Fostering engagement with prospects isn’t always easy. 

eCommerce brands need to know who their ideal customer is, what they need, and how to position their messaging in alignment with prospects’ preferences.

The good news?

With eCommerce conversion rates 0.65% higher during the holiday season, brands have access to invaluable lead information they can use to keep prospects engaged well after the holiday season ends.

If you’re interested in learning how to keep the connection alive after the holidays, we have six key marketing goals you need to keep in mind. 

Ready to discover what they are?

Let’s begin. 

1. Create a Personalized Sales Strategy

Use your post-holiday sales data to develop a sales strategy in line with your prospects’ preferences. 

During the holidays, people tend to leave more of their personal data when shopping. This information holds tremendous value since it sheds insight into what kinds of products and information your prospects were eyeing so you can try offering them again in the future. (More on this in a bit.)

When creating your personalized sales strategy, segment your leads into groups. For instance, if you sell cookware, you might have a personal chef segment, a family segment, and a restaurant owner segment. 

Then, comb through your data to uncover your audience segments’ buying habits, consumer preferences, needs, and pain points. Use these insights to create a personalized sales strategy for each audience segment. 

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2. Simplify Your Outreach and Marketing Process with Marketing Software 

Using marketing software to plan, create, and automate campaigns can help your team save precious time and resources. 

You can also use marketing software to track your goals and store sensitive customer data.

When deciding what kind of software you need, consider the marketing activities you employ. 

For instance, if you post content on your company blog, you’ll need to have a publishing tool that can help you publish posts, like Wordable. If you live on Instagram, you’ll need to get your hands on an Instagram scheduling tool like Planable. 

We also recommend signing up for free trials so you can test drive a variety of marketing software options before deciding on a final tech stack.

3. Create and Distribute Value-Based Content 

Prospects need a good reason to engage with your brand — and what better way to do so than to deliver tremendous value through content? 

From blog posts to social media posts to email campaigns, we recommend using a multichannel approach to distribute content your audience loves most. Just be sure to choose channels your audience frequently uses.

When planning value-based content, keep your leads’ pain points, frequently asked questions, and core needs in mind. 

For instance, if one of your audience segments includes parents looking for financial solutions for their college-aged children, then you might write an article rounding up the best bank accounts for students. 

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Or, if one of your audience segments includes flower shop owners interested in wholesale deals, then you might write an email marketing series about how to lock arms with wholesale vendors.

4. Highlight Customer Reviews and Social Proof 

Sharing touching customer stories, happy reviews, and other forms of social proof is pivotal to building trust and engagement with your prospects. 

To create a social proof strategy your audience aligns with, be sure to highlight how your products solve the core problems they’re currently facing. 

For instance, if you own a health brand, you might share a video with your email subscribers showcasing a happy customer sharing how quick and easy it is to buy products online. 

Or, if you own a skincare brand, you might ask customers to share before and after photos in their Stories with a branded hashtag. 

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5. Nudge Them Toward the Products and Offers They Viewed Most

If you feel you’ve nurtured your prospects long enough, it may be time to inspire them to make a purchase. 

How so?

By nudging them toward the products and offers they viewed most when they perused your online store during the holidays.

For instance, if you own a retail clothing store, and one of your segments couldn’t keep their eyes off your line of party dresses, you can take advantage of this data and send them an email encouraging them to give this line of clothing another look (make sure to include a link to the clothing!) 

Bonus points if you can send over a discount or coupon code to really drive the deal home.

6. Create Automated and Segmented Email Campaigns 

Stay in constant communication with your prospects by creating automated, segmented email campaigns in line with their goals, preferences, and needs. 

For instance, if one of your audience segments has been looking into switching to natural cleaning products, consider creating an email campaign series geared at educating them on how to make the switch. 

Or, if one of your audience segments has been looking into remodeling their backyard decks, consider creating a series dedicated to helping them learn how to remodel their decks in style.

Wrap Up 

With conversion rates 0.65% higher during the holiday season, eCommerce brands have access to crucial information they can use to nurture leads well after the holiday season has ended.

If you’re interested in discovering how to build engagement with your leads after the holidays, we hope today’s six marketing goals will help set you on the right track.

For good measure, here’s a quick recap of the goals we shared today:

1. Create a personalized sales strategy
2. Simplify your outreach and marketing process with marketing software 
3. Create and distribute value-based content 
4. Highlight customer reviews and social proof 
5. Nudge them toward the products and offers they viewed most
6. Create automated and segmented email campaigns 

And that’s it for today! To your success!

Author Bio

Ryan Robinson. I’m a blogger, podcaster, and (recovering) side project addict that teaches 500,000 monthly readers how to start a blog and grow a profitable side business at ryrob.com.