A recent article on Search Engine Land called for online retailers to perform post mortem analyses on their holiday marketing campaigns. I couldn't agree more. The article goes on to say that, marketer's shouldn't assume that people are done shopping on December 22nd. Sure, most retailers experience a sharp decline in activity post holiday, but the 2006 drop-off wasn’t nearly as significant as in years past, and we do not expect it to be that dramatic in 2007 either. The reason? Maybe it’s the increasing effect of gift cards, or that most shoppers realize that the real deals happen after the holidays. Either way, savvy marketers should be prepared to capture post-holiday activity.
And in order to make the most of this post mortem analysis, here are a list of questions that have been recommended to accurately define how the online campaigns worked or didn't work:
- Did messaging target your customer base, data should reveal the information you need to tweak your messaging so it is more closely aligned with the language of your customers
- What were the best moving or most profitable items?
- Can you identify compatible product combinations?
- Have you aligned website promotions and product availability to influence overall merchandising strategy?
- Research competitor performance in comparison with your own history
Search engine land recommends you perform post mortem reports on your holiday campaigns. And with good reason - the holidays bring in more than 50% of the average monthly sales for most retailers. This is painstaking and probably time consuming for most companies that do their own analytics, especially during the holidays. But the results from this study will provide you with elements and capacities to improve your campaigns and set it on a competitive position as you once more launch campaigns in the first quarter of 2008.
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