Tom Wakelin, Author at Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom

How to prepare your business for Black Friday & Christmas sales

Tom Wakelin — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 08:00:13 +0000

In 2018, Black Friday sales hit a colossal £1.4bn in the UK – an increase of 7.3% on the previous year. In the US, it hit a record £4.8bn.

Was your business prepared?
What can you learn from UK retailers during the run up to this period?
What business decisions can be made to ensure your success?

This is now one of the most important dates in the retail calendar. It’s essential that you’re ready to drive those all-important sales.

There are two ingredients for success: customers and data. Place each of these at the forefront of your preparations.

Consider the end-to-end experience a customer has – from spotting your advert online to shopping for those Black Friday deals on your website to after-care emails. They should be engaged every step of the way. Data provides you with the means to do that. Use your analytics to identify where customers are going (or not going); what they’re buying; when and where and how. AI is a prime tool for this, taking the guesswork out of data analytics, offering insights into refining that experience.

Update your website

It’s entirely possible, if you have carefully managed your brand’s image, that customers will actively visit your website with very little marketing from your organisation. However, it’s important to remember that customers are likely to visit your site’s landing page in their hunt for the latest Black Friday bargains.

Anecdotally, most retailers stick to the classic red colour scheme with white typography. This isn’t surprising, given that studies find that we react ‘faster and more forcefully’ when we see this colour. However, this presents an opportunity to rise above your competitors – even a moderate tweak, such as yellow writing on a red background can help you stand out from the crowd.

Most organisations also create ‘hot spots’ in a static image. This lets customers navigate to specific sales pages, such as ‘Furniture’ or ‘Beauty’. A more fluid, intuitive user experience is essential for driving traffic and sales.

Promote your website on social media

If your brand isn’t particularly well-known, adjusting your social media channels to drive traffic to your website is a wise decision. This is also vital if you’re aiming to attract a new type of customer to your winter sale.

This isn’t a silver bullet for increased sales, however. It’s interesting to note that not all retailers followed this method.

Dunelm promotes its winter sale across its social media networks, as does Next, who also ran a series of adverts this year featuring the dogs, Dodger and Pixel.

Other retailers, such as Debenhams and House of Fraser, have not changed the appearance of their social media channels since Christmas, but they have published posts that direct customers to their sales landing pages.

Create and track unmissable newsletters

Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to entice customers to shop with you – so long as it’s done the right way (and you don’t spam potential shoppers).

Most retailers support their sales through email newsletters. These often feature similar design cues as their websites, creating a sense of continuity and branding, while enabling customers to quickly navigate around their website.

But you can also obtain excellent data from email clicks that can help you make better business decisions.

Next, for instance, individually track each hyperlink in their emails. A close inspection of each of these links, like ‘Home Sale’ and ‘Brands Sale’, reveals slight differences in each tracking code. This lets the retail giant effectively report on the efficiency of their email newsletter.

By concentrating on the data, companies can focus on the links that perform well, or present an opportunity to drive more traffic to under-performing links by tweaking various elements. Finally, it’s a chance to remove others entirely depending on the click-through rate of each link. Why waste time on links that, despite your best efforts, aren’t generating sales via email?

Be different

Think outside the box. It’s a sure-fire way to create delight and excitement among customers – especially during busy times of the year like Black Friday and Christmas, when so many others follow the same old trends.

Companies like Dunelm use other social media channels like Instagram to drive traffic to their sales page – this is via links in their profile bios, or through services like Feedshop. This tool lets you add links to Insta pics via a separate webpage.

You may also want to consider using Snapchat geo-filters across your store, digital advertising with Microsoft Advertising, and even Facebook Livestreams. These tools can help you increase visibility and drive customers to your website.

What are your thoughts? How does your organisation use digital marketing to help drive sales through sale seasons? Share your best practices in the comments.

