Manish Barthwal, Author at Knowband Blog | Ecommerce Modules

8 Email Popup Best Practices to Grow Email List and Boost Conversions

This article talks about email popup best practices and the best email popups that you can consider implementing on your website. The objective of the blog is to help readers understand how they can grow their email list and drive more conversions by optimizing their email popups and using the right popup strategy.

Let’s be very honest. Email popups are arguably an annoyance. They create a distraction and disturb the user flow.

People generally dislike popups, and I am also among those people who, sometimes, get irritated by witnessing a popup on their screen, especially when I am fully concentrated on the content in front of my eyes.

But not every email popup irks users. Email popups can be effective if used wisely, but they are either not being utilized in the right manner or they are just not good enough to capture user attention.

What is an Email Popup?

Email popups can be referred to as a tool to capture visitors’ email address. They contain content, which could be an exclusive offer, a free ebook, etc. for which users need to provide their email address if they wish to grab it. It is designed to draw user attention and persuade them to take action.

Email Popup Best Practices

In this write-up, I have put forward 8 Email Popup Best Practices to build your email list and boost your conversions. Let’s check them out.

1. Pay Attention to your Popup Appearance

First things first. Your email popup needs to have attractive visuals. It should have an eye-catching design.

If your email popup does not look appealing, visitors will close the popup window straight away. They would not even bother to pay a look at the popup content.

Use colours that are appealing and not the ones that cause pain to the eyes. The popup colour should also match with your website’s design.

For the best results, try using a lightbox popup; that appears on the top of your web page. It darkens the actual page so that the entire focus is centred on the popup.

A well-designed email popup tends to capture more user attention.

2. Prepare Compelling Popup Content

The heart of your email popup lies in its content, which is what people would notice. Hence, it should be very crisp and clear and should serve a purpose.

Create curiosity in your visitors, hit their mind in one go. Give them a reason as to why they should become your subscribers.

Use a title that triggers visitors to take instant action and explains the need to take action. Remember, visitors have come to your website because they might have liked something that interests them, and a sudden popup is going to interrupt their activity. You would surely not want to hinder their experience.

So, if you want to shift their focus towards your email popup, the content needs to be apt.

3. Have an Impulsive Call to Action

The motive behind any email popup is to coax visitors to provide their email address, and for that, the popup CTA holds vital importance.

Your call to action should be relevant to the content. Its font, text colour, background colour, etc. should be tempting enough to make visitors click on that button. If the CTA evokes interest in the visitor, they will likely press that button.

Show your creativity. Do not come up with just common call to actions like Sign Up, Download, unless there is no better alternative.

4. Email Popup should have Fewer Inputs to Fill

Another email popup best practice would be to restrict yourself from asking too much information. Lesser you ask, more are the chances of a visitor turning into your subscriber.

Email popup having more than two inputs to fill would likely be avoided by the visitor. In fact, I would suggest having only one input, and that is just the email address.

You can avoid asking for first name and last name or restrict to asking for first name and email address, at max.

You want to capture their email address, make the task quick and easy.

5. Set an appropriate time for the Popup Delivery

Adding further to email popup best practices is the Popup timing. Timing is the key for an email popup to deliver positive results. It should not occur repeatedly.

Visitors get frustrated when they receive popups one after another. You do not want to divert their mind from the website content right? Distracting your visitor from their purpose would be the last thing you would want to happen.

Avoid displaying the popup just when the user has entered your website. Let them have a look at your website first. Give them time to go through your website content.

Some of the best practices for the email popup timing would be displaying the popup after a visitor has visited a certain number of pages or when they have scrolled to some percentage or when they are trying to exit.

6. Make Use of Inline Labels and Inline Validation

Labels or a text placed inside the input fields are known as Inline Labels. For example, the email address input that says “Enter your email address” is what we call as Inline Labels. The text automatically disappears when a user starts typing.

Inline Validation, on the other hand, is the process of identifying the error made while entering the input fields. When a user switches from one field to another, it displays whether the information entered is correct or not.

This makes it easy for the visitors to correct the error at that very moment, instead of getting notified after submitting it. And there are higher possibilities of a user getting added into your email list.

7. Have some Attractive Offers for your New Visitors

The best way to welcome your visitors is by offering them enticing deals and discounts or a freebie.

The popup adds more value to the visitors if it contains something valuable, something that they cannot refuse to take. It could be a coupon code, an exclusive offer for new visitors, a flat discount, etc.

Offering incentives help you grow your email list better than any other method, and this makes it one of the best ways to approach your visitor.

Create a sense of urgency. Make them feel that they have only limited time to grab that offer. This email popup strategy is followed by most of the online businesses.

8. Choose the Best fit

Not every popup format would match with your website structure. Look out for a number of popups and check which popup fits your website well. And do not forget to check it for mobile. It should be optimized for both.

Choose the popup that creates the least distraction for the visitors.

Best Email Popups to Grow Your Email List

Since you have gone through the email popup best practices, let’s now take a look at some of the best email popups that you can use to grow your email list, that too without being an annoyance.

1. Spin and Win Popup

The Spin and Win popup can be seen on many eCommerce websites today. The reason why it has gained huge popularity is it adds a Gamification interface to your website.

It does not create any distraction, neither it looks annoying. You can engage users in a fun activity, and offer them a discount in exchange for their email addresses.

Check out the Spin and Win module by Knowband. The module lets you easily add the Gamification popup on your website.

When visitors come to your store, this email subscription popup will emerge and ask them to try their luck to earn some discounts on your store products. The spin will require visitors to enter their email id. Curious to win some offer, visitors will possibly enter their details.

Isn’t it a great way to grow your email list? This also helps to increase user engagement and boosts your conversions. Knowband offers this module for various eCommerce platforms. Checkout

PrestaShop Spin and Win Addon

OpenCart Spin and Win Extension

Magento Spin and Win Extension

Magento 2 Spin and Win Extension

WooCommerce Spin and Win Extension.

2. Scratch Coupon Popup

By adding a Scratch coupon on your website, you can draw visitors’ attention and generate curiosity in their mind to check what’s behind the unscratched coupon. A visitor will be tempted to scratch the coupon and would surely enter his/her email address.

