When Is the Back-to-School Season?
Being prepared is one of the most important things anyone can do to get off to a good start during the start of a new term, but while some will have the foresight and ability to plan far in advance for the new term, many are still rushing to collect all the gear and equipment they need late in September and even October.
Many families are away during summer or tied up with various in-country holiday activities and it’s not unusual for families to make a mad scramble for supplies during the first few weeks of the term. Also, some individuals may not be sure about what they need for the term ahead and will wait until classes start before they make all their purchases.
Adapt Your Content to Cater to Different Customer Groups
It’s not enough to simply promote the fact you are selling back-to-school items with generic messaging. You must create different calls to action (CTA) and messaging for specific product categories and user demographics.
For instance, you might be selling items that support creativity for children such as art supplies, in addition to office supplies for teachers. You should approach these two areas very differently, with dedicated visuals, product descriptions and advertising content.
Give Your Products More Visibility
To increase the visibility of the back-to-school related products on your site, consider one of the below techniques.
- Create a product collection and feature this on your home page. You can easily group together different items and present them in a carousel or slider
- Design a visually engaging back-to-school banner for your homepage that drives traffic to specific product categories
- Rearrange visual elements on your homepage so back-to-school messages and images are given more prominence (preferably above the fold)
- Adapt your hero banner or primary graphic images on your homepage to feature back-to-school scenarios (e.g. children learning, parents with children).
Send Out an Email Newsletter
There’s no harm in sending out an additional back-to-school email blast, as long as the content is relevant and engaging. It doesn’t need to be complicated, simply highlight any offers you have relating to back-to-school products and share any articles or infographics you have that could help customers during the start of term.
Alternatively, simply send out a short note or message of encouragement to all parents, educators and students starting the new term. This can be enough to win some positive sentiment and put you at the top of customer’s minds when they decide to resupply.
Be Vocal on Social
There’s absolutely no reason not to use social media to remind customers that you’re selling back-to-school gear. In 2020, about 25% of parents said they were planning to use social media websites, especially Facebook, to assist in their back-to-school shopping. Teens and college students are also highly likely to be influenced by social media when making purchasing decisions.
Adjust Your paid Ads Targeting and Budget
If you already have a strong long-term Google Ads or PPC Facebook campaign in place to drive traffic to your website and increase conversions, that’s great. However, you may not be getting the most out of it unless you adapt your keywords and targeting to specific seasons and trends.
Consider adjusting the way your ads are set up to push your back-to-school products for a short period of time. The spend can be justified if you’re able to capture more short-term traffic from people searching for specific products during the start of the term.
Make Payments Fast and Seamless
Many shoppers will be looking to make quick last-minute purchases online so they can use their back-to-school items straight away. If you haven’t done so already, make sure you’ve built an online payments journey that is as smooth as possible by removing any payment hurdles. Saving customer payment data in a safe and secure way can also help you to prompt repeat purchases from customers who are happy with their experience.
If you would like to learn more about how customers engage with the checkout process, check out our recent blog: What Happens at Checkout The Psychology of Ecommerce Checkouts
It’s Not too Late
Whether you’re putting additional budget into marketing at this time of the year, or just making a few adjustments to your website and organic social content, it’s not too late to refocus your efforts to drive more sales!
