With the holiday season fast approaching, you might want to plan ahead and use holiday tool sales now for maximum sales.
Customers are going stir-crazy over the holidays. They shop for decorations, buy presents for their loved ones, and treat themselves to pleasures to make these days even more festive. For businesses, this equals the busiest periods of the year.
Still, if you want to hop onto the profit train during the holiday season, you need to be smart about this - and do it right. What does it mean - do it right?
This guide is not a list of tips that could potentially make this season a big success for you. Instead, we’ll tell you exactly which tools you need to make it simple and very effective - and throw in some tips afterward.
But first, where are you selling?
Where are you currently selling? Do you still sell solely in-store or are you selling online, too?
During the holidays, many people still prefer the in-store shopping experience. Even so, ecommerce sales show no signs of backing down, even during this season.
The numbers for ecommerce are expected to get to $1 trillion, and sales in the sector will hit 20.4% of all retail sales worldwide.
This is double the numbers from five years ago, which means that your odds of selling more grow if you sell online, too.
Top 15 tools to help you boost holiday sales
If you are looking for ways to boost holiday sales in-store and online, you’ve come to the right place. Here are the must-have tools for businesses that will thrive this season:
Imagine having all these tools in your arsenal! This list has everything you need to create a great strategy to boost holiday sales. Let’s delve into it!
1. LightSpeed to simplify operations and prepare for the holidays
Do you want to learn how to prepare for Black Friday? Lightspeed has this amazing holiday guide for businesses, but that’s not all.
This is the number one tool to scale and grow your business. Companies use it to streamline their workflows and get more done with minimal effort and maximum outcome.
Basically, Lightspeed will take over the busywork, improve the customer experiences, and help you expand to new channels for this holiday season. Thanks to analytics and other useful tools, you’ll be able to learn from your data and target the biggest holiday shoppers for your brand.
If your store operates online and offline, this is a tool to help you with both. Thanks to it, you can use software to delight shoppers when they buy, as well as keep track of your inventory and suppliers.
Checkout features like product lookups and Quick Keys make the process seamless, and you can automate the shopper detail collection to personalize and improve the customer experience.
2. SEMRush Keyword Magic for keyword research
Selling online is a very smart move these days. The ecommerce market is constantly on the rise. While the explosive growth rates seen during the initial stages of the pandemic have leveled off, the industry continues to expand at a healthy pace.
According to a December 2023 update by Oberlo, global ecommerce sales are forecast to grow by 9.4% in 2024, reaching $6.3 trillion .This signifies the second-fastest growth rate expected between 2021 and 2027.
Still, just being present online is not enough to make sales. If you want to make more sales online, you need to make your business and products findable. To do this, you need to rank highly in search engines.
When it comes to search engine optimization, a lot of it is based on keywords i.e. the words that people search for to find your products and services.
This is why businesses these days perform keyword research - to find the words and phrases to use to help customers find their stores.
You are in luck - many tools can help you with this, too. One of the best available is the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool, a simple solution with an international database of over 20 billion keywords.
In Semrush, you can filter keywords by topic, question type, search intent, SERP features, etc. you’ll also find competition and difficulty metrics to help you tailor the perfect SEO strategy.
In March of 2022, Semrush introduced a major search volume algorithm update that helps you get the SEO strategy even more on track than before.
3. GiftBit for the most enticing loyalty programs
Acquiring new customers costs a lot more than retaining your existing ones.
According to the Harvard Business Review, the costs for getting a new customer are sometimes 25 times higher than retaining the ones that have bought from you in the past.
That alone is a reason to work on keeping old customers interested, but the reasons don’t stop there.
Let’s be real - people love discounts and special offers, especially during the holiday season. Even so, many businesses think: “I’ll be making many sales during the holiday season anyways, so why should I discount my rates for regulars?”
What you might not know is that a customer will be willing to spend 67% times more when they feel valued by a brand and are offered the perks of a loyalty program.
Discounts are a very powerful incentive for the holidays and a sure way to keep them engaged and loyal to your business. If you are ready to introduce some loyalty perks this season, here is a tool for you - GiftBit.
GiftBit is a loyalty program software that will help you recognize your best customers, find the right rewards, and incentivize them with great deals and perks.
GiftBit gives users access to the top gift card brands such as Amazon or Visa.
Browse their rewards catalog to get a better idea of your options. Its click-to-claim model makes it the simplest, most affordable choice for loyalty software, especially if you are looking to create a large-scale campaign.
4. Google Display Network for retargeting potential customers
Prospective customers often need a push in the right direction to make up their minds about a purchase. They’ll be hesitant about buying from you, won’t be sure where to look or what to look for, or will want you to put a bit of effort to convince them of your quality.