The Scratch Coupon module by Knowband incorporates an unscratched coupon on the top of your website. While scratching, a popup will appear asking the user to provide his/her email address to claim the discount. Checkout-

Prestashop Scratch Coupon Addon

OpenCart Scratch Coupon Extension

Magento Scratch Coupon Extension

Magento 2 Scratch Coupon Extension

3. Exit-Intent Popup

The Exit-Intent popup is used to prevent visitors from leaving your website. It detects user behaviour and prompts a popup in front of them as soon as they try to close the window.

It is one of the best email popups as it appears at the last moment and lets you make one last attempt to make the visitors stay on your website. The exit-intent popup has the highest possibility of grabbing user attention.

The Exit-Intent Popup by Knowband displays an interactive popup every time a user intends to exit your website. The online merchants can check out-

PrestaShop Exit Popup

OpenCart Exit Popup Extension

Magento Exit Popup Extension

Magento 2 Exit Popup

The Bottom Line

Though popups can be used in a number of ways, one thing that is important is to allow visitors to close the popup without any hassle.

You may have amusing content or amazing offers, but if one does not want it, let them have that option to close the popup window.

It indicates that you value your visitors and leaves a good impression of your brand. Making it difficult to close will break your bond with the users even before you could build it.

That’s it. I hope you liked these 8 Email Popup best practices and the email subscription popups that I have mentioned. If you have anything to add in this article, do drop your comments below.

Need any help with the mentioned popups? Drop us a mail at support@knowband.com

Also read:

6 Effective Ways to Build and Grow your Email List

5 Conventional Mistakes that are Killing your Email Subscriptions

4 Benefits that Highlight the Importance of Product Videos in eCommerce

Visuals play a decisive part in eCommerce conversions. Since customers cannot examine a product physically in online stores, it is only visuals they can put their trust into.

Online shoppers build an imagination inside their heads by seeing the product images or product videos, and on that basis, they decide to make the purchase. Visuals create the first impression.

To provide customers with the best online shopping experience, brands capture the product from every possible angle to ensure that there does not remain any doubt in the shopper’s mind about whether to go for the purchase or not.

But today, product images are just not enough. They have become too mainstream. Many brands have started adding product videos to their eCommerce website to make online shoppers feel more satisfied with the product’s look and quality before they purchase it.

What is a Product Video?

A product video is the product description in the form of a video, through which brands try to educate customers about the product, its quality, features, benefits, etc.

Why are Product Videos Important to your Online business?

A product video helps prospects get a better understanding of the product. This is a video marketing strategy that Brands leverage to minimize the doubts about the product in a shopper’s mind.

Let’s discuss in brief the benefits of product videos and understand their importance in eCommerce.

1. Product Videos convert Prospects into Customers

The importance of product videos can be felt by the fact that 92% of the shoppers say that visuals influence their buying decision and around 64% of the users are likely to purchase after watching the product video. (Source: RenderForest)

Well, this is because a product video brings a realistic feel. It minimizes the uncertainty about the product. Prospects imagine themselves at the other end and feel as if they are examining the product physically. This builds up the level of customer satisfaction and increases the chances of a prospect turning into a customer.

2. Product Videos Build Trust

Online shoppers are highly concerned about product quality when making a purchase online. They are unsure whether the product would match their expectations or not.

Product video eliminates their doubts and builds trust regarding product quality. Shoppers, hence, feel more comfortable purchasing after watching the video.

It also builds credibility for the brand. People realize that the company is authoritative and not deceitful.

The more you gain their trust, the more sales you get.

3. Google gives priority to Videos

Google tries to display videos for a majority of searches. So if you have embedded a product video from YouTube to your website and it contains an appropriate SEO-friendly title, description, keyword, website link, etc, there are very high chances that you would end up in Google’s Video section.

I am not talking about the separate video section. It will display there but here I meant the general “All” tab. Google suggests video even if the user has not visited the video section.

Marketers who use video receive 41% more traffic from the search results.

4. Product Videos Engage Customers

One of the major benefits of product videos is that they capture more user engagement. Going through the product description, and reading the entire information can sometimes be a tedious task for the customers. Not only it is tiring, but it is also time-consuming.

Product videos provide the same information crisply and clearly and grab more user engagement. Moreover, people are more likely to pay more attention to videos than images or texts.

Let’s now shift our focus from the benefits of product videos to product video best practices.

Product Video Best Practices

Let’s find out how you can utilize product videos to the best.

1. Explain the Need

Tell your customers how they would get benefited from purchasing that product. Apart from the features, introducing the benefits to the customers makes a good product video and makes the purchase easy.

2. Keep the Video Short

Do not stretch the video duration to 4-5 minutes. A perfect product video should not exceed more than a minute. And you should be able to convey the message clearly within that 1 minute.

A short video tends to capture higher engagement than a lengthy video.

3. Put up a Video on the Landing page and/or Home Page

As per the research, including a video on the landing page can boost conversions by 40%, and more than 20% when used on a Home Page.

This would be great if you are planning to promote a product, basically newly launched arrivals.

4. Share it on your Social Media Pages

Your product videos can create a buzz among your social media followers. For example, if you are launching a new product, creating awareness about it through a product video can be very beneficial to your business, in terms of brand awareness as well as product visibility.

You can also create an ad plan and display it to your target audience to get more potential customers.

The Bottom Line

Adding videos to your eCommerce website can provide a significant boost to your business. It will grab higher engagement, higher average site time, higher sales and most importantly, it will help you win your customers’ trust.

A product video is a compelling way to lead a prospect towards a purchase. Though it would require spending a few bucks, in fact, more, it will deliver positive results.

Set your budget and prepare your videos accordingly. Prepare a list of the products for which you would be creating videos and then proceed further. Add videos to your website without any hassle using Knowband’s Product Video module. The module makes it a very simple task to embed videos on your website on several pages. Check out-

PrestaShop Product Video Addon

Magento 2 Product Video Extension

OpenCart Product Video Extension

The greatest strategy to encourage customers to go to the checkout page is to optimise the product page of the website. The Product Tab Module provides a quick way to add new tabs to the website’s product pages all at once. When a user is just one step away from placing an order, the straightforward and comprehensive plugin may easily maximise their experience. By giving customers a way to receive more information, the module ensures that visitors never receive material that they don’t want. The store administrator can display relevant videos for the product or any other text message they want to share with the customers by using the product Page extension.

