eCommerce Holiday Checklist: 5 Stages Of Festive Readiness

As the holiday spirit fills the air, your eCommerce store deserves to shine.

But what do you need to be festive-ready? Is it merely the festive discounts that will do wonders for your revenue?

If you’re a HubSpot user and care for the inbound experience, then you’ll say “Definitely not!”

The holiday season demands a flawless, immersive experience for prospects: attract, inform, educate about promotions, and guide them seamlessly to conversion, leaving no room for them to bounce off.

So, to gain control and ensure impactful efforts for the best holiday sales, I present an eCommerce holiday checklist tailored specifically for HubSpotters.

Holiday Hustle: Getting the Most Out of HubSpot

Two ways to proceed: Explore HubSpot’s potential as your festive assistant.

DIY eCommerce Holiday Checklist If have a good feeling about preparing your HubSpot yourself, then continue with this read. Continue Reading

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Why do you need HubSpot for your Festive Campaigns?

During the festive season, people are more willing to make purchases and spend more for themselves and their loved ones. It’s all about capitalizing on increased consumer spending rates and steering the festive spirit towards your business.

But, how do you attend to the overwhelming rate of activities by your customers and within the organization? This is where a powerful CRM like HubSpot steps in.

By seamlessly integrating into your business strategies, HubSpot CRM proves indispensable during the holiday season. Let’s delve into its key capabilities that can help your business make the most out of this bustling time of the year.

Master Tools for Promotional Campaigns

HubSpot CRM offers advanced tools for festive campaigning — email, social posts, landing pages, and more to fine-tune your holiday campaigns. Subsequently, you can obtain in-depth campaign insights, analyze customer behavior, and tailor your offers with a data-driven approach.

Automation in Everything

Timing is key during the festive rush. HubSpot CRM allows you to automate your holiday marketing and overall promotional campaigns. Alongside, intelligent scheduling and personalized messaging, your offers and discounts reach the right audience at the right time.

Quality CMS, Data Syncing & Record Keeping

The HubSpot CRM also offers a robust Content Management System (CMS) that enables you to showcase your festive offerings seamlessly. Moreover, its advanced data syncing capabilities ensure that your inventory levels are accurate.

Centralized Data for Streamlined Customer Support

The holiday season often brings a surge in customer activities and concerns. HubSpot CRM centralizes customer data so that you can access it through a single window. This holistic standpoint enables you and your team to provide personalized and efficient service, leading to higher customer satisfaction rates and positive reviews.

Mobile Accessibility for On-the-Go Management

You can’t be everywhere physically. HubSpot CRM’s mobile accessibility ensures that you or anyone from your team can manage your business operations even when you’re on the move. Moreover, the CRM’s mobile app allows you to stay connected and in control, enhancing your business efficiency during the festive frenzy.

HubSpot eCommerce Onboarding for Festive Success

Navigating the festive season can be both exciting and challenging. Therefore, you need a HubSpot onboarding to ensure the finest CRM implementation of your holiday marketing ideas through the CRM itself.

For eCommerce, the holiday season is all about creating an immersive experience for your prospects — drawing them to your platform, providing the information and products they seek, educating them about your ongoing promotions, and ultimately, guiding them toward conversion. And all this has to be on-point, without a flaw.

So what HubSpot tools should you have in place? Which objects are needed to be configured? Do you need a workflow for everything? Would you need HubSpot marketing onboarding?

A flawless HubSpot onboarding is the answer to all this. The HubSpot onboarding for festive success will ensure the following. You can call it a HubSpot onboarding checklist for holiday readiness.

• Personalized guidance: Understanding the unique needs of your eCommerce business during the holiday season.
• Seamless Integration: Offers a centralized hub for managing orders, customer interactions, and holiday campaigns.
• Popular Assets: Setting up HubSpot assets, popular workflows, lists, templates, and everything you need.
• Automated Efficiency: Spend less time on routine operations and focus more on creating exceptional festive offers.
• Exceptional Support: Our dedicated support team is available 24/7 to assist you, answering HubSpot questions or assisting in campaign management.

Now, let’s kick off and start exploring the essentials of our eCommerce holiday checklist through five stages.

Stage 1: Integration & Data Segmentation

Before you engage in ensuring the holiday readiness of your HubSpot with the eCommerce holiday checklist, start by connecting your data to the CRM.

A successful HubSpot eCommerce onboarding will initiate the process of the immersive festive experience you’re aiming for.

