November is a big month for getting customers familiar with your online store and bringing them back for holiday shopping. The challenge is not becoming to discount oriented so that your customers are trained to only buy when there’s a sale. The promotions listed below will be broad in nature because there are so many business types, but, they’ll get your creative wheels spinning so you can modify them to your specific needs.

Email List Building
Some say email marketing is dead, but, its really not and it requires a savvy marketer to drive revenue from this valuable online marketing channel. Building your list now is important because you’ll need it for your big holiday sales. Here are some ideas to build your email list:

* Subscribe Now and Save on First Purchase: convince your customers to subscribe now by giving them an incentive to save on their first purchase with you. Try offering a 10% discount or free/discounted shipping.
* Weekly drawings: hold a weekly drawing in which the winner receives a gift. Its best if you can offer a product of high perceived value, but, one that costs very little to you.

Boosting AOV and UPT
You can take some steps to boost your average order value (AOV) and units per transaction(UPT) through promotions, but, don’t overdo it (read above). Take a look at October and November’s AOV and UPT metrics and compare it to October 2009 actuals and November’s forecast. Estimate a feasible percentage increase for both metrics and put some promotions out there to achieve those goals. We’ve seen 40 – 50% increases when implementing promotions designed to increase these metrics. This also sets a good base for when you decide on what promotions to run during peak.

* Free Shipping: let’s say your AOV is $50 and you want to bump that up 25%. That brings you to $62.50, but, round it out to $65. Simply create a promotion where customers can qualify for free shipping on orders of $65 or more. Be sure you make restrictions clear such as free ground shipping only and the qualifying dollar amount is based on product sub-total (that is, order total before taxes). Don’t be surprised if your AOV on this promotion is 40 – 50% higher than your normal AOV. People love free shipping. Use a unique promotion code to help with tracking.
* Buy X units, Get Y Free: let’s say you’re sitting on a ton of inventory of a specific product that is costing you money in inventory expenses and your boss is constantly bugging you to move the product. Let’s say your average UPT (use same date points as above) is 2.5 and you want a 25% increase. That brings you to 3.1 UPT, but, round it to 3. Now, create a promotion whereby if a customer buys 3 units of a certain selection of products, they get Y free. ‘Y’ is that product sitting in inventory that your boss is bugging you about. Assume those 3 products retail at $50 a piece…you just sold $150 and you are moving ‘Y.’ at the same time. That effectively boosts your AOV as well. Again, people like free stuff.

Other Promotion Ideas

* Create some timed specials and advertise it through email, PPC, social, etc. For example, run a Free Shipping Wednesday promotion each Wednesday of the month. Some online stores see a decrease in order/shipping volume in the middle of the week and this is a nice way to boost orders and keep your fulfillment team busy. Another example is running a special from 8am to 3pm (think of your West Coast customers…this becomes a 5am to noon special). Be sure to alert your loyal followers of this at least the day before.
* Create your own event to spur demand. Make one day Official Widget Day and create a story around it to get people’s interest. Broadcast this across email, PPC, social, landing pages, in-store signage, etc. Strategically merchandise a selection of products to make it a no-brainer for people to buy.

Then there’s Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday to get you rolling strong into the holiday season. We love brainstorming sessions so drop us a line with some of your ideas/challenges and let’s see what we can come up with. Drop us a line!