21/12/2018
Tip of the week 3 – Running promotions
Promotions are essential in any eCommerce endeavour. Running those properly can propel your business to an entirely new level every now and then, and it can produce significant income to make your operations absolutely sustainable. The only problem is – many businesses make some crucial mistakes in this department and that hinders their efforts greatly.
There are two main reasons to run promotions in the first place – to seize a part of the cake during seasonal shopping sprees and to get rid of the stockpiled items. Considering the difference in motivation, the approaches in running promotions are considerable in these 2 cases.
Seasonal promotions
In seasonal promotions, you will be mostly targeting your entire portfolio. The events such as the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and New Year sales should include every single item in your portfolio and the discounts applied should be rather even.
Of course, discounts are not the only tool to promote your business, but it also includes vouchers and gift codes. Only the combination of all three gives a holistic approach to seasonal promotions. The key difference between the seasonal and “dumping” promotions is in the main goal of the entire campaign, and it is a logical thing to use a holistic approach in cases when you are involving your entire portfolio of products in it.
The channels used for these types of promotions should also include everything available that makes sense being used. To be more specific, these seasonal promotions should be announced everywhere, from social media, to blog sections of the websites, to being pushed using paid advertising on Google and their search partners.
Depending on the value of goods being sold and the expenses for the advertising, it is rather easy to determine which channels will pay off the most. Naturally, if there is any kind of previous feedback on the best working channels, this makes determining the most effective ways to promote so much easier.
Targeted promotions
Targeted promotions are somewhat different than seasonal promotions, and the key difference is in the goal of the entire campaign. Depending on whether the goal is to dump the surplus stock or to expand into the new market or a new channel, it relates to a different group of products within the portfolio.
In cases when you run promotions in order to expand into the new market or via a new channel, it requires a rather similar approach to the one used for seasonal promotions. It does, however, include only the best selling products that are likely to convert on a high level and that will contribute to the brand awareness.
When you are running promotions in order to get rid of the surplus stock, the approach is different. This case includes only the aforementioned products, and the channels for advertising are somewhat different. Newsletters are mandatory, but regarding the other channels, you should use only those that will provide fast conversions at minimal costs.
If you stick to these few simple rules, there should be no issues whatsoever and your promotions should provide the results you expected.