I hope this article made you understand the importance of product videos. If you have any points to make regarding the benefits of product videos, feel free to add them in the comments below.

PrestaShop Voice Search and Typing

“Incorporate a voice search block in the search bar of your website with PrestaShop Voice Search and Typing addon. The PrestaShop Voice Recognition system adds a microphone in your search box, using which your visitors and customers can perform a voice search.”

PrestaShop Voice Search makes use of voice recognition technology. It catches the user’s voice and presents the results matching the voice command.

Features of PrestaShop Voice Search and Typing module

1. PrestaShop Voice Search addon lets you enable the voice search functionality on the search bar. It places a microphone beside the magnifying glass.

2. PrestaShop Voice Recognition system lets you enable the voice search functionality on the registration form. New visitors can make a successful registration just by giving the voice commands.

You can select the fields for which you want to provide the voice search option, for example, first name, last name, etc.

3. PrestaShop Voice Search and Typing addon lets you enable the voice search functionality on the customer’s personal information tab. Customers can make adjustments to their information by giving the voice input.

You can specify the fields for which you want to provide the voice search option.

4. PrestaShop Voice Recognition lets you enable the voice search functionality on the Guest Checkout form. You can select the fields for which you want to provide the voice search option.

This makes it even quicker for guest users to checkout.

5. PrestaShop Voice Search lets you enable the voice search functionality on the Address form. You can specify the fields for which you want to provide the voice search option.

6. The addon lets you enable the voice search functionality on the Contact Us form.

7. This PrestaShop module lets you enable the voice search functionality on mobile, tablets and desktops.

8. Visitors/Customers can give a voice command even without clicking on the microphone. For this to function, they need to enable the “voice type on focus” option.

Benefits of PrestaShop Voice Search and Typing

1. PrestaShop Voice Search and Auto Typing addon enhances the online shopping experience of your customers.

2. The module provides easy search functionality and improves the search experience.

3. PrestaShop Voice Recognition addon is time-saving. It minimizes the effort required to make a search or fill the information.

4. No need to type. Just give a voice command and the text will be typed automatically.

5. The module nearly follows a hands-free approach and delivers results quickly.

6. PrestaShop Voice Search enhances the user experience.

7. The addon ensures a quick checkout.

Check out the PrestaShop Voice Search and Typing addon today.

7 Benefits of Video Marketing for your eCommerce Business

In the rapidly evolving eCommerce world, videos play a significant role, be it about a brand advertisement or precise product description.

If you want to stand out in the commerce market, you need to be a step ahead of your competitors. While they follow the mainstream marketing strategies, you can leverage the power of video marketing to make your product or brand popular among shopaholics.

What is Video Marketing?

Video Marketing is a marketing strategy used by businesses to market/promote their brand, products or services through a video form.

Though video marketing has been the trend for quite a while now, many eCommerce businesses do not pay much attention to it or say overlook its benefits.

Benefits of Video Marketing

In this write-up, I have explained why you need to adopt the video marketing idea in your online business. Let’s find out.

1. People Pay More Attention to Videos

People are more inclined to watch videos than read texts. With too much content being posted daily on the Internet or social media, people avoid reading long pieces of information. They find it boring and time-consuming.

Wouldn’t that be great if they could get the entire information through a few minutes video? I mean, I would be glad if someone could sum up the entire story in a short clip rather than asking me to go through heavy written content.

Videos capture more attention than text or images, and this marks one of the primary benefits of video marketing.

2. Video Brings Higher Conversions

A great thing about videos is that they build a sense of trust inside people. There are higher chances of a prospect turning into a customer if your product pages contain videos for a brief description of the product.

As per the stats collected by RenderForest, 70% of marketers feel that video converts better than any other medium. Also, explanatory videos increase the conversion rate by 20%.

The inability of customers to touch and examine a product makes the role of visuals highly important in a customer’s buying decision. Though high-quality images also do this job to an extent, videos give a more realistic feel.

Therefore, it is suggested to have an explanatory video for most of your products. Want to easily add videos to your product pages? Try out the Product Video module by Knowband.

PrestaShop Product Video Addon

OpenCart Product Video Extension

You could try adding videos to your landing page or in the banner section. Introducing your brand to your visitors through a video could leave an excellent impression.

3. Google gives High Preference to Videos

Even Google understands that suggesting videos to people on the search results page can be more beneficial to them regarding their search query.

You would surely come across a separate videos section on the SERP if it matches your search query. Let me help you a bit more.

I searched for PrestaShop Return Manager and the search engine displayed a video section right below the first result.

Imagine the wide organic reach it will receive if the keyword has high competition.

Put your videos on YouTube. Optimize them for SEO by giving them an SEO-friendly title and description, and then embed them on your website.

Google owns YouTube. If it decides to put your video on the search results page, you can get higher traffic, more views and more leads.

4. Video Could Bring Your Brand into the Limelight

Last year, HP released an amazing video for their Diwali marketing campaign, which swiftly caught the attention of the netizens and went viral all over social media. It connected people emotionally and got huge shares. People heaped praises on HP for such a wonderful message they spread through their video.

This is the potential of video marketing. It can make your brand popular overnight and put it in limelight. This is one of the huge benefits of video marketing.

But this would need a creative mind, out-of-the-box thinking and a message that could connect people. If you tick all this perfectly, you can leave the rest to the audience. They will do the needful for you.

5. Video Builds Credibility

Though, as already mentioned videos help develop trust among customers, video marketing is an effective way to build brand credibility.

People do not put their trust in a brand easily. Several online hoaxes taking place daily and the availability of too many eCommerce businesses have made people think twice before believing in a brand.

Videos ensure that your target audience is briefed clearly about your brand. You can have a video about your company, your work culture, and your vision. This will surely assure customers that you are an authorized brand and not any fake agency.

