For the eighth episode of National Positions’ Digital Breakthroughs podcast, we decided to focus on what most businesses wait all year for. The holiday shopping season!
Furthermore, it goes without saying that this year has seemed to give us more coal than shiny bows, but perception is everything because we all know that coal can turn into shining diamonds.
To uncover all the opportunities and trends this holiday shopping season has in store, CEO Bernard May assembled a panel of National Positions experts to provide their insights for making this year a success.
Let’s dive right into all of the opportunities, trends, and strategies that you should be considering for the 2020 holiday shopping (and marketing) season.
Welcome to Digital Breakthroughs episode 8!
Today’s Guests From National Positions
Bernard May: Welcome, everybody, to the Digital Breakthroughs Podcast. I am really excited to welcome a whole panel of National Positions experts to chat with me today about the upcoming 2020 holiday season. I’m really interested to hear from the panel about all the changes they’re expecting this holiday season. My goal is to find out what we need to do to prepare for the holidays and what’s going to be different and what will stay the same.
Let me start out by introducing our panel. I’m going to start with Matt Erickson. Matt is the Director of Marketing at National Positions. He has over a decade of marketing experience in the consumer entertainment and information security industries, and Matt’s interest in marketing stems from his fascination with behavioral psychology and creative design. Welcome, Matt.
Matt Erickson: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Bernard May: Great, and then next is Courtney Pierce. Courtney heads up our Lead Strategy and Operations efforts at National Positions. Besides being a Google and Amazon expert, Courtney is a very avid hiker, and if you’re ever in Southern California and you want to go on a great hike, Courtney is your person. Welcome, Courtney.
Bernard May: And then we got Scott McCutchan. Scott’s one of our lead Google and paid social experts. Not only has he a passion for Google and Facebook and Instagram, he’s also a punk rock and underground music enthusiast. Scott, welcome to the podcast.
Scott McCutchan: Thanks for including me.
COVID-19’s Impact on Marketing
Bernard May: Great, so I’m going to just jump into our first question. This is one that I’m sure all of our audience are interested in, is how has COVID-19 impacted online marketing. So maybe I’ll start with you, Matt. How has that impacted people online?
Matt Erickson: I don’t know an aspect that it hasn’t affected when it comes to online. Especially from a consumer standpoint, even though we’re in the business, we’re all consumers also, so there’s definitely a portion of our purchasing activity that has shifted online. Whether we’re using Amazon more or trying to buy and then pick up because we don’t want to go in the store, or if you’re in California, we’re all in Los Angeles, don’t want to gamble if we have to wait in lines to go in stores. So that definitely has affected our purchasing activity.
Matt Erickson: But just from a marketing standpoint, from a business standpoint, the discovery that most of us had being out in the world, a lot of that has been, for all intents and purposes, chopped off at the knees. We don’t get to do that as much as we used to. So we’re searching more on our devices, but we’re also searching more on our desktop devices or our laptops because we’re at home more often, so we may not have to be driving to find what we want, or if we’re going to order food at home we’ll just order from home, and we’re not always relying on this nearly as much as maybe we had to before.
Matt Erickson: I know at least from my perspective and the company’s perspective, I’ve definitely seen a shift to going, rather than how do we drive people into our retail locations, it’s like okay, how do we get them to our digital storefronts to close more opportunities that way.
Bernard May: This has really, as you said, impacted everyone in a very significant way. I heard this comment recently, there’s, everyone knows what FOMO is, fear of missing out. But there’s this new concept called FOGO, the fear of going out, and I think that goes and that talks to exactly what you were saying, Matt. People are scared to go out, people are trying to do a lot more online.
Bernard May: Scott, did you want to weigh in on this? How has COVID impacted 2020?
Scott McCutchan: I mean, just one thing I’ve been kind of keeping a close eye on is just looking at Shopify stock. It really reflects how businesses have responded to COVID. Looking at March 19th when things have really slowed down, that’s when California went into full lockdown.
And up until yesterday, the stock has seen 176% increase in their share prices. So that in and of itself is quite telling. More people are being forced and pushed into a digital presence, even if they haven’t considered it previously. And although more states are relaxing their restrictions and more businesses are opening up, people … It just has forced people to consider those alternatives.
