Do you have any advice on how to best plan for up-coming holiday season? What would be the best time to start promoting for Halloween and Christmas?

Maybe it’s too early yet but I can’t wait for shoppers to come back online after rather quite summer period

I do sell all kinds of products on eBay, mainly As Seen On TV stuff and similar goods (many orders go as gifts).

Best, Nigel (UK)

Hi Nigel,

Thanks for your question.

You’re absolutely right! And no, it’s not too early to plan out your up-coming marketing activities for holiday season. Halloween is just right round the corner, Xmas shopping madness following shortly after.

What you want to do is put together (NOW) a clear plan on all marketing activities you plan to execute till the end of this year. So that too many promotions do not overlay at same time, causing more confusion than good. I would personally stick with weekly or bi-weekly promotions, anything longer and customers lose that “urgency” feeling.

In fact, recently I’ve had some really great results with Weekend Only or even one/two day specials. If you can give a good offer AND create that urgency at the same time, you’re onto a winner!

So, just take a calendar (online or printed one) and put your ideas into schedule! Once you have a plan ready, you can effectively plan stock levels, marketing materials (you’ll probably want to create some cool looking HTML e-mails to use for promotions, maybe even flyers or Google Ads)

What kind of promotions you could offer? I’d say your niche (As Seen on TV Stuff) is very handy for all kinds of marketing activities as products are usually problem solvers and your margins should be good as well. Here’s a list of popular marketing strategies I use for my own businesses:

• FREE Shipping
• Buy 1 get 1 FREE
• SALE (Everything must Go!)
• FREE Guide/DVD
• FREE Accessories
• Deal Of The Week
• Extended, FREE Warranty
• No Questions asked, 2 way postage paid (try our products out, risk free)
• VIP Club (special, long term discount scheme)
• Double points for your existing royalty program
• FREE Gift Wrapping

FINALLY – don’t forget to track results for each campaign (you should be able to do this via your shopping cart, using special links OR you can use Google Analytics link tracking feature which allows you to create custom, traceable links for promotions like these.) You really want to know what works and what not, so that you can maximize ROI for future promotions.

Hope this helps!

Thanks,
Andrew

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