Sales were buzzing during the holiday shopping season and you've been busy stashing the loot that you raked in. Now that the holidays are coming to a close, most of your time is spent managing the headaches that come with dealing with a bunk of returns and exchanges. On top of it all, sales have slowed and frustrations increased as the euphoria of the holiday shopping season wears off. That big holiday grin has now turned into a holiday grimace.

Sound familiar? After the holiday rush, many online merchants struggle to keep that seasonal sales momentum going into the new year. And as a result, they see their conversion rates dramatically decline. But if you plan accordingly, you can counter this effect before it sets in.

Here are three things you can do now to enhance customer experience and keep your conversions buzzing. In effect, keeping that holiday grin long after the holiday season high is over.

1.) Have a Sale

One trick is to have a sale. Any kind of sale will do, but a clearance sale is the most obvious. You probably have some returns and exchanges with broken packaging or some other minor defect and unsold stock that you don’t want hanging around too long into the new season. Offer a winter clearance sale to get rid of these items. You can even promote a “give away” on a particular item with a certain purchase amount.

Don’t worry, shoppers are not burned out with holiday offerings. Sure, there have been lots of sales during the holiday season. But many customers, having missed out on a much wanted item, anticipate grabbing it on sale as soon as new stock comes in.

2.) Market products for the New Year

At the start of the New Year, many people are looking to “remake” themselves in one way or another. Many New Year resolutions include, getting fit, eating more healthy, reading more, working less, being more productive etc. etc. In essence, it’s about making a change. You can help your customers along in their journey by offering products and services that promote their commitments to this change in the new year.

3.) Send out a Newsletter

That’s right, in the middle of all of your returns and shipping chaos, now is the best time to get that Newsletter out the door! After the holidays, most store owners focus on analyzing their sales or restocking their inventory. Of course these tasks are also important, but think about it for a sec... you’ve just collected a ton of new email addresses from all the mailing list registrations and sales you just made.

With the MailBeez Newsletter Advanced module, you can deliver personalized and targeted content now to keep those new customers engaged. For example, selling product A to customers that purchased product B (we'll show you how to do with MailBeez Newsletter Advanced, in our next blog post).

You can also send them an email about your support hours, or your return and refund policies. Remind them to use the discount coupons that they received or about the upcoming sale you’re planning. At a minimum, you can just say “thanks you for choosing us”, and keep them in the know about what you can offer and why they’ve made the right choice doing business with you.

In summary

The main point is to keep focus on your customers... especially new ones. Counter the post holiday sales blues by offering something of value to your customers so they keep you top of mind when they’re ready to buy again. But remember what we've said about Email Fatigue. If you’ve done it right, your marketing messaging should still be well received even after the holiday season.

So go ahead, get that Newsletter out SOON, and keep those sales conversions humming!