Expert's View on the Best Way to Market an eCommerce brand during Festive Season

The views & opinions in this article is contributed by various industry professionals and entrepreneurs.

In the age of digitalization, eCommerce is really real and pulsating today. Most of us love to order our products online via the trusted eCommerce platforms that surround us. Ecommerce giants like Flipkart, Amazon, eBay, Snapdeal, Alibaba, etc., have made our life easier with their range of quality products and amazing discounts that they come with. These discounts are irresistible all the more during the festive season!

No matter how little time we have at the end of the day, we never forget to check the discounts on our favorite eCommerce websites during the festive season. The E-commerce companies, Flipkart and Amazon managed to bring in around $2.7 billion just in the first four days of festive sales that started from 2nd October onwards this year! Starting with The Big Billion Days and the Great Indian Festival sale, we see countless sales that continue to offer amazing discounts to the users along with being quite profitable for the businesses, which make up for a huge part of their income at the end of each year. These online sales are surely something that is looked up to by the entire nation and beyond. Therefore, no doubt, setting up one such sale so that it remains properly organized and runs smoothly till the end, is a mammoth task. Such a task needs early preparation in all aspects along with a special focus on marketing that needs to be throughout the sale, which is why we are here.

If you are curious to learn about the best ways to market an eCommerce brand/website during a festive sale, then StartupTalky brings you all that you can ask straight from the experts of the domain!

Nehaa Juneja | Founder, SkinWorks

Festivals, family get-togethers, and a lot of joy are all part of the festival season. People are in such a festive spirit that they are more than willing to indulge in delicacies and exciting shopping sprees. It is true that during celebrations, people are willing to spend significantly more than they would on normal days. eCommerce companies see a substantial portion of their business come in during the Festival sales, so they invest heavily ahead of time to increase capacity and add features in order to handle the surge in orders while ensuring a smooth experience for both customers and sellers.

Use the time leading up to the Festival season to segment your existing client base based on personas and purchasing habits, and provide product or bundle suggestions that are suited to their interests. The single most important component in attracting potential clients is personalization. This Festival season, create interesting and eye-catching landing pages and fill them with incentives that your visitors won't be able to refuse.

When you assist your clients in finding the things they want, especially during the Festival season, you enhance their chances of converting. You might want to add a new Festival category tab to make things easier. People are always looking for methods to get the most bang for their buck. As a result, packaged offers perform admirably over the Festival season. You can even seek ways to give freebies with the combos while still making a profit. Promote your Festival deals on other websites or form a collaboration with bloggers, Instagrammers, or YouTubers in exchange for external mentions. If you can locate and partner with the proper influencer, influencer marketing can be a helpful tactic. Use hashtags on social media sites like Instagram and Twitter. While hashtags are available on Facebook, they aren't nearly as popular or valuable. As a result, it's a good idea to limit your hashtag usage to platforms that support them. The way items are presented matters a lot to today's consumers. Companies might change up their packaging depending on the occasion.

Gaurav Jalan | Founder, Packman

It's that time of the year again when several e-commerce brands launch big sales programs during the festive seasons.

When it is done right, a good marketing plan could be a quite rewarding experience for you and your customers. The customer enjoys great products at the best price, and the e-commerce businesses get to clear the plenty of inventory and bolster their capital. Also, the pandemic has forced the focus to online shopping, and eCommerce businesses this year too must have a solid festive marketing plan in place to make the most of it.

Though several look forward to the festive season having the anticipation of happy shopping and awesome deals, it could be a very stressful period for those at the selling end. There are several decisions to be taken ahead of time that can guarantee successful selling. It is critically essential to have your festive season marketing strategies ready and in place, and implement them as the season commences.

However, there are a few ways that could help your e-commerce businesses to market the brand during the festive seasons. Here are some:

Create Buzz

Try to capitalize on the anticipation of the festive season by giving information to your audience for what’s ahead: amazing products, great discounts and offers prior to they go live. In a rather similar manner to the setup e-commerce offers to its Premium customers, (e.g., Amazon Prime) provides them a special sneak peek or special discounts link where they can see everything that is up for grabs.

In return, request them for information such as their email address or other details you can then use to customize their offers for them. Give special deals, coupons, and other add-ons such as free shipping for registered users. These will prop your customers to make the purchase and complete the deal. If you are a small business having an existing clientele, these are great e-commerce marketing strategies to engage your customers and provide them great rewards and prove how grateful you are to have them.

Here are Top 7 Ways to Create a Buzz around your Startup.

Promotional Teasers

You can also plan about floating a series of promotional videos on social media, TV showcasing behind-the-scenes, interesting facts about products, or the individuals behind them, to name a certain building up to the festive season. Go for a few things and check which ones strike the chord with your audience. This will assist you to understand your brand loyalists better.

Get Prepared

Utilize the time prior to the festive season to segment your existing customer base as per their personas and buying patterns, and come up with suggestions for products, brands, or bundles tailored to their preferences. You could even float some early-bird specials for those who like to get their shopping done well ahead of time. Today, many customers align with brands that uphold and share their values related to the environment, or other concerns. Send them updates about your achievements in like the sectors, tied in with product info.

Promote on other Platforms

Promote the festive offers on third-party sites or enter into an alliance with bloggers, vloggers, or YouTubers for external mentions. Influencer marketing could be a useful strategy if you can find a good partner in the right influencer. That can go a long way in enhancing your brand value.

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Pooja Nagdev | Aromatherapist, Cosmetologist & Founder of INATUR

Marketers in India, which is a land of diverse cultures, have a lot of scope in playing with various themes and colors in each festival. While the celebratory mood here never goes out of season, it is this time of the year that people wait for the most. While consumers witness the discounts during the festive season, marketers have to work hard to attract consumers' attention, much before the season commences. Brands can increase their visibility on social media websites by posting engaging messages/visuals on their pages.

