There is an obvious trend in the E-commerce arena, and one that you need to master to bolster your Return On Investment (ROI). If you have been sky-locking and running your online business for a while, then you must have realized that there are swings and variation in returns as seasons pass by. Holidays are perhaps the most lucrative seasons to any business, albeit a few marketers knowing how to tap profits from the surging gems. For some businesses the Holiday season is the difference between profit and bankruptcy, which is why the Fall and Winter months are the Olympics of Digital Marketing.

According to Spring Metrics, an independent consumer trends research agency, over 40 percent of annual retails revenue are yields from the holiday seasons. What this simply means is that if you run an online business, you can boost your current annual revenue by a landslide during the holidays. As a business owner who is concerned with increasing leads to your sales funnel, the best thing that you should be doing is to increase your products visibility now, to reap the benefits in the months to come.

Now that we have established that advertising should be done heavily during the holidays, lets address the dos and don’ts of Holiday Digital Marketing and in turn help you leverage your investment with the power of advertisement.

What are the things you SHOULD do during the holidays:

Here are some helpful tips that have proven effective in our experience:

Come up with a working plan

“Without vision, people perish” – I saw that on someone’s desk and it stuck with me. This phrase became a part of my philosophy because I found it to be true in some many cases. Having a strategy is more of a mandate than an option if you are serious about increasing your visibility to the ready buyers. Know your product and your targeted demographic. The best approach to gaining traction and getting things done is to do an in-depth research & analysis to find out what condition the current market is in and where you and your business will fit in. Once you have identified your customer, spend some time researching their habits and online trends so you can tailor your strategy and campaigns to the most interested parties which will bring you the highest ROI. There is a wealth of information available to the interested parties. The issue here is not getting statistics, but rather your ability to quickly and accurately generate a working profile of a consumer that can translate into a successful campaign. Hire a professional who can assist you with the data and help you come up with a productive plan of action. Plan of action is the foundation of your online success.

Create a reasonable budget

Being pocket-wise in the current economic conditions should be among the first things that come to mind when you make an investment in your business by advertising. When the economy is healthy and growing you are ahead of the curve employing this strategy. Your budget however needs to large enough so you can compete with others. During the holidays expect to spend a little more on digital marketing campaigns in order to reach your customer and be effective. Running your internet advertising during the holiday season will mean nothing if you are going to have a poor return on investment thus you need to ensure that your profit margin is higher than what you have spent.

Pinpoint Your Customer

There is more certainty than ever today in digital marketing. The power to laser target buyers online is available to you now. Targeting age groups, geographical locations, gender among other options is now possible with almost any advertising platform from Google Pay-Per-Click to Facebook Ads. This ingenious feature has proven to be fruitful in the past and something that can yield lots of returns especially in the holiday season when you are being cautious to spend your advertising dollars wisely and specifically.

Spy on your Competitors

Online advertising, like any other from of advertising has businesses desperately scramming for buyers. If you want to run successful advertising campaigns and outrun your competitors, then you have to ensure that you know them better than they know you. Looking over the fence at your competition has never been easier. There are plenty of tools online that allow you to see what keywords your competitors using and whom they are targeting. Some of the information that could be found includes the budget, the mode of advertisements they use and the networks they are using to reach buyers. So if competitor Bob is buying a new house and a car you should certainly take a peek and see what information can be found useful.

What are the things you SHOULD NOT do during the holidays:

Failing to Scale Up Your ROI

Keep track of your ongoing campaigns to make sure you are within your budget and profit parameters. Monitoring your business performance is something that you should be investing some time in on the daily basis. A common mistake with a large number of online advertisers is failing to scale up their spending over returns. This also explains why 75% percent of online marketers fail to succeed. Regardless of whether you are reaching out your buyers through PPC, CPM campaigns or any other types of Paid Search Advertising, you need to ensure that each segment of your campaign contributes to the overall business success.

Avoid Making Assumptions

Lest you want your business to drop like a falling star, you should never make any assumptions that will affect your business as a whole. We are all different, assuming a behavior or a trend instead of relying on statistics has been a downfall of men much brighter than I. One thing that every business owner should know is that the competitors are looking for the weak places in your business, which in many cases is the online portion of the business. Rely on facts and figures and keep your emotions out of making a business marketing decision.

Poor Testing

Successful advertising should be based on factual information and researched metrics. Split testing is a cliché in the marketing world which means that one needs to test the performances of separate landing pages and advertisement campaigns. One should then collect facts on the ad copies that are more profitable, amplify them and drop those that are not fruitful. Failing to do this could see your business outrun by the competition in no time. Know your advertising results and request the matrix so you can see for yourself how the campaign has performed without having to take anyone else’s word for it.

Final word

The rule of the thumb here is that the holiday seasons opens up a sales buzz and truth be told, only a few marketers know how to take advantage of it. Implement just a few of the ideas above and you are sure to see more profits during the holidays and months to come…