Scott McCutchan: And many have made this transition with great success, both through their own entrepreneurial spirit, or through the assistance of agencies like ours. And it’s also pushed some older demographics who may have been slow to adopt online shopping, maybe outside the big players like Amazon, who are looking for those niche products that maybe they were only able to find at a local store that’s been shut down since.
Scott McCutchan: And then people are having a positive buying experience. There is a lot of uncertainty and doubt maybe for some of these consumers purchasing off of some company’s website, but they’re getting their products and they’re happy. So yeah, it’s been really interesting to watch.
Trends and Opportunity for the 2020 Holiday Season
Bernard May: Great. And yeah, so interesting to watch companies, obviously digital companies doing extremely well. I know the rest of the economy is very mixed in how things are working out. I wanted to just go over to Courtney and maybe ask you a little bit about trends. What are you seeing on the paid search side in regards to trends or just in general for this holiday season? What’s staying the same, what’s changing out there.
Courtney Pierce: Yeah, most definitely. Like they both mentioned, our clients saw a huge impact, whether positively or negatively, March, April, May. Luckily, a lot of local businesses were able to recover during the summer months and other B to B online lead generation also started to see a huge recovery in the summer months.
Courtney Pierce: It’s interesting, some apparel or other online shopping businesses did see another dip towards August, early September, which could be on par with what we usually see during that time period as kids start going back in school and that sort of thing. But one huge impact that is different this year than last year is that parents are at home with their kids, guiding them through their lesson plans, and that is a huge differentiator year over year, and we saw some in many markets.
Bernard May: So with the parents staying at home, how do you see that impacting overall? Which may be industries are doing well, which ones are hurting, what are you seeing there with that particular trend?
Courtney Pierce: Yeah. Most definitely B to B we saw an impact with the downward trend as business professionals are having to be interrupted through their day to day just jump in and help their kids. Online shopping or additional inquiries, exploratory inquiries with other businesses dropped off during that time, Down to just what are the necessities I have to tackle in my day to day right now with the kids.
The “Convenience” Factor
Bernard May: I’m very interested in areas like convenience. People are at home, and they have to look after their kids and they have to work. So how has that impacted online in regards to convenience, and maybe also in regards to people being loyal to brands?
Courtney Pierce: Sure. One thing, in particular, is convenience, deliverability from those businesses need to be highlighted now more than ever, with the [inaudible 00:08:25] delivery times, inconsistent inventory, those sort of things. Shoppers are having to really think about what businesses they want to go through for reliability right now.
Courtney Pierce: Also for Oh, best affordable keyword has grown 60 percent.
Bernard May: Wow!
Courtney Pierce: Year over year. Yeah. So we need to really be thinking about that as we’re guiding our clients into what keywords to focus on, whether organic or paid search.
Matt Erickson: Can I chime in on that?
Bernard May: Please go ahead, Matt.
Matt Erickson: I was doing some research a couple weeks ago on, I think it was an article for … it may have been for Forbes, may have been our own blog, I don’t remember. But that was a trend that’s also been happening with … When it comes to convenience versus loyalty.
Because when so much extra traffic has been moving online to try to find new products, and you’re seeing this a lot more now, like I do sparkling water in gallons, I’m always trying to find those CO2 cartridges, and now, if I search, the first thing I look for is who has it available, not who is carrying it.
So that is, also actually leads to an opportunity too if there are smaller companies that do have some of these types of products or even competing products, that they’re not Target, or they’re not Wal-Mart, they’re not these large companies where everyone goes. That can lead to them being discovered.
Matt Erickson: I’m not saying that no one’s loyal to brands anymore, but that convenience that Courtney was talking about and the availability Courtney was talking about, that’s a huge factor when it comes to not just people shopping online but where they’re shopping online.
Bernard May: So you’re saying convenience and availability are going to trump in many cases brand. Which I think is going to provide a great opportunity for a lot of companies that don’t have a brand out there, and they’re competing against these companies that have huge TV budgets, radio budgets, things like that. So that’s exciting for some of our small and medium sized listeners out there.
