'Net Features : Summer

7 Hot Summer Marketing Strategies for Merchants

Allison Howen — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:20:00 GMT

The flowers are blooming and the temperatures are rising, which means that summer is getting ready to make its official debut.

While this leaves most of us fantasizing about lying by the pool and sipping fruity drinks with umbrellas, online merchants are left strategizing ways to attract customers and increase sales during this notoriously slow time of the year. In order to allow merchants more time for the beach, Website Magazine has eased the process by compiling a list of seven hot marketing tactics that will help get customers out of the heat and onto your website. Check them out below:

1. Sizzlin’ Social

Just because consumers will be spending the majority of their time at picnics and parks this summer, doesn’t mean they won’t be checking in with social networks on their mobile devices. This is why an active social presence can greatly benefit merchants during the summer months. Merchants should use these channels to promote products, sales and events. However, in order to capture attention, it is important to keep all status updates relevant (for example, don’t promote a bathing suit on a rainy day), as well as to include a variety of content formats, such as images and videos. In fact, marketers can even save time by cross-promoting social content. For example, if a clothing retailer uploads a filtered photo of a best-selling outfit on Instagram or creates a video about summer’s hottest fashion trends on YouTube, that content can also be shared to networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to reach a larger audience.

2. Effective Email

Just as consumers check their social networks while en route to their favorite summer activity, they also check their inboxes, which is why it is important for email campaigns to be optimized for mobile. That said, in order to influence consumers to skip the BBQ for a shopping trip to your brick-and-mortar store, merchants should re-evaluate their email strategy. For instance, maybe it's time to consider implementing better targeting features so that messages are more relevant. On the other hand, it’s probably a good idea to retest delivery times, because the change in season often brings changes in schedules. However, aside from launching more targeted messages and prominently featuring sales, merchants can also try to influence customers into making purchases by incorporating ratings and reviews into their messages, which is feature that Listrak launched earlier this year.

3. Hot Pricing

Although it is always a best practice to maintain competitive pricing, this is especially vital during the summer months. This is because an extra-low price or big sale could give consumers the extra bit of incentive needed to convert. In fact, merchants should use the summer holidays and events, such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day and “back-to-school” time, to launch and publicize promotions and discounts. Moreover, featuring a “Summer Clearance” section on your site and spreading the word about it through social and email can help to boost sales and clean out some inventory.

4. Must-Attend Events

Summer is a time for special projects, so why not throw an event to gain some exposure for your business? While brick-and-mortar retailers have the ability to throw an event at their physical location, online retailers can get innovative by hosting an event at a local park or with a platform like Google Hangouts. For example, a brick-and-mortar beauty store could host a skincare workshop, while an online pet supply store could throw a “picnic in the park” event at a local dog park (with the park’s permission, of course). Furthermore, both types of retailers can throw an event, like a Q&A or new product showcase, on Google+ with Google Hangouts.

5. Real-Time Targeting

In order to influence the purchasing decisions of the consumers who have taken time out of their busy summer to visit your site, consider implementing real-time targeting to help close the sale. Fanplayr, for instance, offers a Smart & Targeted product that analyzes a merchant’s site to determine the profiles of visitors that would be the most receptive to specific offers. According to the company, these real-time offers can increase conversion rates by up to 30 percent and average order values by up to 50 percent. Conversely, SteelHouse has a Real Time Offers platform that also allows merchants to provide personalized offers to shoppers based on their real-time behavior.

6. Blog for Traffic

As previously stated, summer is a time for special projects, so if your business doesn’t already maintain a blog, it’s time to start. Blogging can help merchants improve their visibility, as well as provides extra content for social and email campaigns. In fact, a HubSpot study reveals that on average, companies that publish 15 or more blog articles per month generate five times more traffic than companies that don’t blog at all. Blog content should stay true to your brand and touch on topics relevant to your industry. Additionally, you can reach out to industry professionals for contributed content to post on your blog. Not only will this help you foster relationships with influential people in your industry, but it will also boost the visibility of your business, as the professional will most likely market the content to their friends and social networks.

