I’ll get right to the point on this post – it will be to things you can do by the end of the day and go into the weekend with 4 terrific proven winning tactics for converting visitors to customers on the holidays
Free Shipping
One of my favorite images to show and elaborate on this time of year is from Google Trends – it shows the volume of searches that include the term “free shipping” – From Oct to late December this goes parabolic. If you aren’t offering Free Shipping, you missing out on this wave. Offer it. PROMOTE the heck out of it on your LP’s for the Holidays!
After the Holidays you can rotate it with another promotion but from Oct – Jan – you need to promote this front and center.
Security Badges
One overlooked, but impossibly important tactic for converting visitors to customers on eCommerce landing pages is making the visitor feel comfortable. With everyone SCREAMING for their attention, the site who makes them feel more comfortable and safe is the one who gets them to the “thank you for your order” page. Let the customer know you take them and their privacy seriously. The easiest way to do this is show them the ways you protect your site with the badges from you SSL provider. Usually a call or email to your webhost will provide you the image and the code you need to have your web resources implement this – it’s very common and very easy to implement. A few of the most common and recognized SSL images are below. 
Another great practice in terms of visitor comfort is to add a link to a privacy policy. PLEASE NOTE that you need to open this in an overlay window (like the images you see when clicked on this page) so you don’t send them away from the LP, confuse them and risk losing them.
Incentive – Coupon
Coupons and promotions are the best things to test, and incidentally one of the best conversion tactics you can apply to your LP’s. A great one is a First Time Buyer (FTB) coupon, or a tell a friend and receive a discount works terrific! But there are many ways to do and track this – that will be a separate detailed post – but if you would like more info – inbox me and I will get back to you personally. BUT for the holidays, in addition to free shipping if you have a coupon code like HOLIDAY or SANTA or something corny – you will be pleased with the uses this gets. Most shopping carts (like Volusion) will allow you to set rules so a coupon can only be used once, or on certain orders etc, but the more it gets used – the more orders you get – so opening it wide open for the holidays isn’t a bad idea.
A few coupon/discount ideas:
- Today Only (this works great when not over-used)
- First Time Buyer
- Tell a Friend
- Orders over a certain amount
Last but not least “Holiday Theme”
some people say “ugh” to this – but if it didn’t work you wouldn’t see everything Photoshopped to be so “Christmasy” on all major online retailers. You don’t have to go nuts and make every page snow, but a subtle bow or package will suffice. Best Buy has a great, but tame package image on the homepage that doesn’t overwhelm but fits the bill nicely -
A couple great examples -
Cabelas has the FREE SHIPPING, the Incentive, and the Gift coming out of the mailbox – all excellent.
Best Buy has the FREE SHIPPING & Holiday themed imagery, and they rotate and test different promotions (PCs’ HD TV’s etc.)
Don’t forget the Invoice/Thank you page with sharing options so the new customer can continue to follow you.
Get these 4 tactics in place (today) – test them and watch your conversions grow.
Email me if you need help or have questions
