Improve holiday sales with a speaking character

'Tis time of the year for giving! According to a market forecast by TNS retail, online sales in Q4 2007 will reach $42B driven by a strong holiday retail sales in November and December. A consumer survey done by eTail group reveals that 90% of respondents are planning to spend over $100 over the holiday period with 47% willing to spend over $500.

As great as the opportunity may sound, the competition is also intense. Almost every online merchant including the giants like Wal-Mart are gearing up to ride on the biggest shopping spree of the year with increased marketing budget, special promotions and so on.

So how can you compete with Wal-Mart? You have limited resources and need a cost effective way to entice people to open their wallets on YOUR site, not on your competitors? One key to maximize your site effectiveness is to create a differentiated and efficient shopping experience. Speaking characters are a perfect tool to make your site stand out during the holiday season.

Here are 5 easy and smart ways how a speaking character can help:

1.Engage customers with a memorable holiday greeting
2.Make your holiday promotions come across loud via a SPOKEN message
3.Use an interactive FAQ to save time for your customers
4.Persuade customers to take action
5.Reinforce special deals in the shopping cart and up-sell

Reveal:
5 tips for increasing conversions with a speaking character

1. Engage your customers with a memorable holiday greeting

Have your speaking character welcome your visitors on the homepage with a warm holiday greeting. You can reinforce the festive atmosphere by using a SitePal holiday characters or add holiday accessories, outfits or backgrounds to your existing character. Trivial as it may sound, the friendly seasonal gesture will definitely grab your visitors' attention, ignite their interest in your website and make your website memorable.

2. Make your holiday promotions come across loud via a SPOKEN message

Use a speaking character to take advantage of the deal-driven mentality of holiday shoppers. If you have a special holiday promotions, have your speaking character highlight it clearly and loudly as soon as your visitors land on your site. A SPOKEN message will ensure that your special offers are found and heard by your customers. Add a speaking character to your product page as well to draw customers' attention to any special items on sale.

3. Use an interactive FAQ to save the time for your customers

The eTail survey also revealed that 68% of holiday shoppers chose “time saving” as one of their top 3 priorities. If you anticipate any questions or concerns from your customers, why not address them in advance so your customers don't have to spend time finding the answers on your site? Using SitePal's FAQ feature, you can easily program your speaking character to answer to most frequently asked questions from gift ideas to on-time delivery guarantee in an engaging and time-saving manner. You may want to call brand her as a virtual shopping guide!

4. Persuade customers to take action

Another big merit of a speaking character is its power to engage people to respond to a call to action. Make sure you include a clear and specific call to action in the audio message (e.g. click the "buy now" button below to add the item for a 15% discounted price!) A recent AB test done by Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends.com, proved that a SitePal character-enabled website had a 144% higher conversion rate than a text only site due to its power to persuade people to take action.

5. Reinforce special deals in the shopping cart and up-sell

Place a speaking character in your shopping cart to remind your customers of any missed deal and up-sell. For example, if you offer "free shipping" during your holiday period, make your speaking character reiterate it in the shopping cart. Now your customer may want to add even more items to her cart to take advantage of the free shipping offer!

Sign up for your speaking character today!

About SitePal
SitePal is easy-to-use, industry-leading speaking character solution developed by Oddcast. With its ability to engage customers, reinforce marketing messages and persuade customers to take action, SitePal has helped thousands of small businesses improve their business results from increasing conversions to enhancing customer loyalty.