6. Video Builds Brand Awareness

Adding to the benefits of video marketing in eCommerce is it helps to build brand awareness. Through videos, you can educate your customers about your products, brand, offers and whatnot. It is the simplest way to catch your visitors’ eyes.

Also, if you can pay for advertising on YouTube, it would give a huge boost to your brand. A billion videos are watched on YouTube every single day. Imagine the popularity of your brand, when a video displays your Brand Ad.

7. Videos Have a Huge Role to Play in M-Commerce

More than half of the consumers watch videos through their mobile devices. And do you know mobile makes up to 40% of the global watch time on YouTube? Ever since the rise in smartphone users, engagement towards video has grown significantly.

Mobile users are more likely to watch videos than desktop users. This means higher mobile traffic and higher mobile sales.

Consumers feel more attached to videos when watching via mobile than on the desktop. So, utilize the power of video marketing and grow your eCommerce revenue.

The Bottom Line

Video Marketing is not limited to a few benefits. It has tons of pros and hardly any cons. Video Marketing is here to stay for long now. It provides you with several opportunities to globalize your brand.

I hope these 7 benefits of video marketing helped you understand why video is the need for businesses today. If you liked this information or have something to add to this piece of content, feel free to leave a comment below.

8 Ways to Build Customer Trust and Loyalty

“This article is divided into two parts- Customer Trust and Customer Loyalty.”

You want to acquire new customers, and putting every effort to make them a part of your eCommerce journey. You got visitors on your website but you are still not getting satisfactory results.

What could be the reason? Well, there could be some flaws in your website. But for a new user, the trust factor is the most important. New visitors do not put their trust in an online business easily considering the hoax and the fraud activities that take place over the Internet daily.

And why would they? It is the first time that they are interacting with your brand. You need to earn their trust, establish a connection with them so that they get familiar with your brand.

While it is not an arduous task to create your brand visibility and attract customers to your website, thanks to the social media platforms, the challenge lies in converting new visitors into customers.

And trust is the crucial factor that turns a visitor into a customer. Yes, there are other important elements such as the Website UX, Checkout Page, etc. But those are secondary. Customer trust is primary.

There are plenty of thoughts that go through a visitor’s mind when he first visits your website. Only after they find your site to reliable and trustworthy, they think of making a purchase.

Customer trust and loyalty go hand-in-hand. Once you build the trust, customer loyalty follows. So first, you need to win their trust. Later, you can think of some other factors to make them loyal to your brand.

But the point here is how do you actually build customer trust, in the first place? Well, this is what we will be discussing today.

We will first start with building customer trust followed by customer loyalty.

How to Build Customer Trust?

1. Focus on Your Site Security

First things first. Visitors need to feel secure when they land on your website. They would bounce off straightaway if they sense your website has security issues, let alone purchasing.

For this matter, you need to make your website SSL certified. An SSL certificate adds a security layer to your website and is an important element to build customer trust.

2. Display Security Badges at Checkout

Online transaction frauds have reached a new level nowadays. As a result, people have become way too sensitive to share their bank related information online.

Win customer trust by displaying payment security badges at the checkout. Security signs like Norton Secured, McAfee Secure or displaying supported credit card logos or a security lock develop a sense of trust inside visitors and they feel much more comfortable while making a payment.

3. Go Social

Maintaining your social presence is highly important today if you want to build customer trust. Social media is not just a marketing platform that helps you with brand visibility but it is a place where you can have a friendly connection with your followers and build credibility.

People get to know you as a brand and you build that trust factor in them.

How would you do that?

Be active, and start posting actively. Engage with your audience, be a part of their conversation, reply to their queries, post your inside stories, tell them about your journey. These sorts of things will help you win customers and keep them for life.

4. Enhance Your Customer Support

Another customer trust winning method is to enhance your customer support.

A visitor/customer may have n number of queries. It could be related to your website, products, or any other issue for which they want a resolution.

It is your sole responsibility to solve their queries and provide them with satisfactory customer service. For that, do not limit your customer support to just emails, or calls. Add a live chat support option too. Moreover, as I said, be active on social media. A majority of customers prefer social media platforms to raise their queries.

It could be a tweet or a DM. Whatever it is, make sure to help them with their concerns as soon as possible. Your customers would appreciate you for showing a quick response to their concerns.

If you keep these 4 things in your mind, your visitors would surely find your website trustworthy. Let’s now take a look at how to build customer loyalty.

4 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty

To build loyalty with customers, you need to focus on a few important things-

1. Deliver What You Say

Customer loyalty lies in delivering what you promise. Many times, customers do not receive products the way it looked on the product page and sometimes, there are some missing features. This leads to disappointment among the customers and they feel being cheated.

Let’s not make fake promises. Deliver them the quality they expected or the item which they actually thought was worth purchasing. If you fail to deliver what you say, that will probably the last time you will see that customer on your website.

The same goes for your delivery time and return policies. The product should get delivered within the time mentioned. A delay in delivery can irk your customers. And it should be followed by a clear return policy. It shouldn’t be like that you have promised easy returns but the customer is facing a hard time in placing a return.

These things are important if you want to gain customer loyalty.

5 Ways to Manage eCommerce Returns

2. Be Open to Customer Reviews

If you have not added a review section on your website just because you are afraid of some negative comments, you are never going to win the complete trust of visitors.

People have grown smart. Before buying a product from a new website, they do research on the company’s background and look out for reviews to check if it is genuine or not or see what people have to say about the Brand.

More than half of the job is done if shoppers find your Brand reliable enough to shop, then comes the product review part which helps a prospect in his/her buying decision. Reviews play a huge role here.

Be transparent about the reviews. Openly accept people’s opinions about your brand or product. There will be some good reviews and some bad reviews for sure but it will present a sign of honesty in front of your customers.

Respond to your reviews. Understand what went wrong with your customers that led to a negative remark. You should always be ready for constructive criticism.

3. Offer Loyalty Points on Every Purchase

Having a loyalty program for your business is one of the best ways to build customer loyalty, and it improves customer retention, simultaneously.

When you reward customers with loyalty points on a successful purchase, you basically invite them to shop from your brand again in the future. It ensures repeat purchases and keeps you ahead of your competitors who are not having any loyalty program at all.