What About “Timing” This Holiday Season?
Bernard May: I wanted to maybe then talk a bit about let’s take that convenience side of things. What’s happening with timing? I mean, why are people … Do you see any impact that COVID has on timing this year, and being prepared for the holiday seasons for vendors out there that are getting prepared? And maybe … Yeah, Matt, maybe you can chat to that as well.
Matt Erickson: Yeah, I’ll go high level because I know that Scott and Courtney can dive deep into the numbers, but just generally. Let’s take two things, the one thing I was talking about, those CO2 cartridges, but something else everyone knows about, which were more of a, some places a necessity and a lot of places a necessity, just simple face masks. Early on that was a prime example of people couldn’t find them, and places that didn’t use to carry them started carrying them. And … Sorry, I’m losing track of the question here. Can you repeat the question one more time?
Bernard May: Yeah, just the timing. Like getting ready for-
Matt Erickson: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So in timing, especially because of the holiday thing, it’s holiday time. Just knowing something’s available isn’t always going to be enough.
A lot of these places that carry products that are going to be in demand or are traditionally in demand for holiday season shopping, whether you’re getting glasses, whatever you’re getting, the supply lines are not moving as quickly as they used to because they’re getting these ebbs and flows of bulk buying, and then no one buys, and bulk buying.
So I think it’s hard for a lot of retailers physically or online to know how much stock they need to keep.
So I think this is leading to, and we’re seeing that there’s more early research going on for the season, there’s more earlier, possibly earlier purchasing to make sure that … We had that issue with Amazon a few months ago and I think now where even Prime people, I think all of us are Prime, we have that two-day shipping, well things were coming a week, it was taking a lot longer.
Matt Erickson: That’s in the back of people’s minds. So I think their data is showing they’re starting way earlier to make sure that they get what they want or that they need in time for the holidays and not just maybe before when we could purchase in mid-November and know we’re going to get it by the beginning of December.
Timing, Mobile, and “Micro-Moments”
Scott McCutchan: Yeah. Just taking into consideration, and with our meetings with Google, they have shared some interesting insights, the percentage increase, and time on mobile devices, time on YouTube, time just being on the web and how much that has shifted since we’ve started working from home, and to Courtney’s point, all those little micro interruptions throughout your day, whether it’s my son popping in and saying he accidentally closed out of his Zoom classroom, and now I’m coming back.
What we’re trying to take advantage of is those micro interruptions almost serve as a cue for, people are sitting back down at their chairs and they’re maybe checking their Facebook feed or they’re hopping on Twitter and going to an article, to a site where there are opportunities with display (advertising).
Scott McCutchan: Taking this into consideration with timing, a lot of people are making searches for products and services that they need all throughout the day, and those micro interruptions also possibly prevent them from acting on it when they had an intent to.
Scott McCutchan: Now what we can do is leverage custom intent audiences, for example. So if somebody’s in the market or new computer monitors, affordable home office monitors, and they’re making the search but they’re not necessarily acting on it, there’s still an opportunity to get in front of that consumer and highlight those products through display campaigns or discovery campaigns.
So being able to take advantage of those people who are making more frequent searches throughout the day, browsing more products, not necessarily acting for a number of reasons, and now you’re able to get your client’s products in front of them at a very affordable cost, leveraging these campaign networks, and we’re actually seeing a pretty positive result for a lot of our accounts where they were typically only capitalizing on that bottom-funnel traffic.
Scott McCutchan: Being able to create those custom intent audiences around different products or services and getting in front of those users when they’re not converting. That’s been something we’ve seen a big increase in our accounts, and it’s been paying off.
The Earliest Holiday Season Yet – Amazon
Bernard May: That’s really interesting, and I heard the statistic from someone a Google, saying that Christmas is going to come, or should I say the holiday season, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, they’re all coming really, really early this year, that we need to get prepared earlier.
And I know Scott, you spoke a lot about Google and Facebook, but I … No one’s spoken about Amazon and how big an impact they have. I know that a lot of people use Amazon as a search engine specifically for products that they want to buy.
