The Holiday Season is upon us! Roughly 20% of all retail sales in the US happen during this season and we all want a piece of the shopping action, right? Today’s Fashion Brain podcast gives you my “Five Tips to Boost Holiday Sales”. They’re simple yet powerful and my challenge for you is to pick ONE of them to start TODAY.

Click this bar below to listen to the “5 Tips to Boost Holiday Sales” episode.

For those of you who prefer to read the highlights of today’s episode, here you go!

The highlights from today’s episode…

Tip #1:  Create a Holiday Gift Giving checklist

Oftentimes, people don’t even remember who they need to buy for. You can create a helpful gift giving checklist as a value-add for your customers. If you have a little list they can download, something cute, with checkboxes, and a place for each person, it reduces the STRESS of the customer. Also a checklist like this will get SHARED between friends and bring brand awareness.

And don’t forget Cathy’s simple but powerful question…

“Who can I help cross off your list?” -Cathy Wagner from Retail Mavens

 Tip #2: Create a sense of urgency

Intellectually, I know Christmas is December 25^th, and yet it always SHOCKS me to see or hear how many actual DAYS left until the big day.

Remind them of this sense of urgency by doing tings like this….

• Order by THIS date to receive your gifts before December _____________ THIS DATE
• Free shipping when you order by _______________
• Countdown the days (in real time, on your site)

 Tip #3: Create amazing gift wrap

Presentation is everything. Perceived value goes way up when things are beautifully presented.

People are busy, make it EASY for them. Many shoppers are happy to pay so they don’t have to do the work.

I found this great idea on Saffron Avenue Design. The simple Kraft paper, red ribbon and metallic lettering are a fantastic combination.

Tip #4: Use Pinterest

The Holiday Season is incredibly busy on Pinterest and it’s great for driving traffic to your website.

Piqora – an image marketing & analytics tool – analyzed data from 1000 brands over a period of 9 months and found some amazing results. Each “pin” a user attaches to his or her Pinterest boards is worth (on average) $0.78 in additional sales to the brand whose merchandise is featured. That’s almost an extra dollar worth of sales for each pin. Bam!

Some Pinterest stats:

• 93 percent of “pinners” shopped online within the last six months (Nielsen data)
• Women on Pinterest are 30 percent more likely to shop or buy online than the average woman (Comscore)
• There are more than 604 million holiday pins on Pinterest (Pinterest blog)
• Pinners also spend 50 percent more money on average than users of other social channels, and 20 percent more than people referred from nonsocial channels, including search (Comscore)
• 75% of all Pinterest usage occurs via mobile devices, according to Pinterest. This means your website needs to be mobile friendly!

Remember, it’s not just about pinning your own products, although that’s part of it. Re-pinning is a great way to get new followers and you’ll want to have Boards not directly related to your product. Some of the most popular include:

• Holiday recipes
• Projects and gifts
• DIY
• Holiday decorating

#5: When you send emails, focus on promoting only ONE item at a time

Our natural inclination is to show everything we offer and list a million different product ideas in one email. This doesn’t work as well as promoting only ONE or maybe two items. What happens when you give people so many options is that customers get confused, distracted, and they click away – thinking they’s “come back later”.

RECAP of the Five Tips to Boost Your Holiday Sales

1. Create a Holiday Gift checklist
2. Create a sense of urgency
3. Create amazing gift wrap
4. Use Pinterest
5. When you send emails, focus on one item per email

So here’s my challenge for you – and it’s pretty easy…

Pick ONE of these 5 tips and implement it today. Right now! Don’t worry about having everything perfect, just take some quick action (imperfect action) to get one of the strategies executed right away. So waddayagonnado? In the comments below, tell me which Tip you’re choosing and when you’re going to do it.

BONUS POINTS for those who come back later and report what happened after you implemented the strategy,

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As always, thanks for reading and listening,