Loyalty Programs build a personal connect between the brand and the customer and increase customer loyalty.

4. Value Your Customers

Never forget to thank or appreciate your customers. Showing a bit of gratitude not only helps you win customer trust but also develops customer loyalty.

Here’s what you can do. When a customer places an order, thank him/her for showing the trust in your brand and choosing to shop with you. Or if they have something to suggest or left a review, be it positive or negative, accept it gladly and appreciate them for leaving feedback.

Ask them if your products or services lived up to their expectations. Apologize if they faced a delay or an inconvenience with something. This shows your professionalism. It is important to value your customers to build a healthy customer relationship.

The Bottom Line

Building Customer Trust and Loyalty is not something that you can earn overnight. It will take time but your efforts to winning customer trust and loyalty would surely reflect results.

Treat your customers well. Make them feel special and most importantly, avoid using click baits to drive traffic to your website.

What are your strategies for building customer trust and loyalty?

Best Instagram Hashtags to Use This Holiday Season

It is time to shower your social media posts with hashtags. If you are an active social media user, you would have probably seen users and businesses put a number of hashtags on their posts. And the usage goes extreme during the holiday season.

If you have an online business, you may be searching and digging the social media platforms to find the relevant and trending hashtags that could give a boost to your posts and provide them with a higher reach.

While hashtags can be used across multiple platforms, they are not as effective on other platforms as they are on Instagram and Twitter, and somewhat LinkedIn. Instagram rules the hashtag game. Though people also use hashtags on Facebook, they are the least impactful.

You might like: 4 reasons why you should start using Instagram Hashtags

Why are Hashtags Important?

Using hashtags, on the right platforms, can create huge brand exposure, especially during the holiday season and increase your follower base widely.

They give you organic reach, and with higher reach come higher engagement.

In this article, I have compiled a list of the most popular Instagram hashtags that you can use in this Holiday season which includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and New Year.

The hashtags that I have mentioned are not niche-specific. You can filter out the relevant hashtags and use them accordingly. You can use a maximum of 30 Instagram hashtags with one post so, choose them wisely. Let’s start with the general holiday season hashtags.

Hashtags for Holiday Season

Some of the most popular Twitter and Instagram hashtags for the holiday season are-

#holiday

#holidaydecor

#holidayseason

#holidayparty

#holidayfun

#holidaygifts

#holidayoutfit

#holidaygiftguide

#holidayweekend

#holidaymood

#holidayshopping

#holidaycollection

#holidayfashion

#holidayspirit

#holidaysale

#holidaysarecoming

#holidaydeals

#holidayvibes

#holidayspecial

#holidaygiveaway

#holidaygiveaway2021

#holidaycontest

Now, let’s find out the popular Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram hashtags for individual holidays.

Hashtags for Thanksgiving

#thanksgiving

#thanksgivingclapback

#thanksgivingdecor

#thanksgivingcookies

#thanksgivingdinner

#thanksgivingtable

#thanksgivings

#thanksgivingoutfit

#thanksgiving2021

#thanksgivingday

#thanksgivingeve

#thanksgivingprep

#thanksgivingservice

#thanksgivingweekend

#thanksgivingturkey

#thanksgivingtreats

#thanksgivingdecorations

#thanksgivingdeals

#thanksgivingsale

#thanksgivinggiveaway

#thanksgivinggift

Social Media Hashtags for Black Friday

#blackfriday

#blackfriday2021

#blackfridaysale

#blackfridayweek

#blackfridaydeals

#blackfridayshopping

#blackfridayweekend

#blackfridayspecial

#blackfridayoffer

Instagram Hashtags for Cyber Monday

#cybermonday

#cybermonday2021

#cybermondaysale

#cybermondaydeals

Instagram Hashtags for Christmas

#christmas

#christmastree

#christmasday

#christmasdecor

#christmascookies

#christmasgifts

#christmasdecorations

#christmasparty

#christmasshopping

#christmastime

#christmaspresents

#christmascountdown

#christmasspirit

#christmascards

#christmasdeals

#christmassale

#christmasgiftideas

#christmascontest

#christmasgiveaway

#merrychristmas

#merryxmas

#santaclaus

#xmas

#xmastime

#xmasgifts

#xmasdeals

Social Media Hashtags for New Year

#happynewyear

#happynewyear2021

#newyear

#newyearsresolution

#newyearsale

#newyeardecoration

Final Word

People would be performing searches on social media using hashtags to find out some exciting deals and offers that brands are offering. And you never know when a user finds your post in the search results and lands on your Brand page.

Hashtags have the potential to turn prospects into potential customers. It kind of does free marketing for your Brand. Use them smartly but do not overuse them (Instagram hashtags max limit is 30). Your posts shouldn’t look clunky.

Do you know you can utilize the power of hashtags to increase your sales? No, I ain’t kidding. This is possible with Knowband’s Instagram Shop Gallery module.

The Instagram Shop Gallery module adds an attractive Instagram Gallery interface to your website. Using this module, you can fetch images from Instagram using any hashtag and map your products on those images. Check out the modules for your relevant platform to know their complete features and benefits.

PrestaShop Instagram Shop Gallery Addon

OpenCart Instagram Shop Gallery Extension

Magento Instagram Shop Gallery Extension

Magento 2 Instagram Shop Gallery Extension

If you face any trouble with the module and need some assistance with it, you can always reach out to us at support@knowband.com

8 Best Christmas Marketing Ideas for Online Businesses

After a busy 5-day holiday period comprising of Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, follows Christmas, which is also one of the most popular occasions rejoiced by shopaholics as well as the e-retailers.

The last week of the year holds immense potential to add huge revenue to your online business. Adding a fact to this statement, the previous year Christmas retail sales captured approximately $719.17 billion in the United States, as per Statista.

In this article, I have put forward 8 Best Christmas Marketing Ideas that you can look to adapt to your online business for a successful Christmas campaign.

1. Add a Christmas Touch to Your Brand

Your Brand appearance should go hand-in-hand with the holiday mood. When one holiday approaches a close, you need to develop the curiosity for the next one. Let the customers’ mood be on the same track. Do not let the holiday feel fade away.

