With more people shifting to online shopping for the holidays, it’s the perfect time to implement digital marketing strategies for the holidays that will attract and keep loyal customers. While every company needs a year-round marketing plan, no time ranks as more important for ecommerce than the holidays.

Deloitte projects that holiday sales will increase 7% to 9% this year, with ecommerce sales growing by 15%.  Between November and January, they expect sales to reach as high as $1.3 trillion.

That’s a holiday pie every online company (or brick and mortar company with an online presence) wants a piece of, they just need the right digital marketing strategies for the holidays to get it.

Ideas for Holiday Digital Marketing Strategies

The holidays not only provide opportunities for the next few months, but also a chance to hone all facets of digital marketing. The November-through-January period gives online businesses a chance to see what performs well and what does not. Tracking that information is one of the most important ways a business – or the digital marketing consultants they hire – can guide campaigns in the future.

As for specific digital marketing strategies for the holidays, the following offers a few ideas.

Attract Loyal Customers

It’s the holidays, so every company will get one-and-done shoppers. However, a smart digital marketing strategy is to target people who will not only buy a holiday gift, but also remain a loyal customer as we move into the New Year. Digital marketers use business intelligence tools and data analytics to help identify those customers through their online behavior. They then create personalized campaigns that target these high-value audiences.

Optimizing Customer Experience

This also is good advice throughout the year. But with the rush of buyers online for the holidays, it’s a good time to optimize the customer’s journey through your site. Even though they shop online, customers still want a personalized experience. A sound digital marketing strategy recognizes that and gives people what they want when they visit a site, including personalized recommendations.

Focus on SEO

Search engine optimization remains the most cost effective way to drive traffic to a site, but it requires commitment to creating content and doing the behind-the-scenes work to optimize web pages for better search results. While it takes time to realize the gains from SEO, it’s worth the effort. This year’s holiday season is a great time to prepare for next year’s holiday season. See how your site’s pages rank, and see what competitors rank above you, on important keywords and phrases. You then have a year to build a solid SEO strategy, rank even higher for important keywords and reap the benefits next holiday season.

Collect First-Party Data

New rules around the collection of data from those online have changed digital marketing, making it more challenging. One way to solve this issue is to put more effort into collecting first party data – that is, data consumers give directly when asked. This can include contact information such as email addresses. First party data also includes transactional data with your site. Using this data helps build a more complete picture of each individual consumer.

These ideas can help focus digital marketing strategies for the holidays that not only increase traffic and conversions from November through January, but also throughout the year.