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Four Pitfalls Retailers to Avoid During the Coming Holidays
This year’s big holiday season is approaching and as usual brands irrespective of size are planning already and are currently just fine-tuning their strategies for success. Brands especially from the retail industry are trying their best to woo customers to come into their stores. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), US retail industry will witness a 4.1 percent growth, which is the largest since the year 2011. NRF’s digital retail division Shop.org is forecasting 8-11 percent growth in e-retailing and popularity of mobile devices will play a significant role in this year’s holiday shopping season. For retailers, holiday seasons are considered as a massive opportunity, but many industry experts say that there are a few pitfalls that seem to occur every year and here are solutions to overcome these dangers.
Planning Your Advertising Budget
You must know that there is a limit to the spending in advertising and once the advertising budget is set, retail brands need to understand how spend will be allocated. It is important that ads of a retail brand are displayed during peak shopping and purchasing times. When it comes to showing important dates during holiday shopping seasons, you can visit Google’s blogspot which displays a very helpful calendar. Too often the retail industry sees many brands have their ad campaigns hit budget caps and that during the regular part of the year. They would never come close to hitting, but during holiday those bets are off.
When you set your advertising budget for this year’s shopping season, first you need to review your spending to make sure that the budget is matched to consumer demand. If there is a huge spike in volume that was all part of a retail brand’s ad campaign, Google will flag it as a fraudulent activity and your Google Ads account will be deactivated for hours or for the whole day. So, if you are planning for really big spending plans, it is recommended that you approach your online advertising agency ahead of time to let the firm know your plans.
Advertising Your Products via Mobile Platform
Even as mobile advertising is gaining more trust every year, many retailers still struggle with the true value of mobile to their business. According to many surveys, currently retailers’ mobile traffic is between 10-20 percent and during this holiday season, you can expect the shopping behavior will be based on mobile, as show-rooming and fast transactions happen. To understand how customers interact with the mobile platform to make purchase decisions, you can use Google’s consumer barometer tool. For getting results as per your desired expectations, it is advised to include mobile in your overall advertising campaign planned for this holiday season.
No Change in Promotions
You may be thinking that you know what will sell and what people want, but in truth, it is really hard to predict as the day goes on. For instance, if it is running out of a size, or a promotion requires to change, how this data be managed? What search queries or campaigns need to be waited to stop spending on these things? What ad copy requires to be changed to reflect only current affairs? Many advertising experts find mapping the campaign structure to category or naming particular offers is significant in making this process much more responsive as things change.
Issuing an Escalation Strategy
You may probably hear shocking stories from others, even if it is your first holiday shopping experience. The retail website goes down, the wireless connection at your home goes down, or any other number of crazy things will occur. When this problem occurs, what will you do? What is the phone tree to escalate problems? How will the team interact throughout the day? When a problem occurs, who is “on call” at 3 a.m.? Planning ahead is the crucial strategy when you and the team face potential issues. You can learn from brands which found success through proper planning which prevented them from performing poorly.
There are many reliable online marketing service providers which have a team of experts who are ready to help you with advertising and marketing packages that are customized as per your marketing and budget specifications.