Even last year Amazon sales were up a massive amount. Courtney, I hear that Amazon’s going to try and shake things up by having an Amazon Prime Day in October. You want to talk a little bit about that?
Courtney Pierce: Yeah, most definitely. And I heard from some good sources basically that we believe the final Prime Day is going to be October 13th. This was just announced about two days ago.
I personally believe that’s going to be the kickstart of the holiday season. People … Monday is bigger than Black Friday in some cases, where people are making their purchases. And this is the first time ever it’s happening right before peak holiday season.
So I think whatever accounts clients want to consider putting in place, measures, strategies, it needs to be done by October 13th to catch that traffic.
Courtney Pierce: 80 percent of holiday shoppers are going to be buying early. They want to avoid crowds. Buying in person is more stressful than buying online, especially for that older demographic right now. These are huge shifts in the market, and a huge benefit for our clients.
Courtney Pierce: I’ve been told by Google sources that Prime Day is historically known to be the third-highest search volume day of the year. That is what is estimated. My big effort with my clients on the Amazon side, as well as on Google or other search engine side is that although the ROI might not be where we want it on those days, those days should be focused on new customer acquisition for the holiday season.
Bernard May: Wow. So you brought on so many crazy ideas here.
First of all, if you want to capitalize on the holiday season, you got to get in here early. Amazon looks like they’re going to try and steal the show by coming in super early October 13th.
And this is smart, because what Matt and Scott were saying is that people are concerned about supply chain, so they want to make sure that they got presents in hand and that in case there’s a big rush on things, they’re going to get there early.
So very, very smart of Amazon to get in there early with this Prime Day, get thing in there cheaply.
Bernard May: I guess one of the takeaways is if you want to be on Amazon and you want to get ready, make sure you got product available for October 13th, which doesn’t give a lot of time to a lot of our clients.
Finding Opportunity in the “New Normal”
Bernard May: And then, I just wanted to talk about another trend that I’m hearing about, which is some of the population in the United States are finding things hard, they’re out of work or they have got reduced hours. What is that, how is that impacting, what do you expect that’ll impact when it comes to holiday shopping? I don’t know, Scott, do you want to take that one.
Scott McCutchan: Yeah, sure. I mean, people are adjusting to their new normals.
More people, as we discussed earlier, more states are loosening their restrictions, more people are going back to work, so the timing with that is great. People definitely have likely dipped into their savings, so it’s probably not going to be a blockbuster years for presents for a percentage of the population, and that’s just the reality of it.
Others have, they’ve adjusted and maybe they’re being more sensitive with their income and how they’re using it, possibly preparing for another shutdown if things get even worse in the winter. But that all remains to be seen.
Scott McCutchan: Point being is once again this is still posing opportunities for emerging businesses, or businesses that can find their space by offering a high quality product at a lower cost. And to Courtney’s point, what a lot of consumers will do is take advantage of this for that first initial purchase, and focusing on the lifetime value of that customer.
Because if you can get them in the door at a reduced cost, and this is the type of product where you’re going to need to buy it every three months, or maybe even the following year, if you give somebody a good customer experience, a good user experience on the website and they get the product and it meets their needs, now you’re going to be front of mind when that consumer’s ready to make a similar purchase and they’ll default back to you.
Scott McCutchan: But yeah, when it comes to price, there’s still perceived value. There’s a perceived cost of these products. And most people going online to shop, yeah, they’re looking for the best deals, but they already have an understanding of what those price points are going to be.
And regardless of whatever’s going on in the economy, there are those products that the price is going to remain the same, so that may lower the total purchase volume for those types of products this year potentially.
But once again what are the alternatives, and what are some things where people have like minded interests or similar interests to that product, and now that’s an opportunity for them to get in front and steal the show.
Is There Still “Purchase Power” for the 2020 Holiday Season?
Bernard May: Yeah. I just want to catch, maybe go over to Matt and talk about … So people looking for bargains, if people have this uncertainty, if more people are saving because they thing maybe there’s a second round of COVID coming, what does that mean to small businesses, people that have commodities like Scott talked about, what do you think is going to be the impact there?
