Tips for optimal preparation for public holidays, campaign days and special events

Traditionally, retailers generate the highest sales in the fourth quarter. This is partly due to Christmas sales and partly to promotional days such as Black Friday. But it's not just towards the end of the year that there are special occasions that can boost your sales! From Easter and Halloween to special sporting events and trade fairs in your industry to more recent shopping events and curious holidays: there is a wide range of opportunities to advertise with special products and discounts.

However, you should be optimally prepared for every occasion. Otherwise there is a risk that your promotion will be a flop and the hoped-for rush of customers or profit will not materialize. To prevent this from happening, you will find practical tips here. 

• Famous holidays such as Christmas, Valentine's Day, Carnival
• Seasonal days such as the beginning of summer, end of spring, longest day of the year
• Memorial days such as Labor Day, Independence Day 
• Special events such as International Women's Day, the start of Ramadan, school-leaving exams
• Curious days such as Chocolate Day, Cat Day, Hairdressers' Day of Honor, e-commerce campaign days such as Cyber Monday, Black Friday, Prime Day
• Popular events such as the European Football Championship, Handball World Cup, Olympics, Winter Games

Neither Christmas nor Black Friday are spontaneous events. You should therefore prepare for them well in advance! Ideally, you should start brainstorming and creating a task list for your "Xmas Sale" in the summer months, for example, and start implementing it in October at the latest.

Involve all relevant colleagues and departments in your creative and planning processes in good time. These include the marketing team, sales, production (for in-house products), warehouse and logistics as well as support staff. Everyone involved must always be aware of what your company is planning for the planned events and holidays.

For your campaigns, you will probably need banners from a graphic designer, additional server capacity from IT and extra helping hands in the warehouse. You should therefore not only talk to all departments and external service providers, but also plan for additional staff such as student assistants, temporary workers or freelancers. Think about the necessary lead time here too, as every new employee needs a short induction period.

Regardless of whether you have a large range or a small but fine selection of special offers up your sleeve: Check all product information, images, videos, prices and conditions in good time. If your systems do not have a function for planning data changes well in advance, you will have to make these adjustments manually shortly beforehand or "just in time" - which takes time. Time that you should also plan for.

Would you like to place ads on Google, Facebook, Instagram or TikTok? Do you want TV and radio ads? Or are you planning to book ads in newspapers and magazines? Take care of these measures a few weeks or months in advance so that you get the placements you want at reasonable prices. 

Extra tip: Create special landing pages to which your advertising material can link. Make sure you use an easy-to-understand

URL such as www.meinshop.de/blackfriday  

As an online retailer, you are certainly active on at least one social network and also offer a newsletter. Here, too, you should not symbolically draw attention to your promotions and discounts at the very last minute. But don't start the promotion too early either! For example, if your customers know that you will be offering a special lawn mower model 50% cheaper in four weeks' time, some will probably hold off buying until then. 

Many people have the problem of not knowing what to give their loved ones for special occasions. So score points with a shopping guide in the form of an inspiring text or an interactive tool. Promote this shopping guide with SEA and other online marketing measures. Place suitable guide content on your blog, distribute it via your social media channels and include it in your mailings.

For holidays or special events, you should offer more than just discounts and your standard range. (Find unusual products or put together attractive bundles. For example, offer kitschy winter sweaters, sell your smartphones together with an Easter bunny cover, combine your ketchup with a recipe book for "bloody Halloween recipes" ... feel free to be creative.

Of course, don't forget the lead time you need to produce the goods and the bundles or procure them from your suppliers! Plan in a sufficient buffer so that short-term production or delivery bottlenecks are not a problem. 

In the days leading up to the event, as well as on the day itself, your traffic will increase significantly. Prepare your technology for this by adding more server power and carrying out load tests beforehand. Ask your IT team to be available quickly in the event of problems. In addition, do not upload any updates or make any online store improvements during the entire period. This increases the risk of your system running out of order or even failing completely, which would be a disaster. 

Consider whether you would like to adapt the look of your packaging and outer boxes to the holidays and occasions, for example with a special color or a special motif.

And a service that customers like especially at Christmas: The option of having the ordered goods packaged as a gift. However, don't underestimate the effort involved in implementing such a service (staff, materials, space, etc.).

Communicate transparently on your website how many of the advertised products are available and how long delivery to the customer will take. After all, there is nothing more embarrassing than a Christmas present that is only delivered after the holidays! Optimize your entire merchandise management and logistics chain. To do this, clarify with your shipping service provider how good their capacities will be during the campaign period.

As an omni- or cross-channel provider, you can also offer your customers click & collect. However, your store system must be designed for this process. If this is not the case, you will need to have the feature developed, which can take several months.

When the "Day X" has arrived, tease your special offers prominently in your online store. You can also customize the design - but don't overdo it! Not every customer likes it when a website is overloaded with colorful Easter eggs or snow angels.

It goes without saying, but it's still important: make sure that your online store with the special event adaptations is also fully usable on smartphones and tablets and that all offers are displayed.

Collect all relevant data before, during and after your campaign (fully GDPR-compliant, of course) and evaluate it with all colleagues involved. Don't just look at key figures such as sales, turnover and profit, but also define additional KPIs. For example, you can examine the return rate, the number of support emails and the server load as important metrics. 

If possible, compare all figures with previous years. Draw conclusions and find adjustments to optimize your campaigns and your online store. Strive to continuously improve.

Don't take Easter, Christmas, or Black Friday lightly! Everything needs to work perfectly together, or you'll be wasting potential. Start planning and implementation early, and involve all colleagues, departments, and service providers. Additionally, store all concepts, plans, and analyses centrally so that you can retrieve and improve upon them next year.

Do you have more questions? Don't hesitate to contact us - we look forward to working with you to find solutions that meet your needs.

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