Start by customizing the colour of your website to something red and white. Go for Christmas hats, bells, lights, Christmas trees next. Every time a visitor lands on your website, it should give them a joyous Christmas feel and add a spark to the shopping mood.

Get your website cover banner ready to catch the Christmas holiday spirit. It should immediately grab visitors’ attention. Display your Christmas deals on the banner to make your visitors aware about the Christmas sales.

Christmas Marketing would be tasteless if you do not restyle your social media accounts. Set a Christmas theme for your social media pages by having a Christmas-personalized profile picture and cover picture.

These are some of the basic Christmas marketing ideas.

2. Introduce Christmas Gift Cards If You Do Not Have It Yet

Digital Gift Cards or e-gift cards are the shoppers’ primary gift choice during the holiday season and add a huge sum to your revenue, simply because they are convenient, easy to purchase and time-saving.

People are found scratching their heads when it comes to choosing gifts as they are surrounded by multiple gift ideas. And there is always the uncertainty about the receiver liking the gift.

Gifting one or two persons can still be managed but when the numbers are high, digital gift cards tend to be the best option, and this is why Christmas themed Gift cards would be one of the best Christmas marketing ideas.

No more wastage of time in searching for tons of gifts. Get a gift card for your loved ones and deliver it to their email address within no time. Recipients are also delighted to receive gift cards as they can buy whatever they want of their own choice. This is the reason why most of the e-retailers have added a Gift Card section on their store/website.

Believe me, Gift cards prove to be extremely beneficial in boosting your sales. If you do not have a Gift Card section yet, add it today.

Knowband offers the Gift Card Manager module for PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento and Magento 2.

3. Leverage Web Push Notifications

Well and good, if you are having a mobile app for your business and using app push notifications to reach out to your customers. In case you don’t, Web Push Notifications would make up for an ideal Christmas marketing idea.

Web Push Notifications allow you to interact with your subscribers in real-time even if they are not present at your website. They help you keep your customers updated about the trends and promotions on your website.

Ask your users to subscribe to your Christmas updates to receive enticing offers regarding the Christmas sale.

Web Push Notifications module, by Knowband, lets you use the communication power to announce a flash sale, product price alert, product availability alert, etc. The module is available for PrestaShop, Magento and Magento 2.

Give a read to:

Web Push Notifications: 5 Best Practices to Boost eCommerce Conversions

6 Major Benefits of using Web Push Notifications in eCommerce

4. Create a Christmas-Themed Video

Adding to the list of Christmas marketing ideas would be creating a Christmas-themed video.

If it fits your budget, prepare a video to boost your brand awareness. Make sure it is not overly promotional else people would likely skip it. Keep it short, creative, engaging and a bit entertaining.

Post the video on social media platforms and promote it using social media ads. If users like your content, your video could go viral overnight and you cannot even imagine the limelight it will create about your business.

Your followers count would catch up the speed of a bullet train. You would start getting higher engagement. To put it simply, it will heavily endorse your brand without even a brand ambassador.

But it is not that easy. Creating such a video requires time, efforts and out-of-the-box thinking. If you want to capture people’s attention, you need to do something worth it.

5. Start Sending Christmas Specific Emails

Your subscribers may not pay much attention to your emails rest of the year but they will surely try not to miss any of the mail notifications during the holiday season because they know it is that time where they can expect some exciting offers from Brands.

Use this to your advantage. Start sending out emails to your customers at regular intervals but do not be too frequent. Develop the interest slowly inside the customer and avoid being promotional every time. You need to make your customers feel how they can get benefited from your Christmas offerings.

Find the perfect time when most of your subscribers are active to open the emails. Create a catchy subject line that triggers the user to browse the inside content. Do not shout just Sales, Sales and Sales!

6. Offer Gift Packages

People would spend huge bucks during the Christmas sale and offering gift packages would be an effective Christmas marketing idea.

Encourage people to spend more by offering them product bundles. Not only it increases your average order value but also helps in selling out those items which are otherwise purchased rarely by the customers.

For example- You can offer 3 pair of shoes with different colours at a slightly lesser combo price than their individual cost. Now even if the prospect is not much impressed with 1 colour, he would probably show the desire to purchase as he would be getting it in a bundle with 3 different colours. The prospect would have not purchased it, in particular.

7. Run a Christmas Themed User-Generated Content Campaign

How about asking people to share their Santa stories? Or asking them to share a picture wearing a Santa Claus dress or clicking a picture with the Christmas tree? And then gifting them something special for this effort. Sounds a great Christmas marketing idea?

Well, it is. User-generated content campaigns make a great way to spread the word about your brand. In fact, it is one of the best forms of word-of-mouth marketing.

Apart from this, you can also start a campaign where you ask your customers to post a picture of what they shopped from your store on the Christmas sale. Tell them to use a specific hashtag and tag your brand. In return, you could provide them with an exclusive offer or some gift vouchers to the winners.

8. Be Active on Your Social Media Pages

There is no marketing strategy today that does not involve social media, same goes for the Christmas marketing.

Social media has become a vital platform for Brands to boost their brand visibility, acquire new customers and drive more conversions. But it doesn’t occur by just uploading posts. You need to develop a friendliness with your audience and it would develop only by regularly interacting and engaging with them.

Try to create a fun-filled Christmas atmosphere around your audience. Persuade them to like, react or comment to your posts. Again, avoid posting promotional stuff every time. Reply to your followers’ comments, solve their queries. The more the engagement, the higher the reach.

Also, do not post the same set of posts on every platform. A few can be okay but copy-pasting every post would probably bore your customers. Have different posts for different platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The Bottom Line

That’s it! I found these 8 Christmas marketing ideas to be most fruitful for online businesses, though not every point mentioned above would be suitable for all business types.

Christmas is going to arrive soon. Make the festival count and while you prepare for the Christmas marketing, do not forget to keep these ideas for New Year as well, which would take place right after a week.

If you have some other Christmas marketing ideas or strategies, feel free to add in the comment below.

