Timeline to Christmas: Analytics
In our newest series of the Gift Guide we are talking all things Christmas. Over the next 7 weeks, we’ll break down all the steps you need to get Christmas-ready, starting with Analytics.
Where to Start
Before you start thinking about the colour of the paper in your boxes or the FAQs on your website, it’s important to consider:
GOAL SETTING: What are your goals for this Christmas?
DATA TO REVIEW: What did you learn last year? What are you seeing now that can inform your strategy?
GATHER INSIGHTS: Is there anything you want to test or learn this time to inform future gifting peaks?
Goal Setting
What are you looking to achieve this Christmas? Revenue is likely top of the list, but it’s worth drilling down to specifics like:
Activating existing customers
Acquiring new customers
Increasing AOV
Maximising profitability
Increasing brand awareness
Aligning on your overall goal up front makes rapid decision making easier, and ensures that the whole team are on the same page.
Data to Review
Once you have your goals set, it's essential to analyse your available data points. This should be split into three views:
What happened last year?
What is happening now?
What does the market look like?
You may think you need a crystal ball if you also want to look ahead, but trend forecasters like WGSN and Stylus offer free reports that can guide you on colours, flavours, textures, and more.
Pressed for time or not sure where to start? We recommend looking at the following:
What sold? What didn’t sell?
Did you get any specific customer feedback that you need to action?
What trends did you see in purchasing behaviour?
Were there any operational difficulties?
What marketing channels worked best?
Gathering Insight
Christmas is a prime opportunity to gather insights for next year's trading and upcoming Q1 gifting peaks.
If your experiments promise meaningful, actionable insights, consider sacrificing profit or efficiency for valuable learning about your marketing channels, product range or operational set up.
However, never compromise on the customer's experience, especially at such an important moment in the calendar.
How to do it
Any insight is valuable. You don’t need to capture everything; even small learnings can help your next campaign.
Our two tips to help you along the way:
Keep a document to note down ideas, wins, and bins during the campaign.
Use AI! ChatGPT can help analyse data if you're not confident. If you’re on Shopify, you can find preset reports.