This is where retargeting comes into the picture. Businesses use retargeting not to find new customers, but to entice and engage existing customers with amazing offers and smart psychological marketing tactics.
Tools like Google Display Network will help you create a smart retargeting campaign that will promote your products and remind prospects of what they liked.
This tool uses data gathered when leads visit your site, check out your social profiles, or click on your ads.
If the lead didn’t turn into a customer the first time around, a bit of incentive might just push them over the edge. It can include everything from discounts to simple reminders that they liked a product you offer, but didn’t get the chance to buy it.
The ads featured in the famous Google Display Network are included on over 2 million sites worldwide and can reach over 90% of people that use the Internet!
5. Mailchimp for your holiday emails
Next on our list of useful tools is Mailchimp, something to help you with your email marketing for this holiday season.
For starters, you can use the tool’s creative assistant to build content for the ad placements we mentioned above.
But, that is not all.
Mailchimp is considered one of the best tools to automate, customize, and optimize your email marketing strategy. It has amazing segmentation, synchronization, as well as analytics features for users.
In other words, Mailchimp has all you need to create and deliver emails that work, which is just what you need for the holiday season!
6. Hubspot CRM for customer relationship management
You are looking at the busiest periods for your business, times when your team will have to handle a tremendous workload, and deal with crowds, cluttered inboxes, and a bunch of files.
You probably want this to run as smoothly as possible. This is why you need a CRM for the holiday season.
With a good CRM like that of Hubspot, you can help your sales team manage everything and you’ll also get a place to deliver the new leads you generated this holiday season.
The HubSpot CRM tool is perfect for this because it automates the most repetitive tasks, is very simple to master, and will help you track sales activities in real-time.
7. Buffer to schedule and manage posts on social media
Are you aware that over 50% of revenue across major industries is generated by sales made on social media?
Everyone seems to be using social platforms these days, so even if they don’t make the purchase directly on social platforms, many are influenced by it when making their purchasing decisions.
This is why you need a great social presence for the holiday season. To make this simpler and more effective, we recommend a tool like Buffer. Also known as Bufferapp, this is a social media marketing software tool that will help you draft and schedule posts to be shared across different networks at the perfect time.
Buffer is divided into three groups of features that you can link together to optimize your social channels. These are:
- Buffer publishing - the place to schedule posts for different channels
- Buffer analytics - a reporting suite that will tell you how your posts are performing on different channels
- Buffer engagement - a monitoring feature that will monitor conversations and tell you what is said about your brand and industry on social channels.
Remember - these are just groupings of features, which means that there’s a lot more to get when you use Buffer. Take a look at the top 51 features this tool offers.
8. Buzzsumo for great content ideas
It’s hard to create fresh content, especially during the holidays. Your content needs to be holiday-related and still unique enough to attract people to your brand.
With so much content out there, yours can easily look like many others, which is not attractive at all.
If you want unique, engaging pieces for your marketing strategy this season, you might want to try out Buzzsumo. This is a platform that will help you find engaging pieces, as well as discover new outreach opportunities.
Basically, Buzzsumo will search for content that is most attractive to your audience i.e. has received the most likes, shares, and comments. It can also help you find key influencers and monitor brand mentions.
9. LiveChat for targeted messaging and customer satisfaction
Live chat is always a smart idea for a business because it allows people to get support in real time without having to go to your store, write emails, or call you on the phone.
During the holidays, it is even more useful. Stores are crowded, so many want to avoid waiting in lines or buying in-store.
If they need some information, live chat offers them the functionality to speak to an agent without having to wait in line.
The feature of live chat has advanced a lot over the years. Now that there are tools like LiveChat at our disposal, we can enjoy great features such as:
- Automated responses for commonly asked questions
- Bots that guide and assist customers
- Analytics and reporting for tracking performance and customer satisfaction
Thanks to LiveChat, you can provide support through chat, but also send targeted messages to engage your audience. This tool is combined with team management tools, chatbot capabilities, and reporting.
10. HelpScout for easy ticket management
Ticketing systems collect and manage support interactions simultaneously from different platforms like social media, live chat, email, and phone.
This is a management system that will help you manage tickets and handle customer queries with ease.
When you are dealing with a busy period such as the holiday season, managing all tickets and requests can be impossible.
This is where HelpScout enters the picture - it’s a place to automatically gather and organize all the requests and boost customer satisfaction in the process.
From customer management features to workflows to shared inboxes and reporting options, HelpScout offers it all.
11. AdobeSpark for great holiday visuals
Did you know that Adobe has a free plan that you can use to create graphics, videos, and themes for your marketing campaign? You can set it all up in minutes and create something unique for every holiday in the year.
