8 holiday outdoor brand marketing ideas
Of course, the tactics brands employ to spur holiday sales can differ greatly from those used throughout the rest of the year — and the best approaches for outdoor brands can differ from those used in other market segments.
Does your outdoor e-commerce brand have a direct-to-consumer (DTC) focus, and is it looking to boost seasonal DTC sales? Consider these eight tips for increasing your outdoor brand’s holiday DTC sales — and for making your brand’s bottom line merrier and brighter during the holiday season:
1. Get your website in the holiday spirit
Significant portions of your website visitors over the holiday season will be there looking for Christmas-gift inspiration or seeking to make their gift purchases, so try to think of ways to make your holiday offers stand out. For example, a new homepage banner could prominently showcase your seasonal sales and specials, and you could create a special page on your website devoted specifically to spotlighting all of your holiday-specific offerings.
2. … and ready for the seasonal surge
During the season of shopping, you can expect extra traffic on your outdoor brand’s website — especially if you offer sales and specials on shopping-focused days such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And if your site isn’t ready to handle the surge, the resulting slow page loads and gateway errors could quickly lead consumers to look elsewhere. Before the seasonal surge sets in, spend some time getting your website ready to handle the added traffic by taking such steps as improving your page-load times, ensuring you have no broken links or 404 errors, confirming your site’s mobile-friendliness, and cutting back on any ad-network trackers or other contributors to slow page-load speeds.
3. Broaden consumers’ options for purchasing
Today’s consumers have grown accustomed to having a lot of different ways to pay, from credit and debit cards to digital wallets, bank transfers, prepaid cards, cash on delivery, mobile payments and even cryptocurrency. And in some cases, consumers will even actively seek out and prioritize brands that offer their favored form of payment. To help ensure that your outdoor brand’s e-commerce store captures as many of these consumers’ business as possible, aim to provide as many payment options as possible during your checkout process. (To make the process easy for brands, various e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, Wix, Square Online and BigCommerce can help deliver the needed resources.)
4. … with buy now pay later (BNPL) among them
Especially during the holiday season, when consumers’ budgets are often spread thin due to all their holiday-related spending, a buy now pay later (BNPL) financing option can be attractive to budget-conscious consumers. By allowing buyers to finance their purchases and spread the payments out over several installments with no added interest or fees (as long as on-time payments are made), BNPL can also help your outdoor brand boost its holiday revenues by converting consumers who might otherwise opt against completing their purchases. (At TBA Outdoors, we’ve found success for our clients by working with Affirm and Afterpay to provide BNPL options.)
5. Step up your fulfillment staffing
Of course, if all your efforts to increase holiday-season sales go well, you’ll have your plate full with fulfillment duties throughout the season — especially in the wake of Black Friday and as the big day draws near. To help ensure that you don’t fall behind on getting customers’ orders out the door, use your sales data from previous holiday seasons to try to forecast how much extra help you’ll need for fulfillment duties, and staff up ahead of time accordingly.
6. Provide delivery-date estimates on your product pages
Especially for those who are shopping late in the holiday season, delivery timing is critical, as after the big day is too late. And by clearly providing an estimated delivery date on your product pages, you can increase your conversion rates and revenues by assuring consumers that their gifts will meet the delivery deadline. Keep in mind that the estimated delivery date will need to factor in both the fulfillment time and the delivery time, and that you’ll want to make sure that you can make good on your delivery-date promises to avoid aggravating customers.
7. … and offer expedited shipping options
Those who wait until the last minute to place their orders know that time is of the essence. And often, just to check that particular gift off the list, they’re more than willing to pay upcharges for expedited shipping. In these situations, if you don’t offer a way to get your product there on time, the prospective customer will find someone else who will. To ensure that you don’t miss out on these late-in-the-game sales and the added revenues they can bring, be sure to provide shoppers with an expedited delivery option if you don’t already offer one.
8. Create holiday promotions with added value
Seasonal sales are a great way to draw in more consumers and boost your holiday numbers. And by adding extra value to your seasonal offers, you can make them even more effective. For example, to help your brand lure in more new customers during the holidays, consider offering a starter pack that could get a new-to-your-niche customer off and running for a discounted price. As a case in point, for an outdoor brand that sells fishing gear, such a value-added offer could expand on a great rod and reel deal by including fishing line, lures, a tackle box and other accessories in a discounted “everything a beginner needs to get started fishing” package. When customers do make a purchase, your brand could offer a promo code for a percentage off a second purchase. Or, to create the potential for even more sales and new prospects, you could offer customers a percentage off a future purchase for themselves and a friend with a “send this discount code to a friend for X% off your next order and theirs.”
Looking for help boosting your outdoor brand’s direct-to-consumer revenues — just in time to make your holiday-season sales brighter? The marketing pros at TBA Outdoors are experts in implementing and executing all the powerful tactics outlined above, plus plenty more. Whether you’re looking for help in areas ranging from analytics and creative to social media, e-commerce, public relations and more, our fully integrated marketing firm can deliver it — all in one place.
To explore how we can help your outdoor brand amplify the effectiveness of its DTC efforts and lots more, reach out to our team of marketing professionals today.
