• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, November 29, 2004

As everyone knows, the holiday season is upon us and with it comes the annual surge in e-commerce. The fourth quarter is the period that makes or breaks many online commerce vendors, and many vendors center their annual budgets on this period. Online shopping has increased year-over-year since inception, and deservedly so.

Shopping online is easier, it is safe, it is more mindful of your time, and it provides you with a wealth of unbiased information that does not come spewing out of the mouth of a commission-driven sales person, providing you with a means to make a selection and find the best price for your desired gifts.

While all of this is true, many marketers treat the fourth quarter as a land grab and they spend significant portions of their budgets during this period in the hopes of acquiring customers at the time of purchase. But to be effective with your dollars, I would recommend a few things to keep in mind in order to make your fourth quarter a strong one.

First of all, dispel the myth that you should heavy up your spending in the fourth quarter. For many advertisers, this is too little too late. You should certainly be strong in search and you should heavy up in shopping areas and on price comparison sites, but general ROS or RON efforts during this period are not going to be effective unless you have invested in developing your brand prior to quarter four.

You might be semi-successful if you highlight trendy products at hard-to-beat prices, but you need to be aware of the difference between an impulse buy and a considered purchase. An impulse buy may get you a single sale, or a one-time customer.

But your competition, which has invested in building a stronger brand, will typically win out; especially in quarter four when the customer weighs in additional elements such as guaranteed shipping or guaranteed delivery dates. Most customers will pay slightly more for peace of mind rather than always finding the deals online.

To be effective, you MUST build awareness of your brand in quarter three. Building awareness of your brand will increase the customer's propensity to visit your site when exposed to your ads in quarter four. And I'm not talking about a 3- to 4-time frequency in quarter three, I am talking about a strong schedule that gets them thinking ahead of the curve and has them thinking about gift giving before "Black Friday" arrives.

You want them to have what I call the "positive association epiphany" where the customer thinks to themselves, "Oh yeah... I've heard of them. This looks like a great place to buy a gift," or something similar (I've never professed to be a copywriter).

Second of all, as I hinted in the first recommendation, identify the difference between impulse buys and considered purchases. This can be done by asking: where in relation to the scale of Maslow's Hierarchy do your products lay?

Maslow's Hierarchy applies to the five core needs of the human mind (Self-actualization, Esteem, Love, Safety, and Physiological). These five core needs are sometimes applied to marketing principles when evaluating the type of purchase decision cycle that a customer is going to use to evaluate a purchase.

For example, health insurance, a mortgage, or food are extremely important to a human being and therefore lie within safety and physiological needs. These are 'considered purchases' as a customer will take a longer time, seek more information, and attempt to make a very informed purchase.

Things like CD's, clothing, shoes, or furniture fall more within self-actualization or esteem and can be considered impulse purchases. These are purchases that a customer may make based on a reaction or an instinct. They may make a purchase because it feels good to them. There are grey areas, of course. A car is typically an esteem item, but may be a considered purchase due to the price tag associated with the item, even though a car may be necessary for safety or other reasons. It's not a perfect analysis, but it works for a majority of what is being bought and sold in the fourth quarter.

If you can classify the types of products you are selling and overlap them with Maslow's Hierarchy, then you may be able to come to a conclusion as to how far out you should be advertising prior to the fourth quarter. If you are going to rely on the impulse buy, then a shorter lead-time may be acceptable since you want users to click and buy quickly.

If you're riding the wave of the "Hot-Holiday-Item," then this is an acceptable strategy. If you are a larger ticket item, or more of a considered purchase, then you should consider leading longer before the prime-buying season. You may want to build stronger brand equity with the audience and reach out to them with special offers to encourage action during the key buying period.

Of course, none of these efforts are going to be effective in the long term if you don't follow up your sales with a strong CRM component. If you build it, and they come, you need to make sure they come back again. Without repeat business, you will have a short life and an even shorter revenue chart.

Keep the customers coming back at key times, especially right after the holidays. Show them special sales and exclusives for them alone. Speak to them over the following year, so they know where to go when next year's holiday period comes back around. This is, after all, the best form of advertising that money can buy.

Best of luck!