The integration seamlessly synchronizes all related data associated with your existing contacts, orders, and products directly into the CRM system. Moreover, with our expert eCommerce HubSpot integrations, you gain access to popular HubSpot workflows, groups, properties, and lists.

Every contact synced into HubSpot is organized into these popular lists. In addition, the segmentation could also be made with HubSpot custom properties for order information and customer activities created in your CRM. This would greatly help with your holiday campaigns, enabling you to target high-value customers, frequent buyers, and contacts displaying optimal engagement, determined as per RFM (Recency, Frequency & Monetary) ratings.

Also, the HubSpot integration gives you workflows that will include abandoned cart recovery, thank-you emails for purchases, order recency ratings, ROI calculation, and more. The below-mentioned integrations host all the valuable features discussed above.

• WooCommerce HubSpot Integration
• BigCommerce HubSpot Integration
• Shopline HubSpot Integration
• Magento HubSpot Integration
• HubSpot Custom Integration (Bespoke HubSpot integration)

After the integration, the next thing in our eCommerce holiday checklist is tools setup.

Stage 2: HubSpot Tools Setup & HubSpot Objects

Campaigns

As the name suggests, the campaigns builder in HubSpot is used to organize your marketing campaigns and track the performance of your marketing activities across multiple channels. Furthermore, HubSpot provides pre-built reports specifically for campaigns, helping you understand how different channels contribute to your goals. If you’re using HubSpot’s Sales and Service Hubs, you can track how your campaigns are influencing deals and customer satisfaction.

Emails & Snippets

Use templates or draft your emails yourself and schedule them as per your holiday marketing campaigns. In HubSpot, the email tool is a pivotal and all-encompassing mechanism, offering comprehensive functionalities to enhance your chances at festive campaigns.

HubSpot’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface ensures effortless email design, perfect for crafting engaging email marketing campaigns. In addition, you can create targeted email lists based on contact properties, behaviors, and interactions; and trigger email workflows. You can also create snippets in HubSpot and reuse them across emails whenever.

Social Posting & Scheduling

HubSpot Social enables you to create and publish social media posts directly from the platform. Moreover, you can monitor social media mentions, comments, and interactions related to your brand, ensuring prompt response and in turn, your eCommerce holiday readiness.

In addition, there’s a queue system where you can add posts to a queue and automatically publish them at predefined intervals. Prior to festive campaigns, schedule and publish holiday social posts across your social media channels directly from HubSpot.

Coupons for Products

The product management tool within the CRM involves a thorough mechanism to add products & coupons. With the coupon creation interface within HubSpot, you can personalize coupon codes, set expiry for urgency, define redemption rules, and product eligibility.

Moreover, you can restore expired discount codes anytime you desire. If you want to learn more about coupon code generation and automate the coupon creation process, then get in touch with us. We’ll help you create coupon marketing campaigns and design the best holiday campaigns from scratch.

Ads

HubSpot Ad Campaigns integrate with major advertising platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, and LinkedIn Ads. This integration basically allows a centralized platform to create and manage their ads without switching between multiple platforms.

Moreover, you can manage Ad budget, the tool provides insights into ad spend, helping users monitor their budget allocation and ROI. All this saves you a lot of time in the peak hours of holiday eCommerce sales.

HubSpot Payments & Automation

To ensure seamless transactions during the holiday season, you would need to have automated payments in place — deal payment link generation, payment confirmation, invoicing, and transaction syncing. Setting up payment systems well in advance allows businesses to identify and resolve any technical issues or glitches.

Customers appreciate fast and convenient payment methods, setup the HubSpot payments tool, that way you’ll be able to enable such options much more securely. If you’re outside the US, then there are possible HubSpot payment alternatives available that you can integrate with the CRM.

Chatflows & Live Chat

HubSpot Live Chat allows you to add a chat widget to your website, enabling visitors to start a conversation with your team members or chatbots. The chatbot can be personalized based on visitor data.

You can set up HubSpot live chat to handle common queries and provide automated responses. Chatbots can qualify leads, schedule meetings, answer FAQs, and more, saving time for your team and providing instant responses to visitors. Use Chatflows to set up targeted messages to greet visitors based on specific conditions, such as the pages they visit, their referral source, or their previous interactions with your website.

Forms & Popups

Within the CRM, you have customizable forms that can be embedded on your website, landing pages, or emails. These forms are designed to collect information from visitors, such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other details.

Furthermore, if you want to be subtle and gradually gather more information about your leads over time, then under forms, there’s a feature called progressive profiling that allows you to do so.