Knowband Makes it to the List of Top eCommerce Tool Market Players

We take pride in announcing that KnowBand has received yet another achievement, this time being acknowledged as one of the leading eCommerce Tool Market Players in a market research conducted by Global Market Release.

The report shared by Global Market Release provided key statistics on the market status of the leading eCommerce Tool Market Players, also focusing on the trends and opportunities in the eCommerce market.

Read the complete news from the link below:

https://globalmarketrelease.com/e-commerce-tools-market-business-growth-development-status-opportunity-assessment-by-key-players-constant-contact-knowband-store-hcl-technologies-easyship-swiftype-prisync/

Earlier, we have also been recognized as one of the leading Mobile Commerce Solution Providers.

It is a proud moment for our entire team, at KnowBand whose efforts and persistence has led us to these achievements. We also thank our customers and clients who have shown their faith in us over the years and believed in our abilities.

Knowband is also tagged with the Superhero Seller Badge on the Official PrestaShop Platform.

About KnowBand

KnowBand, a leading name as an eCommerce development company provides highest quality eCommerce plugins for multiple eCommerce platforms like PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento, Magento 2, WooCommerce and Shopify.

We have hired experienced developers who work with utmost dedication and are committed to enhancing the functionalities of your eCommerce stores.

Want to start your journey with us? Visit our KnowBand store and check out a number of addons/extensions.

Some of our top-selling modules are:

Mobile App Builder

Multi-vendor Marketplace

One Page Checkout

For any query, contact us at support@knowband.com

7 Magento Extensions You Should Not Miss Out On This Black Friday

Black Friday is just around the corner. While online shoppers are desperately waiting for the occasion to arrive, e-retailers are making sure that they do not miss any opportunity to achieve sky-high sales on this Black Friday. From designing the website as per Black Friday to running attractive deals and promotions, merchants have tick-marked every option in their Black Friday checklist to catch the holiday spirit.

Magento Extensions for Black Friday

In this article, I have listed down 7 Magento Extensions that you shouldn’t miss out on this Black Friday. Have a look.

1. Magento Spin and Win

Magento Spin and Win extension adds a gamified interface to your website in the form of a spin and win wheel. The “Spin to Win” popup asks users to try their luck by spinning the wheel and win some exciting rewards.

The extension helps you with more user engagement and makes it a better way to catch the email address of your visitors rather than conventional pop-ups.

Set a Black Friday theme for this engaging pop-up and shoot up your conversions.

Check out this extension for Magento 2 as well- Magento 2 Spin and Win

2. Magento Mobile App Builder

Magento Mobile App Builder extension transforms your Magento Website into a native mobile app for both Android & iOS.

The extension helps you with enhanced online shopping experience for your customers by reducing the hassle of visiting the website by typing its URL on the search engine. Magento Mobile App Builder makes it a one-click task.

It is a feature-packed extension that offers Home Page layout optimization, Social login, Fingerprint and OTP login, Zopim and WhatsApp Chat Support, Unlimited Push Notifications, Convenient Checkout, etc.

Apart from these, it lets you sync your website content into a mobile app in real-time and supports multiple shipping and payment methods.

So, launch a mobile app for your website and double your sales volume on this Black Friday. You can customize the look and feel of your mobile app by setting up a Black Friday theme.

Check out this extension for Magento 2 as well- Magento 2 Mobile App Builder

3. Magento Gift Card Manager

Magento Gift Card extension adds a gift card section to your Magento website and lets you provide a range of gift cards to your customers. You can set up gift cards for multiple occasions like Birthday, Anniversary, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.

The extension ends the customer’s time-consuming search for a perfect gift and helps them gift a desired/occasional gift card to their loved ones.

Digital Gift Cards have brought humongous sales for eCommerce merchants. You can expect higher sales too. Get the Magento Gift Card extension today.

Check out this extension for Magento 2 as well- Magento 2 Gift Card Manager

Also read: Why Digital Gift Cards are important to your business?

4. Magento Abandoned Cart

Magento Abandoned Cart extension helps you recover your abandoned carts by sending follow-up reminders to the abandoned cart users.

You can set the duration after which the cart is assumed to be abandoned, and then send abandoned cart alerts to those users about the pending items in the cart. You can include the discount in your follow-up emails and encourage the prospects to complete the purchase.

Recover your lost sales on this Black Friday and scale-up your conversion graph. Though you cannot convert all abandoned carts, even a few conversions would make up for good revenue.

Check out this extension for Magento 2 as well- Magento 2 Abandoned Cart

5. Magento Web Push Notifications

Magento Web Push Notifications extension is an amazing tool to increase your website traffic and drive more sales.

The extension allows you to send website notifications to your subscribers even if they are not present at your website and is supported for both mobile and desktop. (Subscriber here refers to the visitors who have approved to receive notifications)

With Magento Web Browser Push Notifications, you can announce abandoned cart alerts, product price alerts (drop in product price), Product back-in-stock alert, Order Status updates, etc.

Ask visitors to subscribe to alerts and make them grab their desired product instantly on your Black Friday sale.

Check out this extension for Magento 2 as well- Magento 2 Web Push Notifications

Also Read: 6 Major Benefits of using Web Push Notifications in eCommerce

6. Magento Affiliate and Referral Program

Magento Affiliate and Referral Program extension adds an affiliate section on your Magento website and allows your visitors/customers to register as an affiliate partner.

Once registered, the user gets a commission for every successful referral; which can be a new user registration, order placement or both.

The extension encourages word-of-mouth marketing and boosts brand awareness. Run enticing offers and let your affiliates do the marketing for you for this Black Friday. It helps you acquire new customers and increases your sales.

Check out this extension for Magento 2 as well- Magento 2 Affiliate and Referral Program

7. Magento Return Manager

While you would be capturing a huge number of orders on this Black Friday, there would surely be a few returns and it can get extremely difficult to manage them in the busy shopping hours. Avoid this headache with Magento Return Manager.

Magento Return Manager extension helps you manage your eCommerce returns conveniently. Apart from the usual refund and replacement choice, it offers store credits worth the product amount which a customer can utilize on his future purchases.

The extension speeds up your return process and helps you with improved customer loyalty and customer retention.