Stand apart by using innovative methods with new players entering the market, the competition for brands is rising exponentially. While the customers are riding high on the online shopping trends, brick-and-mortar stores have maintained their charm. Even though online retailers deliver a convenient shopping experience to the consumers, the offline approach can allow them to experience the brand's offerings.

Using its website, social media handle, and offline store, the company should create a seamless omnichannel experience to increase customer engagement. Many companies, despite having a good online presence, like online furniture brands, are setting up stores or even concept studios in different cities to make their customers' experience a differentiating factor.

Customization and Packaging -

The presentation of products matters a great deal to the new-age consumer. Companies can give their packaging a new twist as per the occasion. Indian festive season is one of the best times to make investments backed by the emotional bond brands share with their target audience. That said, they can curate marketing campaigns centering around emotions, which are on top of the mind of their target audience. By segmenting the customers for a personalized experience, making the campaigns easy shareable and relatable, and delivering irresistible deals across all the channels, brand marketers can unlock enormous sale opportunities and even positioning themselves with maximum success spell during the auspicious festive period.

Also read: 7 Reasons Brands Should Change Product Packaging

Goldy Nagdev | Managing Director, Hari Darshan Sevashram Pvt. Ltd.

If we consider the past few years, it is noticed that everyone is planning their strategies for the festival season sales. To prepare you in advance, we have brought down a list of marketing campaigns, digital platforms & promotional strategies. Explore further to know what marketing strategies you should follow, the major digital platforms you can promote your business on, and drive more sales.

Here are a few marketing strategies you can follow to gain exposure for your brand and businesses to have a successful festival sales season -

Launch video marketing campaigns, it is said that a minute of video is equivalent to eight million words. So, we have bought a list of digital marketing strategies you can adapt to uplift your business this festive season. Different tools are available to enhance your email marketing campaign this festival season.

Social media marketing strategy, in case you are a seller having a B2C business, promoting your products on social media could be your ultimate strategy this festival season. There are several social media platforms you can choose from, such as Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp business, and many more, to uplift your business.

The festive season holds the utmost importance for the sellers and the customers. Thus, it won't be wrong to say that the festival season has the potential to make or break the revenue goals for the merchants both in online and offline stores.

To help you boost your sales during the time of the festive season, we have listed some of the digital marketing services, marketing hacks, and tactics you can follow this festive season and win potential customers. So, start planning your strategies by keeping your customers in mind.

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In order to make the most appropriate strategies for increasing sales during the festive season, we interacted with top executives from different companies across the country.

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Bhavesh Navlakha | Founder, Sukkhi

As the festive season is approaching, e-commerce sites begin promoting brands listed on their platforms by offering various deals across different product categories. The demand for Fashion also takes top priority in the festive season. As e-commerce acts as a strong discovery platform, customers use specific keywords to search for products they like to purchase. Top brands on these platforms have access to the analytics like for example the most searched keywords and the items that are in demand on these sites. Brands can use these analytics to market their products, reach the right target customers and increase sales. As we are a new-age fashion jewelry brand partnering with these marketplaces from their early days, the products get better organic priority than the others listed in the same category due to the high consumer impressions. This ensures visibility for our products and the brand is able to maintain its position in the top searched items. Sukkhi’s overall sales are driven by a healthy mix of organic traffic through these deals/offers and paid traffic to maintain its visibility across platforms.

Sukkhi is a leading new age online- first fashion jewelry brand. Founded in 2012, Sukhhi began with a vision to provide quality and trendy fashion jewelry products. The company makes high-quality products from allergic-free material that is beautifully crafted and designed using the latest technology.

Rajiv Kumar | Founder & CEO, StoreHippo

Modern e-commerce is all about customer experience and personalization along with ease of shopping. Brands should go for personalized product suggestions and deals to keep their customers engaged and nudge them to checkout. Along with this, to get the best out of the current festive season e-commerce brands should have a well-designed omnichannel strategy where they can connect with their customers on multiple touchpoints like their e-commerce website, mobile apps, mobile website, social platforms, and any other modern IoT devices. Also, brands should leverage PWA stores to reach the hinterland (tier 4 and beyond cities) which has seen the biggest rise in online orders during the last festive season. To facilitate more regional orders brands should transition into multilingual stores that facilitate the buyers in ordering in their native language. Along with these multiple payment options should be offered to the buyers to make the checkout quick and frictionless. Finally, the success of an e-commerce business will be dependent on fast and error-free deliveries. Brands should go for automated shipping options with multiple logistics partners to streamline and optimize their fulfillment and keep their customers happy and buying more and more.

Mr. Rajiv Kumar Aggarwal is an Indian Internet Entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of the SaaS Ecommerce Platform StoreHippo. Kumar is an industry veteran and highly skilled technologist with 20+ years of strong experience in Internet Technologies and E-Commerce.

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Shriyans Bhandari | Co-Founder & CEO, Greensole

The festive season always means higher sales than the rest of the year. We as a brand aim to give something new and niche to our renowned clients. Every buyer has a different budget and a sense of style and as a brand, we aim to cater to one and all. We plan to market the upcoming festive clearance sale a month before the new collection launch to keep the buyers hooked on our products. Another idea is to keep the clearance sale and the new collection launch together with an offer that will generate sales for both lines. It can be along the lines of buying the newly launched product at full price and get a certain discount on the old products. Buyers always love the idea of getting more than one thing at the price of two or three and the festive season is the perfect time to execute this idea. The promotion for all the discounted products will be hyped with the marketing plans focused on the same. We would start marketing the date and time on which the products will go on sale and shall keep it for a limited period of time in order to have quicker checkouts than the rest of the year.