Wait, there’s more! The forms can be customized into popups, of which you can design the appearance, layout, and content. When used strategically, they can significantly contribute to your holiday eCommerce sales.

CTAs

HubSpot CTAs, or Call-to-Actions, are interactive elements that prompt website visitors to take a specific action. The CRM offers a variety of templates and customization options for creating visually appealing CTAs, moreover, you can create button-style or text-based CTAs.

HubSpot CTAs can be “smart,” meaning they can change based on the viewer’s lifecycle stage, device type, location, referral source, and other criteria. That’s how you’ll become capable of dealing with your visitors during their shopping festivities.

That’s it! Feel free to reach out for HubSpot setup if you feel stuck!

Schedule A Meeting

Stage 3: Team Setup And Planning

Along with the holiday checklist, keep your team in check. Time prior to the holiday season is surely not the time to sit back and relax. In fact, it’s the perfect moment to gear up and ensure that your team is prepared to handle everything asked.

Here’s more to your eCommerce holiday checklist with some essential strategies to consider when setting up and planning your team’s activities:

• Create a Comprehensive Calendar: One of the first steps towards festive readiness is organizing your schedule. Develop detailed calendars for content creation, social media posts, and promotional activities. Staying ahead of all occasions, big or small, is the key.
• Deal & Pipeline Management: Organize, track, and manage their sales opportunities effectively. Set up deals related to holiday promotions or discounts and track their progress. Furthermore, you can utilize HubSpot pipeline features for customization with unique deal stages and properties. With pipeline, deals move through stages in a linear fashion.
• Setup Internal Communication: Communication is key, especially during the busy holiday season. Keep your sales, marketing, and customer service teams aligned and well-informed about customer interactions. Use workflows to enable internal notifications for deal progress, payment status, and pipeline monitoring.
• Leverage Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems: Implement an efficient ERP system for streamlined operations, including order processing and ticketing.
• Inventory Management: Effective inventory management is the backbone of successful eCommerce. Keep a close eye on your stock levels, analyze trends, and forecast demand to avoid overstocking or stockouts. There are options to integrate inventory tools to meet customer demands efficiently.
• Strategic Workload Assessment: Understand your team’s capacity and workload using the HubSpot tasks tool. A balanced workload ensures that your team remains productive and motivated throughout the holiday season.

Stage 4: Automation And Workflow Setup

The holiday season is not just about spreading cheer; it’s also the busiest time of the year for eCommerce businesses. To ensure your online store thrives during this festive frenzy, it’s crucial to have your automation and HubSpot workflows perfectly tuned.

Lead Nurturing Workflows

These workflows help nurture leads by sending them targeted content and information based on their behavior, preferences, and interactions with your website or emails. Lead nurturing workflows can be designed to move leads through the sales funnel, providing them with relevant content at each stage.

Deals & Pipeline Workflows

You can create workflows to create tasks in the Pipeline tab under Deal settings. Set up Deals & Pipeline Workflows to manage the sales process efficiently. Define stages, track progress, and automate follow-ups. These workflows help you track the progress of deals, ensuring that no opportunity falls through the cracks.

Abandoned Cart Workflow

Cart abandonment can be a real Grinch, stealing potential sales. Setup abandoned cart workflow to send automated reminders to customers who left items in their carts.

Offer incentives, such as limited-time discounts, to encourage them to complete their purchase. Create custom properties in the CRM to store abandoned cart details like product names, quantities, and values.

All this is for the gentle nudge that often turns hesitant buyers into happy customers.

Email Marketing Workflows

Emails are your direct line to customers’ inboxes. Craft captivating, personalized emails alongside dedicated email marketing workflows. From festive greetings to exclusive offers, automate your email campaigns to reach the right audience at the right time. Trigger emails based on customer interactions using HubSpot properties, ensuring your messages are always relevant and engaging.

Internal Communication

A united team delivers exceptional service, making the festive season memorable for your customers. To ensure this, you need automated internal notifications, which you can set up from HubSpot workflows. This is why members from every department must have access to every customer activity and perform accordingly. From inventory updates to customer feedback, automated notifications keep everyone updated in real time.

Stage 5. Goals & Reporting

To make the most out of this bustling period, it’s essential to have a clear roadmap. The eCommerce holiday checklist not only helps you prepare your store operationally but also guides you in setting achievable goals and tracking your progress effectively. Here’s how you can align it with your set goals for a successful holiday season:

Set Clear Goals and KPIs

The festive readiness begins by defining your destination — setting precise goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that align with your business objectives. Using the Goals tab in HubSpot, you can decide on the goals of different departments — sales or marketing.