Adobe Spark is a suite of 3 apps:
- Spark Page
- Spark Video
- Spark Post
The best part about this tool is that you don’t need editing knowledge to create videos or design experience to create graphics. The content you create here will look remarkable in no time, and you can use the hundreds of design assets and templates made precisely for the holidays!
12. FacebookPixel for setting up events
Install the Facebook Pixel to your website and you can use the amazing Event Setup Tool to add events to your site.
The Pixel will give you amazing insights that you can use to serve the right information at the right time.
Previously if you wanted to set up pixel events on Facebook, you had to enter the code manually into different web pages. With their Facebook Event Setup Tool, you can do this codeless, and add specific actions and URL or page load triggers to your site.
13. Lucky Orange for a better understanding of your audience
Lucky Orange is a powerful tool that will help you learn more about your site’s visitors. The collection of features you get in Lucky Orange includes the following:
- Session recordings - track visitors on your website to see what prevents them from buying.
- Dynamic heatmaps - see what people do on your pages and what they engage with including dynamic elements like popups, menus, and forms.
- Live chat - real-time support and asking people to chat based on their page behavior.
- Conversion funnels - check which pages are converting and which aren’t.
- Visitor profiles - see what people did on your website including pages, sessions, and chat.
- Form analytics - monitor form metrics such as time to start, field order, and abandonment; and look for areas for improvement.
- Surveys - survey people about technical issues, product preferences, etc.
- Announcements - trigger announcements of product updates and discounts.
- Unlimited dashboards - build individual dashboards for different key metrics.
14. Google Optimize for free and smart testing
Google is very picky about who they rank highly, but they are also very generous with the tools they give businesses to help them succeed online.
If you want to engage your visitors on a whole new level and create a more personalized experience - then this is a tool that you should check out.
Optimize is a free tool that will do the following for you:
- Give you insights from Google Analytics to improve your website
- Test your website and its content to see what works best for your leads and customers
- Customize the website experience for different audiences
- Create custom landing pages for your ads to convert more visitors
- Measure your ROI
15. Clickfunnels to create dedicated purchase and opt-in pages
Last on our list is Clickfunnels, an amazing landing page platform that you can use to create opt-in and purchase pages.
This tool is very simple to use. It has a drag-and-drop capability, as well as an autoresponder feature to enrich your email marketing campaign.
Clickfunnels will link your leads with email sequences that you can automate and nurture new relationships even in the busiest periods of the year, such as the holidays.
Here is how this tool works:
- Guide the visitors through the sales process
- Point them to the product they need most based on behaviors and data
- Follow up with visitors after they leave the page
Related : 22 Best ClickFunnels Alternatives (#17 Is Free)
Amazing tips to boost holiday sales in !
Now that you know what to use, let us give you some ideas of the next steps to take to boost holiday sales this year.
Start preparations NOW
The ideal time to prepare for holidays as a business is as soon as possible. There’s a lot more to plan and organize than product inventory or rates.
Start preparing now to make this period as profitable and successful as possible. Consider everything from the budget and the product inventory to the sales you’ll offer and the promotional materials you’ll use this year.
Work on your holiday pages
A separate landing page for the holidays is a great idea, but it will take some time and effort. Why not start on it right now?
Prepare a Black Friday page, a Christmas page, and a landing page for any other holiday that can bring you more sales.
These are the pages where you’ll post your holiday-related products and services, discounts and special offers, and the amazing content you’ll create to generate more leads.
Optimize your content
It's crucial to make sure your emails are optimized for the greatest impact when creating email campaigns. You know what your customers need to see in your email campaigns as a business owner, but you also need user-friendly tools to help you convey these information clearly.
Run Google Ads
Google Ads can help you reach new customers and convert them into buyers throughout the holiday season.
Compete for the search terms your customers are entering into Google as they research how to best prepare for, shop for, and celebrate the upcoming holiday season. Products, services, brands, and compilations could fall under this category.
Upselling
Develop special package deals. In the case of upselling, which is what bundles are, the winner is the brand, but the customer also benefits. Both the company and the consumer benefit from this situation.
Sales, sales, and sales!
People go crazy over sales when the holidays come. They have a lot to buy, so popup online sales, limited offers that scream urgency, and loyalty programs are the way to go during these periods!
Think of unique promotions and deals that will attract more people toward your brand now that everyone is shopping!
Let’s make this season a truly festive one!
Fifteen tools make for a short list but in this case, it’s the most useful list in your arsenal for the holidays.
Go through this list, make your picks - or get them all, and roll up your sleeves to prep for the holidays that come. Good luck!