Matt Erickson: I think there’s a couple, when Scott was talking, everything obviously … Spot on point, especially from the consumer standpoint. I think from a, what businesses need to be doing also is thinking okay, well how am I actually positioning my product?
Because it may have been before, I think before, I always have said this forever, I’m always like solve the problem, don’t sell the product. So if you’re calling out features like it does X, Y, and Z, well if you have … I do not have children, but Scott and Courtney do, and so does Bernard, so their experience, if you have a product that’s going to work for families and that’s going to help solve problems surrounding spending time with your kids or internet connectivity so they can do their schoolwork or things like this, it doesn’t always mean you’re out of the chute, that people don’t want to spend money on my product.
But it’s how you’re going to position that product to make sure it’s solving the problems now, not the problems that were solved January of last year.
Matt Erickson: I think everyone understands that we’re trying to, everyone’s trying to save every dollar and every dime. But that doesn’t mean the spending is going to stop. But I do think people are going to be more selective with where they’re putting their dollars. I mean if people just didn’t want to spend the extra cash, you wouldn’t have seen Netflix subscriptions skyrocket in the last six months. I mean, really.
Matt Erickson: But at the same time, I think more people saw that as a, ooh, I have more time at home this is now maybe more of a necessity in a way for entertainment than maybe it was prior as a nice to have.
Matt Erickson: Or if you wanted to watch Hamilton, you had to get Disney Plus. But, I do think that that’s one of the effects you’re going to see is I think if brands are willing to change up the way they’re positioning, changing out the features that they’re actually calling out on their products, that’s going to help them stand out more and possibly not take as hard of a hit than if they’re not willing to adapt.
Pricing, Bargains, and the Extended Buying Season in 2020
Bernard May: Well, I guess what I’m asking, and maybe I’ll present this to Courtney, and I’ll say it maybe directly, do you need to be able to win in this upcoming holiday season, are we going to have to discount our products, are we going to have to have sales, when do we have to have those sales?
If the holiday season’s coming in early, is there really … Is basically Cyber Monday, is that going to be extended out, are we going to be seeing just a race to the bottom on prices and trying to get people in? I love the idea that Scott had about lifetime value, we’ll come back and talk about that. But just specifically now, is this something that you’re seeing or expecting in regards to bargains and sales?
Courtney Pierce: I think it’s going to be a huge factor come the holiday season for bargains and sales. I also thing it’s going to extend out, and again, once again, people are going to be buying earlier.
But people are going to be buying paycheck to paycheck maybe, and maybe going hard around the first and the 15th might do a lot for our clients, because they’re going to need to divide up those gifts through Christmas by paycheck, and then … So I feel in some cases and have read that parents or the spouses, whatever the case is, they’re going to be actually spoiling their family a little bit more this holiday season because 2020 hasn’t been that awesome in a lot of cases.
So I feel like they’re going to make up for it at that time.
Bernard May: So people have been holding on the other side, as Scott was saying, on the one side people are considering saving, on the other side, a lot of families haven’t gone on those expensive vacations because they just haven’t been able to, they haven’t been able to spend that much money, so maybe they’re just squirreling that away and making the holiday season the best ever. So maybe that’s the other side of it.
Courtney Pierce: Yeah, I mean no luxury dinners out maybe, or eating more at home together, not commuting, not using those gas dollars, or going back on insurance that you might need for the car. All those little factors have definitely added up for a lot of households.
Bernard May: Cool. That makes me feel a lot more optimistic about what’s going to happen. In fact, I heard the statistic that Google is saying somewhere between 30 and 40 percent increase in e-commerce spending. So even if the entire market is, maybe the entire spend goes down, the e-commerce side is going to be up.
Ready for Part 2?
Enjoying the podcast so far? There is so much more to come. If you prefer you can click right here to watch this episode on YouTube or click the link below to continue onto part two of this episode. In part two we dive into holiday shopping in retail, the increasing reliance on digital ecommerce storefronts, purchasing trends, and much more!
See you for the second half of this episode! Click here to continue