manager, pulls together how-to prepare for high digital engagement and driving significant revenue with SMS this year.‍

• Desktop Popup: Consider offering a more aggressive incentive for the holiday season to differentiate yourself from the competition.
• Mobile Popup: Consider adding a mobile sticky button to show when the entrance popup is closed out. This provides consumers another opportunity to sign up and use the offer later in their shopping experience.
• Consider your popup prime real estate and communicate special holiday offers, exclusive sales, early access, and shipping deadlines.
• Test the timing of each popup and adjust based on your shopper’s engagement habits.
• Include an email sign-up call to action in your transactional emails, and as order activity increases, capture through your triggered campaigns.
• Update creative across your channels.
• If you have an SMS strategy, promote new holiday keywords on your website and within your email campaigns for customers to sign up for SMS holiday communications.
• Use a Tap to Join popup on mobile to maximize SMS sign-ups.
• Invite your email VIPs to subscribe to SMS, offering them exclusive access and extended discounts.
• Communicate big sale days via SMS: Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
• Use SMS to execute a daily deals campaign in early December.

Jake Pasini, Sr Director of Strategy Services, cautions all of the fierce competition expected this year.‍

• With many retailers announcing a change to Black Friday this year, businesses need to increase their eCommerce marketing efforts to succeed – email, SMS, cross-channel.
• Retailers need to start earlier than last year, market more than last year, and extend longer than last year.
• Use the most effective offer you’ve seen in the past and improve upon it.

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Stay tuned for strategies and tactics to maximize your holiday engagement.