5 top user design tips for boosting your Christmas sales

With Christmas fast approaching, retailers are facing a growing challenge to stand out in a crowded marketplace, where consumers have an abundance of choice and are becoming ever more savvy in their shopping habits. Retailers are using a multitude of channels to reach potential customers with carefully crafted messages – but once they click through to your website, how can you streamline their journey to ensure they actually make a purchase?

1) Use UTM parameters to track the success of the campaign

Setting up UTM parameters for any campaign is essential. You can use Google’s free URL Builder to set the source channel, the medium and the content you’re using, so you can see exactly which campaigns are working, and which aren’t, in real time. This means you can adjust your approach accordingly – no more wasted spend!

2) Set up dynamic text replacement

Dynamic text replacement creates a personalised journey and ensures respondents don’t have to work too hard. Clever lead generation tools can help ensure that a customer’s details are pulled through from the origin platform so all the visitor has to do is hit enter or click through to confirm their details.

3) Use two-part forms to gather information

A two-part system works particularly well when visitors have come from third-party content and you cannot pull through their details. The first part of the form is simply a name and email address – the bare minimum you require to ensure they sign-up quickly. Once you have this banked, then ask for more: their birthday, for special celebratory email offers; their gender; their interests, etc.

4) Be consistent with your messaging and design

Make sure your audience knows what action you want them to take, and that important information and calls-to-action are prominent and clearly defined. Use lists and bullet points and make sure your form is very visible on the page, placed above the fold so that your audience doesn’t have to scroll to find it. Make sure this is the case on any device. If it’s a newsletter sign-up, for example, reference the benefits of signing up – exclusive Christmas offers maybe?!

5) Follow up with a welcome email

If someone purchases something from your site or fills out a form on a landing page, then they are at a highly engaged point in their user journey with you. Now is the time to gather more information or even encourage further purchase – they are more likely to give it to you now. You can also tell them what to expect as a result of the action they’ve taken and encourage them to engage even further with your brand. You could provide an exclusive voucher code, social share options to encourage social engagement, or prompt them to refer your brand to a friend for extra perks (and to boost your subscriber list)!