7. Fresh Advertising

Last, but certainly not least, merchants should launch a solid advertising campaign this summer. In fact, brick-and-mortar merchants in particular should be using Google’s new Enhanced Campaigns to reach customers who are on-the-go. For example, merchants can launch mobile-specific ads that target consumers within a certain location, such as within 5 miles of the brick-and-mortar establishment, and during a specific time-of-day, like business hours. Moreover, since summer is a time for vacationing to new places, merchants should consider launching ads on Yelp to target traveling consumers. Not only can merchants launch daily deals on this location-based service, but they can also advertise at the top of the Yelp search results and on the pages of related businesses.

Five Ways Retailers Can Compete with Summer

Allison Howen — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:30:00 GMT

As the days get longer and the temperatures get hotter, retailers on the Web must be prepared for the stiff competition that the next five months will bring – Summer.

Summer, although a wonderful thing for those of us with vacation and sick days stored up, is also a slow time for many merchants, both on and off the Web. However, with a well thought out and sizzling-hot strategy, merchants can sweat out the slow summer months by encouraging customers to make purchases and engage with their online properties. Check out these five tips below:

Competitive Pricing

Not only do merchants need to keep their pricing lower than competitors all year long, but pushing pricing down during the summer months can give consumers the extra bit of incentive that they need to frequent your e-commerce site daily. Additionally, adding a summer clearance section on your site will not only boost sales, but also help clean out your inventory for the holiday season that is right around the corner (yes, already).

Local Social

Since consumers will be checking their social feeds in-between their trips to the beach and summer night get-togethers, it is important to utilize social media to not only promote your brand and products, but also to bring people out of the hot sun and onto your website or into your brick-and-mortar store. For example, use Foursquare and Yelp to promote deals and specials for local customers, use Facebook and Twitter to create customer loyalty by engaging and interacting with consumers, use YouTube to provide consumers with informative product tutorials, and use Pinterest to feature your business’s newest products and summer trends.

Email Strategy

Many consumers are looking at their inboxes on-the-go, therefore it is important to make sure emails are mobile-ready so that consumers can read and interact with them easily from wherever they are. Furthermore, marketers should retest the time-of-day that emails are sent out, because many times the change in seasons brings a change of schedule, which could effect the optimal time for emails to be sent out for a specific audience. Merchants should also have fun with summer emails – create a summer product list, summer tips or summer sales email and always use a sizzling hot subject line, because the subject line alone will influence whether your audience will want to read the mail from the pool, or send it straight to the spam folder.

Promotions and Events

Ever heard of Christmas in July? Although summer time is full of holidays that retailers can create marketing sales and events around (Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day), this doesn’t mean that merchants can't come up with other unique events and holidays to promote their products around. For example, create a Christmas in July sale to let consumers know that they only have six months left before the biggest holiday of the year, promote a rainy day sale if the forecast in your local area calls for some wet weather (which every brick-and-mortar retailer knows is great shopping weather), or give away a summer themed product for purchases that exceed a certain amount, for example, any purchase more than $50 will receive a free bottle of sunscreen or a visor.

Maximizing Online Time

Because the time your customers spend online this summer may be limited, it is important to get the most out of every minute that they are engaging with your brand. If your site doesn’t already include recommended product functionality, this is a good time to implement it because consumers will be inclined to look at more products if your site is taking some of the research work away. Augmented Reality is another feature that will surely increase your consumers' average time on site, because they will want to virtually try products on. And of course, great product videos, photos, promotions and sales (as mentioned above) will also intrigue visitors to spend more time on your site, as well as follow-up coupons, surveys and even gamification features.

Got more summer marketing tips? Leave them in the Comments section below!

How to Weather the Dog Days of Summer

Allison Howen — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:30:00 GMT

Twenty-six percent of employers think that workers are less productive in the summer, according to a CareerBuilder survey.

A few reasons attributed to the loss in productivity include nicer weather, vacation-fever and kids being out of school.

But despite the less productive summers, 30 percent of employers think that workers are more productive since the recession began. According to employers, reasons for increased productivity include fear of job loss and downsized staffs.

A possible reason for the summertime decrease in productivity could have to do with the actual workload. Seventy-seven percent of employees said they were burned out at their jobs, while 43 percent said they were stressed out.

But when it comes down to it, summertime is no time to slack. This is a time when businesses can be focusing on big projects.

Here are a few projects to focus on: checking how your host is performing by load testing, accessing your advertising campaign’s effectiveness, retooling social profiles, conducting user experience surveys or training employees how to do new tasks like managing content production.