Find out more

5 ways to increase the accessibility and visibility of your social media content

About the author

Tom Wakelin is Microsoft UK’s Social Media Marketing Manager, responsible for our digital communities across consumer, commercial, education and developer. Whether it’s a Facebook message, tweet, Instagram Live broadcast, or LinkedIn blog, Tom and the team are always looking for innovative ways to help tell the Microsoft story and drive excitement for our products and services. He’s always on the lookout for exciting customer stories that bring the magic of technology to life. You can follow Tom on Twitter at @Thomas_Wakelin

The post How to prepare your business for Black Friday & Christmas sales appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

5 ways to increase the accessibility and visibility of your social media content

Tom Wakelin — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 09:00:05 +0000

How do those living with vision, hearing, cognitive or motor needs communicate with your brand online?

Despite the culture shift towards a more accessible online experience, few organisations are truly leading on this important issue when building their social media marketing strategy. Here are some changes you may need to make to improve your digital customer experience for all audiences…

Tip 1 – Describe your images

Many people are unaware of the option to add alt text to social media imagery. Employees attach their image, hit Send, and forget about it.

But the alt text is vital for people with accessibility issues, since it adds a text description to an image on a web page. This helps people to understand what your image is, even if they struggle with visual impairment.

Some social media publishing tools such as Sprinklr have built this feature into their platforms. It makes life as easy as possible for those publishing to sites like Facebook and Twitter. Adding alt text is an absolute must for extending the your reach of your communications and to ensure you can engage everyone, no matter their background or ability.

Tip 2 – Caption your videos

In 2006, Ofcom asked British households how many of them used subtitles. 7.5 million people said they did; 6 million of them didn’t have any hearing impairment. In the age of YouTube, where subtitles can be automatically generated and switched on with the push of a button, expect that figure to have shot up.

Given those stats, it doesn’t make sense to ignore subtitles (or ‘closed captioning’) on your videos. It creates genuinely accessible social media. Not only that, but they also help increase SEO and engagement. Accessible and optimised? It’s the social media manager’s dream.

All text should be the same size and style, while being easy to read on moving backgrounds. To make sure your text doesn’t get distorted, remember to use the correct dimensions: if you’re posting to platforms like Facebook and Instagram, 1080×1080 is the magic number; on platforms like Twitter, it’s 1024×512 to ensure subtitles are easily read.

Remember, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

Tip 3 – Communicate with clear copy

It sounds simple, but when creating any social media post, remember to clearly write your text for people who may need assistance. Depending on the platform, you may not be able to affect the font size on a post. But you can still make thoughtful tweaks to your copy to make it easier to read.

Avoid blocks of text. Pop spaces between your introduction, the middle, and the final call to action. Doing so takes up more screen real-estate (and catches the eye), but also, the crystal-clear layout makes it a lot easier for you to communicate your message and for people to actually read it.

Secondly, use simple, accessible language. Don’t force people to go running for the dictionary every time you tweet – because they may not run back to you afterwards.

Tip 4 – Ask ‘How will this sound?’

Preparing an accessible social media strategy or editorial calendar is time-consuming. At times, it can even be pretty frustrating – especially if you don’t have the right content, at the right time, scheduled in the right way.

But once you’re all set, instead of rushing out your content, have you ever listened to it?

If your smartphone or tablet has a feature like iPhone’s ‘voice over’, it may be worth checking your previous posts. As you listen to each, think critically about what you hear.

Hearing your posts read aloud – or even just speaking them out-loud before they go live – might make you reconsider or innovate some of your existing workplace practices.

Tip 5 – Start learning

Accessible social media should always lead your online strategy.

Sure, it might help your reach and communicate with new audiences, but so much more important is this: it’s the right thing to do.

Changing to a culture of accessibility has the power to transform someone’s online experience, or help them develop new skills.

To help kick-start your learning, these are my favourite resources:

Find out more

Re-imagine accessibility

About the author

The post 5 ways to increase the accessibility and visibility of your social media content appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.