The end of the year is the time when shoppers create their shopping lists, buy presents and look for the most amazing discounts. For businesses, especially ecommerce businesses, the holiday season is the best time of the year when they have a great opportunity to promote their products and attract more shoppers.
It’s no wonder that consumer spending tremendously increases every year. According to a survey, consumers will spend approximately $1,463 during the holiday season 2021 which is 5% more than last year’s spending, $1,387 in 2020.
Source: Deloitte
No matter what you are selling through your mobile app, it is the right time to make sure your app is ready for the holiday season.
From app optimization to localization, app installing campaigns to Christmas themes and launching new features, there are a lot of opportunities for business owners and ecommerce marketers to generate more profits. With a lot of optimization and design changes, your app development team can experience a significant increase in app downloads.
If you want to engage more users and increase mobile sales during the holiday season 2021, you need to adapt your app marketing and development strategy.
Let’s discover how mobile app developers and designers make significant changes in their mobile apps and make the most out of the holiday season.
- Observe What Your Competitors are Doing
- Change the App Design
- Make sure Your App is Updated
- Offer Coupons and Discounts
- Integrate Live Chat Feature
- Introduce Voice Search Technology
- AR Integration
- Segment Your Customers
- Use Holiday-Themed Push Notifications
- Run a Holiday Marketing Campaign
- Observe What Your Competitors are Doing
When it comes to updating your app for the holiday season, it is advised to do in-depth research and create a list of things that you want to do in the festive season. Whether you are planning to offer Black Friday discounts, Cyber Monday deals, launching in-app features, making visual effects or uploading a holiday theme or any other holiday-specific content, it is important to plan things carefully.
You need to check what your competitors are doing and the app development trends they are following. You can try their holiday marketing ideas for creating your marketing strategy and earning profits. You need to be creative and do something unique to stand out in the saturated app market. This step will help you discover more profitable opportunities and drive more sales this season.
- Change the App Design
If you have a plan to offer an amazing Cyber Monday deal or Christmas offer, take time to update your app visuals to inform app users about your upcoming offer. Put your best efforts into updating the app design to create an emotional connection with users. To add a holiday spirit, you can create a design theme, icons or images or whatever you think will attract your potential customers. Alternatively, collaborating with a UI UX design company can bring professional expertise to this process, ensuring your app’s holiday theme resonates effectively with users. Adding high-quality creatives and holiday motifs will definitely create maximum user engagement and encourage users to try your offer.
For instance, you can update your app icon to engage your regular and just installed users. Adding a holiday app gamification is another great idea to make your app more attractive. If you have a client portal app, you can also consider integrating a holiday-themed user interface with festive colors and graphics, making the overall user experience feel more in line with the holiday season.
- Make sure Your App is Updated
If you really want to maximize your sales during the holiday season 2021, you need to make sure the app is free of any errors. If the add to cart button doesn’t work or a shopper is unable to complete the purchase, chances are they will abandon the app due to a poor shopping experience. A professional mobile app development team and software engineers should conduct an in-depth analysis to check how your app is performing. This step also highlights all the possible issues, while allowing developers and designers to resolve them immediately.
- Offer Coupons and Discounts
Today’s shoppers prefer to shop from those brands that offer special discounts and exclusive deals. The holiday season is the perfect time to offer amazing discounts and promo codes to attract more and more customers.
According to a recent survey by Clutch, more than 63% of shoppers use mobile apps to leverage deals and discounts. The same survey suggests that 84% of shoppers opt for push notifications related to discounts and 85% of users want discount notifications that are customized according to their previous purchases.
Offering discounts, coupons and promo codes is an amazing idea to reduce the cart abandonment rate. With the help of advanced tools, app marketers can segment app users based on their in-app behavior. It allows them to send shoppers coupons and special discounts in real-time to create a memorable shopping experience.
- Integrate Live Chat Feature
If your mobile app development hasn’t implemented the live chat feature into your app, now is the time to make the most out of this feature. Brands, especially ecommerce businesses have a myriad of reasons to deploy Facebook Messenger chatbots in mobile apps.
A study conducted by Smart Insights suggests that brands that use live chat have an 8x higher conversion rate compared to those that don’t use the live chat feature. Today’s consumers use mobile devices for purchasing products, ordering food, and booking tickets. Using chatbots in your mobile app is a great idea to promote human-like interactions with your prospective and existing customers.
Integrating a live chat support feature into your mobile app before the holiday season begins is a worthwhile strategy. It will give your customers a human-like and amazing customer experience.
- Introduce Voice Search Technology
Voice shopping is a cutting-edge trend that allows shoppers a great sense of ease. According to Google, 44% of shoppers regularly use a voice search to place online orders. Now there is no need to type a product name you are looking for, simply speak to the app and you will get the desired product.
Shoppers are damn busy in the holiday season; they need to plan so many things and do online shopping. Thanks to voice search technology, it makes it easier for shoppers to simply speak to the app and get the product delivered to their home.
In order to make your app useful, ecommerce businesses and software companies can integrate voice search technology into their mobile apps to make them more profitable.
- AR Integration
Augmented reality has become an indispensable tool for advanced mobile apps. The implementation of augmented reality into your mobile app, allows you to create a meaningful and engaging experience. Whether you are an ecommerce business or a service-based agency, if you want to boost sales in this holiday season and beyond, use AR technology to improve customer engagement and shopping experience. A team of professional app developers will help you implement this advanced feature in your mobile app.
- Segment Your Customers
According to a study conducted by Pushwoosh, apps that apply behavioral segmentation observe a 100X increase in conversion-to-purchase rate compared to those general messages and CTAs. The holiday season 2021 is the perfect time to take consumer segmentation seriously.
Marketers can segment shoppers on the basis of their buying pattern, products purchased, interests, and engagement with your app. Collect your online and offline customer data sources and segment your app audience. Thanks to advanced tools, you can use behavioral data and attributes to target your customers and send them special holiday discounts and deals based on their interests and purchase history.
- Use Holiday-Themed Push Notifications
Sending push notifications is an effective strategy to attract highly motivated shoppers and convince them to open your app. The holiday season is the perfect time to send push notifications as people look for special deals and gifts for their loved ones.
Using push notifications can boost user engagement and generate more holiday sales on your app. Keep in mind that the timing is the key. Make sure to send push notifications at the right time to allow users to make the most out of your offers. So, start sending holiday season announcements, discounts and special deals to instigate mobile app users to take action.
- Run a Holiday Marketing Campaign
Plan your holiday marketing campaign early to make sure you have enough time to attract and convert mobile app users. You can start retargeting campaigns as the holiday season begins to re-engage users who have bought previously from your mobile app or website. It is advised to launch your holiday marketing campaign on all channels to increase your chances of getting more app downloads and holiday sales.
Wrapping Up
These are a few steps you need to take before the holiday season begins. If you find it difficult to implement all the above-mentioned techniques into your app development and marketing strategy, take a deep breath. Experiment with a few strategies that you think will work great for your mobile app during the busiest shopping season. By following these amazing techniques, hopefully, you will see more app downloads and leads during the holiday season 2021.
