So we’ve seen some ways to get started with your marketing campaigns for this holiday season if you own an e-commerce site. But do you want some more ideas on how you can draw in more site visitors and sales on your website? Here are some more ideas that you can use. Remember, you can always think up of your own strategies, look up some more online, or adapt these to match your overall business objectives, as well as your creativity.

• Use Twitter For an Everyday Special

Twitter can be a powerful marketing tool for businesses. Of course, this is no secret and anyone into online marketing will already know this. But it is how you use Twitter that can make the difference between “good” and “excellent” results for your website. Simply Tweeting the same thing over and over again like “Come in! We have specials” is likely to bore your users after a while. But having a special promotion each day on a certain item, or category of items during the countdown to Christmas will be much better at keeping them paying attention to your Twitter feed.

• Create a Facebook Event

You could make a day (or week) where you offer even bigger promotions to your buyers and attract them by creating a Facebook event, then inviting your Facebook friends to it. People often get invites to holiday parties and events during this season, so there is a high chance that they will be paying attention to the invites that they receive.

• Donate Some of Your Proceeds to Charity

The holidays are a time of giving and sharing, so you definitely don’t want your company to look like “Scrooge Inc.” during this time of the year. Give some of your proceeds to a charity, maybe even a Christmas themed one and announce this on your website, social media pages and e-mail newsletters. Your shoppers will see your business as one who cares about others in need and will be more likely to shop with you.

• Organize Some Giveaways and Contests

This doesn’t have to be complicated or require a lot of cutbacks from you. For example, you can post a coupon code on your social media page that is valid for the first 10 or so people that use it. Then, do the same again in a few days. This will do a lot to keep users paying attention to your advertising messages. A contest is also a good way to draw some attention. You could, for example, be giving away a free item or a gift voucher valid for a certain amount of money at your web store. Be creative, there are plenty of more giveaways that you can offer to your website visitors. Remember, your shoppers will want to see that you are giving them something valuable and sharing during this holiday season. A few free gifts can definitely be helpful. Customers who got something from you also have a higher chance of coming back to buy something, even if it is after the holidays.

Getting people to sign up for your newsletter, subscribe for a service you’re offering, or sign up for your website can be difficult. A lot of people will just choose not to sign up for whatever you’re offering for a simple reason, or no reason at all other than the fact that you didn’t grab their attention. One way to get people to do what you want them to is to offer them some incentive for doing what you want.

Contests

A contest is a great way to get new sign ups for your email list, or your website. Just offer a decent prize to one lucky winner who is a member of your site, Be sure to be clear about the terms of the contest, and spell the rules out clearly. Once you have your contest set up, spend some time and effort promoting it. Once people hear about the contest, they’ll start signing up for you site whether they have a healthy interest in your niche or not. That, unfortunately, is the down side of running a contest. Not every new sign up you get will be a useful, and high quality customer. Some people will sign up even if they have no interest in what you’re offering. and as such, they won’t add any value to your business. Still, a contest is a great way to draw in a lot of new customers.

Gifts

If you offer a gift to new sign ups, even if it’s a small one, it might just be the deciding factor in whether they do what you want them to or not. Even something simple like a coupon might be the final selling point that gets them to do what you’re asking them to. The gift doesn’t have to be fancy, but the better it is, the more of an incentive to do whatever it is you want people to do it will be.

If you want to draw new people to your site, or your mailing list, incentives are a great way to do that. A simple gift, or the chance to win a half decent prize might very well make the difference between getting new customers, and not getting them. People will do things they wouldn’t normally do for a gift, or a prize, so keep that in mind as you offer incentives to your audience.

If you work in e-mail marketing at all, you know list building isn’t just about getting a higher number of subscribers. You want to grow a database full of receptive readers who are more likely to make purchases from you. In order to get those high quality subscribers, you have to keep their wants and needs in mind while crafting your e-mails.

Whatever niche you cover, there’s a good chance your readers are looking for information related to it. By providing some free information with your list, you can keep people interested and engaged in your list. Try offering them a free report just for signing up, or consider sending out an e-mail from time to time that just gives the reader some important information about what’s going on with your business, or the industry you operate in as a whole.

You should also give your subscribers access to special promotions. If your subscribers feel like they’re getting deals they wouldn’t find anywhere else, they’ll keep reading your e-mails, and they’ll stay subscribed to your list. As you send out e-mails with good, exclusive deals in them, word will spread about your list, and just how useful it can be. Over time, you’ll build up more and more loyal subscribers that are likely to make purchases through your e-mails.

It’s important to give your subscribers a sense of belonging. Try to create a sense of community surrounding your list, and your readers will pass your list on to their friends. Try offering  exclusive contests to your subscribers. If your site has forums, it’s also a good idea to send out an e-mail periodically that lists the newest topics on the forums. If you’re interacting with your subscribers in a meaningful way, you will get more high quality subscribers in the long run.

By sending out informative, and engaging e-mails, you will start growing a high quality list full of subscribers that make purchases on your site. Create a sense of community, and those subscribers will tell their friends, and help to bring in even more high quality subscribers. Remember, it’s not the size of your list that matters, but the quality of your subscribers. High quality subscribers who are reading your e-mails, and making purchases are the ultimate goal of a good list.

Facebook can be a great platform to market your business or products on if you do it right. The biggest thing to remember is that Facebook is a social network where two way engagement is important. People who spam Facebook with links, and information that looks like spam are going to be classified as such and potentially ignored or even shut down by Facebook.

The problem with Facebook is that you need to have a very engaged audience in order to be profitable through the social media part of it. That is what we are going to talk about today – the social aspect of Facebook, not the advertising platform.

On Facebook you have two real ways of marketing for free to individuals. The most prominent now is through Facebook Pages as they are called. The other is through Facebook Events.

Facebook Pages are the best way to promote and connect with your readers or fans online, except through mailing lists. Facebook pages are a great way to promote your content because you can easily share links to your website, interact with fans and hold contests and more.

It is important to remember that your Facebook page is only a compliment to your site, not your only site. Due to the interaction levels being so high, it can be easy to use Facebook Pages as your only source of interaction and content creation. Spread the love around to other social networks such as Twitter and see your brand grow even more so.

The best way I have found to get my Facebook page numbers up (right now it is around 1,400 for a pretty small community’s website) is to hold a “fan drive.” A fan drive is simply a plea to get people to “like” your pages in order to achieve a goal. My goal was 1,000 fans in one month and I would donate $150 to the local Hospice. Within two weeks my page had over 1,100 fans and I was writing a check.

Those 1,000 fans are worth so much more than $150, and the cost was well worth it.

Depending on your situation, there are other ways to get people to join if you are not working on such a local level. For example, giving away an iPod or something to a random fan is a great way to get people to join, even small things like books and gift cards are a huge motivator.

Be creative when using Facebook to market your product or page, but remember, don’t be a spammer or you will lose fans a lot faster than you gained them.