In case anyone has missed it, it’s that time of year again – Christmas and all that goes with it!

It’s the time for giving and receiving and that usually means trying to think of gifts to give your special friends and loved ones.

It’s never easy and can be difficult to get it right even some of the time!

But, recent research might just be able to help focus on what might be a solution.

Gift Cards Could be the Answer!

We all know that our site visitors are not the same!

We know they have differing personas and motivations and try to understand how best to respond to them.

But, we have to understand that all our visitors might also not be end-users ie buying for themselves. And, that is more likely at different times of the year and has seasonal implications for your marketing.

Pre-Xmas, Post-Xmas Visitors- the Seasonal Difference

Haymarket Publishing conducted an A/B test with the help of House of Kaizen using Visual Website Optimizer (a testing platform).

Manchester United Subscription PageTheir primary goal was to test the length of the value proposition on a magazine gift subscription landing page.

Traffic arriving at the landing page was from Manchester United Football Club’s website (one of the most popular football teams in the world).

The A/B test ran before Christmas and continued again after the holiday season. The value proposition was tailored to speak to Manchester United fans.

Results showed that the version with shorter copy, in the run up to Christmas increased the number of “Add to Cart” clicks by 14.29%.

In the post-Christmas test, the long copy won, increasing conversions by a whopping 25.74%.

House of Kaizen deduced that a different audience was landing on the page before Christmas as opposed to after it.

Pre-Christmas, their website visitors were not the end-users but were buying a gift for someone else. Not really interested in Manchester United they had already made up their minds to buy. After all, they were not the fans.

They just wanted to verify that the seller was trustworthy, the subscription was what they wanted, and to checkout. All they wanted was a quick and easy buying process.

After Christmas, everything changed. Visitors landing on the page were no longer buying for others.

They were the potential end-users themselves and the longer, more detailed copy won out.

The moral of the ‘story’ is that your visitor profile is not fixed and more importantly there can/will likely be seasonal variations.

Acknowledging and offering options, particularly for gift-level products, making it easy to buy will often make the difference.

So, Why Gift Cards?

Gift Cards Populr with VisitorsIn a recent webinar run by Practical Ecommerce & DotMailer, research by CreditDonkey confirmed the growing importance of Gift Cards.

It showed that Gift Cards were the most given form of gift and the most valued by recipients with digital Gift Cards sales growing quickest.

Gift Cards Popular with RecipientsAn extra benefit for the retailer is that the recipient of a gift card often spends more than the card value. This is particularly true where free shipping is available.

Gift Cards offer an easy and quick way for visitors to take that final step, add to cart, and complete their purchase.

Will you be offering Gift Cards to your site visitors this Christmas or if you do already what has been your experience?

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