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Ways brands can catch up this holiday season

The holiday shopping season 🛍 started very early this year. And, it has been predicted that in 2021 that buyers will spend more than in previous years, which will increase e-commerce sales by 14% year-on-year. 

Throughout the pandemic, new buying behaviors, expectations and preferences have emerged for shoppers regarding their groceries. Therefore, in order to catch up, brands must promote faster campaign tactics by striving to reach buyers earlier in the season so as not to risk losing sales to their competitors. 

For marketers who have fallen behind, there are three strategies that give them a chance to make up for lost time ⏰.

  • Be wherever a customer is shopping while remaining competitive 

Offers must be competitive because a key factor in consumers’ holiday buying decisions is the perception that they are getting the best value for money 🙌🏼.

Today, consumers are no longer necessarily loyal to their favorite brands. It’s easy for competitors to steal sales by running an ad with the right message at the right time. To fight against this, brands need to evaluate where the customers are in their customer journey and must be present with a valuable offer during the period between intention 💭 and purchase 💰, to retain their market share. This period refers to customers’ uncertainty, when decision-making becomes complex due to the large number of choices and information they can access.

In order to maintain a competitive market share, brands can strategically invest in a diverse group of partners such as influencers. This allows merchandise to be authentically presented and brings holiday products to a new and highly engaged audience. Brands can do this by following new trends in social content such as TikTok for personal storytelling 💬, Instagram for eye-catching visuals 👀, or Facebook for brand discovery💡. Alternatively, they can link to holiday-specific themed sites that rank high in SEO, such as those that include Black Friday in their URLs.

  • Be flexible in purchase and payment options

During the quarantine, customers were used to having choices. They have embraced the use of click-and-collect, in-app purchases, browser extension savings, and extensive payment solutions. These options are crucial for consumers. Revenues from click-and-collect and curbside pickup are expected to nearly double, from $ 72.6 billion in 2020 to nearly $ 141 billion by 2024 📈.

Therefore, in order to remain price competitive, brands can offer in-store or curbside site coupons and at the same time allow them to test usage 👍🏼. Also, to help brands remove a barrier to conversion at the bottom of the marketing funnel, they can use Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) services, which allow buyers to pay for their purchases over time by interest-free installments 💵. In 2021, the use of BNPL services has increased by more than 80% compared to 2020.

  • Implement mobile and app-based strategies

Encouraging mobile app downloads and capturing mobile app sales with technology is leading to increasingly transparent consumer experiences and better results📱.

Mobile shopping usage this holiday season is forecast to rise up 19% to $ 97.15 billion. As a result, partnership and marketing channels require robust mobile strategies in order to reach connected shoppers throughout the buying journey, from discovery 👀 to checkout💰.

A good tactic for making brand awareness initiatives effective is to activate the promotional cadence for one week, then deactivate it the following week. This is because seeing a sale or promotion early on captures consumers’ attention during the discovery phase, and boosting the promotion soon after can help secure the conversion.