While Easter may not have quite the same boom for eCommerce retailers as Christmas, it’s still a valuable holiday in the retail calendar.
Statistically, both retail and etail businesses experience some level of “Easter effect”. The UK typically experiences a 10% increase in online e-Commerce sales around Easter and Denmark set a new record in 2017 with DKK 1.78 billion in Easter sales! Sweden similarly adds around SEK 2 billion in sales of consumables around this holiday. With all that in mind, eCommerce stores need to be ready to take advantage of this surge in customer footfall and need to stand out from the competition.
Before you start, check and replenish your inventory
You don’t want to invest in a comprehensive Easter marketing campaign and then disappoint shoppers by running out of popular products or Easter specials. Make sure that you are well stocked and can fulfill orders as they are placed.
Run special Easter discounts and offers
Running Easter themed discounts and offers can be a good way to stand out in the eyes of your customers. Think of situations your customers would be in during the holidays: preparing family dinners, meeting relatives and friends, catching up on unfinished projects or DIY, spending more time at the gym, or just chilling on the couch. Then think of which products they might consider in these situations and other things they might need for spring. You can then promote these products across your marketing channels.
Launch a social media giveaway
A classic social media giveaway never fails (well, almost never). While we’d advise you to become as creative and inventive as possible, always remember to make it easy for your followers to get involved and most importantly, ensure they’re able to share your posts! You’ll want the giveaway to be easy to understand and relatively simple to take part in. The example below asked followers to guess the weight of the chocolate. It’s a great concept and lots of fun. You could also consider a paid boost if you want to reach an even bigger audience.
Add Easter themed branding to your store
Who doesn’t love an Easter bunny? Giving your store and marketing channels an Easter makeover is easy and doesn’t take long. Decorating your marketing assets is especially important for email campaigns to help send the message loud and clear that Easter is here!
Easter themed branding shown on Old Navy’s eCommerce store
Create urgency
Take advantage of the Easter boost and clear out some of last season’s products! Try experimenting with different kinds of sales, offers or giveaways to figure out what works best. Encourage your followers to act now by giving timelines and deadlines – “this offer can’t last forever” or “when they’re gone they’re gone” work every time.
Start an Easter egg hunt
Why not create an Easter egg hunt on your website? This is a clever way to offer a discount to your customers. Even smarter is the fact that customers will have to scan through your entire website to find them and check out certain pages that they might not have visited otherwise. Easter egg hunts are getting ever more inventive as brands look to stand out from the crowd.
UK retail brand Tesco has kick-started its Easter campaign with an online Easter egg hunt which uses Google Street View technology. The “Find the Eggs” campaign invited players to explore their streets to find thousands of virtual Easter eggs .To begin their search, the player had to type in their postcode. They were then directed to their chosen location using Google Street View where they navigated their way around in search for the eggs. Once three eggs had been found the player won a MaltEaster Chocolate Bunny, which could then be claimed in store or online using a secure digital coupon.
Create a brand hashtag
User-generated content is the perfect way to gain social proof. Encourage your followers to engage with your brand and use a hashtag to pull all contributions together in one place. They could share a selfie, show the ways they’re using your products or elaborate on a star rating and experience. Customer reviews are the perfect way to reinforce how credible and trustworthy your brand is. Don’t forget to use the content you gather on other marketing channels.
Use remarketing and boost recommended products
Attract your visitors back with appealing offers on products they have looked at in the past.
Start an email marketing campaign
Warm up your contacts in the weeks approaching Easter by sharing any planned offers, discount codes, giveaways or new products via email. Be sure to think carefully about your audience, creating email campaigns that will not only stand out in a crowded inbox, but are also suitable for their intended audience. You could segment your email list and test different formats with different audiences to find out what really hits the sweet spot. Having redeemable (and trackable) discount codes in an email can also help you track and review your email marketing campaign.
Collect reviews after a sale!
Once a successful sale is made, don’t forget to ask and encourage customers to leave a rating or review for your store. With an eCommerce marketing platform like HelpfulCrowd, customers can add photo and video content too, meaning you’ll have great assets to share with your audience right away or next year when Easter rolls around once more.
If you’re new to HelpfulCrowd and want to start collecting more customer reviews, sign up for a free demo today.