Align your sales targets, including revenue goals and product-specific targets, to give your team a clear aim. Additionally, set focus on customer engagement metrics such as site visits, interactions, and email open rates. Knowing your audience’s behavior is key to crafting targeted holiday campaigns.

Analytics & Reporting

To analyze how you did according to the holiday checklist, I suggest checking for the following.

• Monitor Conversion Rates: Monitor conversion at different stages of the sales funnel. Identify the likelihood of conversion and optimize the buyer’s journey accordingly.
• Keep a Close Eye on Sales Performance: Analyze trends in sales and revenue, identify top-selling products, and strategize to capitalize on popular items. Additionally, focus on average order value – encouraging customers to spend more can significantly boost your revenue.
• Combat Cart Abandonment: Keep an eye on your cart abandonment rate. Implement the previously mentioned Abandoned Cart Workflow to recover potentially lost sales. You can try A/B testing your cart abandonment workflows.
• Evaluate Holiday Marketing Campaigns: Analyze click-through rates, engagement levels, and conversion rates associated with each campaign. Identify what works best and allocate your resources accordingly for optimal results.
• Measure Customer Acquisition Rate: Understanding how you acquire new customers is vital. Identify which channels and strategies bring in the most customers. Consider optimizing underperforming ones or experimenting with new ones.
• Assess Sales Channel Effectiveness: Your eCommerce holiday planning can become fragile if you sell through multiple channels. Assess the effectiveness of each sales channel. Whether it’s your eCommerce website, social platforms, or online marketplaces.

All this may seem overwhelming. But it’s worth it! Too many balls in the air? Let us do it! Hire a HubSpot implementation expert.

10 Tips to Rock Your Revenue This Festive Season

To ensure festive success with HubSpot alongside this eCommerce holiday checklist, you must consider juicing it up with some additional holiday checklist. This way, you foolproof your holiday eCommerce strategy from going sideways.

Scalable Hosting

Ensure your website can handle increased traffic by investing in scalable hosting solutions, guaranteeing a seamless shopping experience for every visitor.

Segmented Email List

Tailor your email marketing campaigns by segmenting your audience, and delivering personalized content that resonates with specific customer interests, spending and preferences.

Thank You Emails

Express gratitude post-purchase with heartfelt thank you emails, adding a personal touch that enhances customer satisfaction and encourages repeat business.

Upselling & Cross Promotions

Boost sales with product recommendations — “frequently bought together”, “you might also like”, cross-promotions, expanding your reach, and enticing diverse customer bases. Use your home page, product page, cart page, emails, & SMS communication for these recommendations.

Local SEO

Optimize SEO of your website or targeted landing pages for local SERP. Acquire high-quality backlinks from local websites and directories. Encourage local customers to rate and review purchases. Post engaging content on local social channels and local ads.

Use Scarcity

Create urgency with limited-time offers & low-stock notifications, enticing customers to act fast and capitalize on exclusive deals this holiday season.

Optimize Checkout Process

Streamline the checkout process by eliminating unnecessary steps, reducing friction, simplifying payment options, encouraging more conversions, and minimizing cart abandonment.

Customer Service Resources

Optimize your knowledge base and terms & conditions page, and implement tooltips to guide your customers and new site visitors better. This way, you would prevent overburdening your support team and reduce friction in conversion.

Gather Insights

Leverage analytics and customer feedback to gain valuable insights into buyer behavior, enabling data-driven decisions and strategies that resonate with your target audience.

Prepare Beforehand

Plan and organize your festive campaigns well in advance, anticipating market trends and customer demands to stay ahead of the competition and maximize revenue during the holiday season.

That’s it with the eCommerce holiday checklist. You would require nothing more to ensure your eCommerce holiday readiness.

Fulfill Festive Season Requirements With HubSpot

With this eCommerce holiday checklist, you’re one step ahead of the curve!

Incorporating insights from this HubSpot checklist into your festive season planning can significantly turn things around. It will definitely enhance your festive revenue and customer engagement in your holiday campaigns.

By creating a seamless shopping experience, offering personalized perks, and staying ahead with strategic marketing, you will ensure successful holiday marketing campaigns.

Remember, preparation and thoughtful customer interactions are key to making the most out of the holiday season. I hope you can now ensure your eCommerce holiday readiness and achieve your targetted holiday eCommerce sales!