Once September has hit, there’s one thing every Filipino knows: the Christmas season is here. It’s time to start on your Christmas lists, plan your holiday decorations, and start playing Jose Mari Chan songs non-stop. Life as a merchant, of course, is even more hectic.

With 70% of Filipino shoppers having stated that they’ve discovered purchases on Facebook, social commerce is an unmissable opportunity for all merchants.

The fourth quarter is a time both dreaded and looked forward to. The key to making sure it’s the latter is to think ahead and make sure you’re ready to tackle the mega sale season with unmissable bargains and eye-catching campaigns.

Here are a few steps to help you craft a great seasonal campaign and help you stand out amongst the competition:

Plan ahead

Know how to work towards your targets. It’s never too early to set your goals and plan out your sale strategy. Set your quotas and KPIs so you can have a quantifiable way to know if your campaigns were successful. This is also the time to set your budgets and know what ROI you need to hit to break even and earn profit. Thinking of investing in ads? Great idea! This is one easy way to boost your presence on social media. By the way, don’t forget to add your chatstore link to your boosted posts: it’s one simple way to ensure a more seamless customer experience and increase conversion rates. Just make sure to note your expenses down so you can gauge your success afterward and find out what works and what doesn’t. Want to try offering freebies to attract new customers? That’s another surefire way to get more attention. The same concept still applies: constantly think about how that expense will play into your overall bottom line.

Build momentum - early

The fourth quarter is always an overwhelming time period. Consumers are bombarded by promos, flash deals, and special offers constantly. It’s important to identify which dates will be beneficial for you to participate in and perhaps which dates you might like to opt-out off to prepare for the next one. Some sales may even play out even better if there's an element of exclusivity and your customers know your sales won’t be forever. With 9.9, 10,10, 11.11, and 12.12 sales being the current trend, you have plenty of dates to choose from. That’s aside from the other seasonal sale dates! Whether you join all dates, participate in some, or even set your own dates: just make surer to plot them all accordingly and make sure you publicize them all on time and hype them up for your customers. Remember, it’s not about just creating a presence for your brand amongst the mega sales. It’s important to make the most out of your promotions and maximize your reach. Here’s a template you can use to help you navigate the sale season:

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Manage your sales channels

With the abundance of options on social media and eCommerce, it’s time to manage and make sure to feature all the right content and get the right messaging to truly persuade your audience to make a purchase this sale season. As we always say, one size does not fit all when it comes to social media platforms and that applies to your sales channels too. Optimize your campaign content and special offers per platform. Targetted content and strategic offers are the perfect tricks to increase conversion rates. One aspect to take advantage of when selling on social media? Interactivity. Social selling has evolved to offer a wide variety of ways to engage customers. Live selling, for example, is one of the modern-day ways to create camaraderie with your customer and showcase your products. So whether you’re selling on Messenger, Instagram, Viber, or GCash - always give it your all and create the right strategy per sales channel.

Be flexible

Stay agile by analyzing sales data as you go. This is something you can easily track with ChatGenie! Adjust your strategy at any point. Try to think of your plans as more of a guideline when necessary. Learning as you go is one of the most teachable experiences you can have during this busy sale season. Don’t worry if one of your tactics doesn’t go to plan. You’ll always have the next promo to improve. With data you can track in real-time via the ChatGenie Dashboard, thinking on your feet will be no problem and you’ll be able to adapt in no time.

Optimize your dashboard

Lastly, make sure to make the most out of the ChatGenie Dashboard. The dashboard was created with hectic sales seasons exactly like this in mind. It not only helps you track orders and sales but also comes integrated with features that allow you to digitize and automate promos directly on your chatstore. Create special offers from promos, referrals, flash deals, and even first-time customer exclusives! Logistics will be a breeze when it comes to encoding your planned promos. You can even set your promos in advance which will come in handy for product-specific flash deals. Once you’ve formulated your winning sale strategy and inputted them in your dashboard (you can even do them all at once!), consider yourself locked and loaded. You’ll be ready to own this sale season and end 2022 with a bang!

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Level up your eCommerce in time for the bustling holiday sale season ahead and sign up for ChatGenie for FREE here: ChatGenie | Sell Inside The World's Biggest Apps