Check out this extension for Magento 2 as well- Magento 2 Return Manager

The Bottom Line

Do not miss any chance to grab a sale. Check out these 7 Magento Extensions and maximize your sales on this Black Friday.

Hope you get the best out of these Magento Extensions.

If you need any assistance on any of these extensions, do not hesitate to drop a comment below or mail us your query at support@knowband.com

9 Must-Have OpenCart Extensions to Make an Impact this Black Friday

Hardly a few days left for Black Friday. Brands have already begun the preparations for the busiest shopping day of the year 2020in the U.S. and they are looking to scale-up the number in this season too. Last year Black Friday sales had hit the $7.4billion mark and the expectations are high for this year too.

Preparing for the biggest eCommerce sales of the year can be intimidating when you are competing with big brands like Amazon. But, here is a way of making your holiday e-commerce season run as efficiently as possible. This article will help you optimize your OpenCart store in all possible ways.

OpenCart Extensions for Black Friday

I am sure you also want to make the best use of the coming Black Friday. So if you are having an eCommerce website on the OpenCart platform, take a look at the following 8 OpenCart Extensions to boost your eCommerce sales during Black Friday.

Customers like Personalization

1. OpenCart Product Designer/Customizer

The concept of the eCommerce sale is never constant but it always changes and with that the personalization has become a part of the business. People love customized products and 2020 has witnessed a boom in personalized gifting solutions. Empower your clients with the opportunity to design and shop on your website for personalized items such as T-shirts, mugs, cushions, and a lot more.

The Product Customizer Extension designed for the OpenCart platform allows the shopper to customize the product by inserting the desired text and pictures. The Product Designer/Customizer extension provides you with the best way to sell your products on your website according to consumer needs.

Let them design and gift the custom products to their loved ones!

Time to attract new customers

2. OpenCart Gift Card Manager

There will be a heavy demand for Gift Cards when Black Friday makes a close approach. Many online shoppers would be short of time to purchase different gifts for their close ones. In this rush, shoppers would probably prefer the Gift Card option. Reduce the hassle to search for a perfect gift with OpenCart Gift Card Manager.

OpenCart Gift Card Manager helps you add a gift card section to your OpenCart store and encourages more sales. The extension lets you place the Gift card block on various places on your website, including the header and footer so that it is easily noticed by the user when he or she arrives at your website.

With the help of this OpenCart extension, you can create an attractive Gift Card template for the occasion of Black Friday.

When customers visit your OpenCart website, they will see the option to purchase the Black Friday Gift Card or they can create their own custom gift card by uploading a picture.they can send to the recipients over their email or deliver it at their doorstep.

3. OpenCart Facebook Share and Win Discount

While online shoppers would be searching everywhere to get discounts on Black Friday, you can make their task easy with Facebook Share and Win Discount.

OpenCart Facebook Share and Win Discount adds a “Share and Win Discount” tab on your product pages, clicking on which the user earns a discount code every time they share that product on their timeline. You can specify the products for which you want to provide a discount on sharing.

Increase Customer Engagement

4. OpenCart Spin and Win

OpenCart Spin and Win extension integrates a Gamification popup on your website. The primary purpose of this OpenCart extension is to create more user engagement and make your visitors earn offers by involving them in a fun activity rather than approaching them through conventional popups.

OpenCart Spin and Win popup helps you capture more email addresses and ultimately drive more conversions. For amazing results on this Black Friday, you can set up your popup theme as per the occasion to catch the Black Friday spirit. Not just the Black Friday but the module is integrated with several attractive themes for every occasion.

5. OpenCart Exit Popup

Prevent visitors from leaving your website and present them with some exciting Black Friday offers and discounts at the last minute.

OpenCart Exit Popup lets you display an interactive popup right when the user intends to leave your website. The module senses as soon as the cursor reaches the close button and performs the specified task.

The OpenCart Exit Popup makes it a perfect way to turn the visitor into a potential customer at the last moment. It helps you with higher conversions and hence higher revenue.

You can find tons of customizations inside the module.

Create Urgency

6. OpenCart Countdown Sales Timer

How about creating awareness about your sales on Black Friday and generating a sense of urgency on your OpenCart website? Yes, this can be implemented through OpenCart Countdown Sales Timer.

OpenCart Countdown Sales Timer lets you set a timer for your sales and display it on the front end of your website to encourage quick purchases.

This OpenCart extension triggers impulse purchasing and helps you achieve higher sales within a limited time. You can display the timer on multiple pages and adjust its look and feel.

7. OpenCart Deal Timer

Provide enticing discounts on specific products with the help of OpenCart Deal Timer Extension. For the Black Friday occasion, you can set a special discount on your best sellers and increase the sales volume.

OpenCart Deal Timer extension lets you define the discount percentage and set the deal period.

Old is Gold: bring back the old ones

8. OpenCart Abandoned Cart

The horror of abandoned carts will scare you the most during Black Friday. Try to convert abandoned carts with OpenCart Abandoned Cart extension.

OpenCart Abandoned Cart extension lets you recover the abandoned carts by tracking the abandoned cart users. You can send an email reminder to those users about the pending items in their cart and ask them to complete the purchase by including a discount coupon in the follow-up email.

You can specify the duration after which the cart is assumed to be abandoned and also customize your abandoned cart emails.

Make your Store Gadget Friendly

9. OpenCart Mobile App Builder

Make the online shopping experience of your customers even better and convenient by launching a mobile app for your business. Black Friday is approaching and there would not be any better opportunity to get higher sales than having your mobile app ready before Black Friday arrives.

OpenCart Mobile App Builder transforms your OpenCart website into a native mobile app, be it for Android or iOS or both. It does not require any kind of coding knowledge.

It offers real-time synchronization of the website into the app, offers fingerprint and OTP login, provides Zopim and WhatsApp Chat support, Unlimited Push Notifications, Simplified Checkout, and much more.

Wrap-up:

The OpenCart extension helps you in free brand promotion through your customers and most importantly, improves customer retention.

That’s all! Best wishes for your Black Friday sales.

Need assistance with any of the mentioned modules? Leave a comment below or contact us at support@knowband.com