Post Black Friday and Cyber Monday and ahead of the holidays, shoppers are determined to use all days and resources available to them, both in-store and online.

Check out this article from Google to learn how you can connect with shoppers this December.

Holiday shopping doesn’t stop on Dec. 25. Instead, we see devoted shoppers continuing to hunt for gifts for both loved ones and themselves after the holiday rush. This represents a significant revenue opportunity for retailers. 

Don’t miss out on the fastest-growing holiday sales period, get the tips from this Google article. 

Did you know that according to Mailchimp research, 71% of customers are more likely to purchase from companies that send personalized email?

In this report, Mailchimp explores 6 holiday marketing insights that can save you time and maximize revenue! 

Take advantage of all the work you do during the holiday season!

With these 5 easy tips from Mailchimp, you can turn your holiday momentum into this year’s victories.

Ensure you’re making the most of the holidays this year!

Here’s a mission-critical holiday inventory to-do list from Square to help keep you on track! 

The holidays are a huge opportunity for your business!

Here’s a mega-list of proven holiday marketing strategies from Shopify, including gift guides, email marketing examples, and festive apps to get your online store ready and drive more holiday sales. 

Are you new to E-Commerce? Check out What Is E-Commerce? A Comprehensive Guide (Shopify) to learn the ins and outs of E-Commerce, what it is, how it works, and the benefits of selling online. 

Are you looking to get your business online but don’t know where to start?

This Step-by-step guide to starting an online store for your small business (Canada Post) will help you prepare for the key steps to transition your business online.

Landing pages are important as they should be designed in a way that helps convert potential customers checking out your website to sales. 

Check out this guide to improve your landing page: The Ultimate Guide to Landing Pages (HubSpot)

Interested in taking your landing page development to the next level? 

• Take this Shopify Academy course on How To Create a Landing Page That Converts  

• Looking for inspiration? Check out 20 Examples for Creating an Effective Landing Page Design (Shopify)

Product descriptions can help a customer feel more confident with their purchase. 

Learn more here: 10 Ways to Write Product Descriptions That Persuade (Shopify)

Need help writing your copy? 

Try these tools:  

• Copy.ai 
• Magic Write by Canva 
• Shopify Magic 

You don’t need to hire a professional to take excellent product photos!

Check out how to DIY your own set up here: DIY Guide To the Perfect Product Photography Setup  (Shopify)

Need help with product photography?

Check out the Photo Studio app from Square to easily take and edit your own studio-quality product photos. 

Looking for a way to easily create unique and tailored product imagery and get more value from the images you already have?

Check out Google’s resources on Using generative AI to make creative product images .

Want to expand your audience worldwide but don’t know where to get started with shipping? 

Learn more here: 

• International Shipping Tools for Businesses (Canada Post)

• International Shipping: Breaking down the basics to expand your small business’s reach (Canada Post)

• Picking your tools to streamline shipping (Canada Post)

Learn more about available Solutions For Small Businesses with Canada Post, where you can save big on shipping costs and access exclusive shipping tools. 

Want to learn tips and tricks on how to improve your website to increase your customer’s likeliness to purchase?  

Learn more on how to reduce cart abandonment here:  

•  12 Effective Strategies to Reduce Cart Abandonment in Your Online Store(Ecwid)

• How To Reduce Cart Abandonment and Close Sales (Shopify)

Learn more about how to leverage email marketing to Regain Sales with Abandoned Cart Emails (Mailchimp)

Now more than ever prospective customers are shopping online on their mobile phones. Ensuring your website is mobile-friendly will help convert prospective customers into sales. 

Use Google’s Free Mobile-Friendly Test by searching your website URL to determine if your website is mobile-friendly. 

Check out Shopify’s article on  Mobile Commerce: M-commerce Examples and Trends.

PageSpeed Insights from Google, reports on the user experience of a page on both mobile and desktop devices and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved. 

Click here to access PageSpeed Insights to review the speed of your web pages.

A CRM system stores all interactions with potential and existing customers to help improve customer relationships, collaboration and provides greater insights. 

Learn more about Customer Relationship Management, and managing your E-Commerce Data here: 

• What is CRM? A Marketer’s Guide (Mailchimp)

• E-Commerce Data Management: Types and Best Practices (Shopify)

Looking to optimize your business’s CRM strategy? Learn more here: 

• CRM vs CMS: Which System is Right for Your Business Needs?  (Mailchimp)
• How To Choose the Best E-Commerce CRM Platform for Your Business  (Shopify)
• How Can Small Businesses Use Customer Relationship Management Solutions?  (QuickBooks)

Do you need help with managing your bookkeeping, accounting, expenses and more?  

Consider an accounting system like QuickBooks to help manage your books, track expenses, invoice your customers, pay your team and so much more! 

Check out the QuickBooks Canada Blog to learn more about how to utilize various tools to your business’s advantage. 

Looking to future-proof your business and become cyber resilient?

This comprehensive course, presented by Digital Main Street, TABIA, and Mastercard, is designed to empower small businesses with the tools and knowledge they need to fortify their operations against the growing threat of cybercrime.

Click here to start the course!

Use these resources below to learn about how to protect your business: 

Cybersecurity Webinar Series

• Cybersecurity 101: How to protect your business in 2022 and beyond
  • Presentation deck available here.
• Selling Online: How to improve online experience and security
  • Presentation deck available here. 

Other resources from Mastercard

• Small Businesses, Big Targets: How to Protect your Business from Cyber Threats
• How Hackers Exploit our Weaknesses
• Don’t Let Your Weakest Link be Your Supply Chain

Want to learn more about why Cybersecurity is important?

Watch this video (Mastercard)

Need help getting started?

If you want to protect your business use this Cyber Readiness Starter Kit (Mastercard)

Want to keep learning?

To continue learning more about Cybersecurity listen to the Mastering Cyber Podcast.

Visit the Mastercard Trust Center to learn how to protect your business from cyber-attacks.

Whether you want to learn the basics, expand your knowledge or master your security you can access great resources here. 

Need a starting point?

Click here to download the National Cybersecurity Alliance’s Small Wins checklist through the Mastercard Trust Center as a starting point for your business’ cybersecurity awareness training.

Implementing Cybersecurity into your business?

The Mastercard Trust Center showcases The GCA Cybersecurity Toolkit for Small Business, which offers free and effective tools you can use today to take immediate action to reduce your cyber risk. 

Learn About Phishing and How to Prevent Falling Victim to a Phishing Scam 

For more information on Phishing Prevention watch this video (Mastercard)

Cybersecurity attacks can happen on many platforms!

Learn more about Social Media Platform Attacks and what to do about Malicious Emails (Mastercard).

Test your knowledge with the complimentary Cybersecurity Assessment Tool from Mastercard for small businesses.

Learn more at mastercard.ca/SmallBusiness

Want to learn the basics of digital marketing?

Review the Post Launch Considerations On-Demand Training, designed to help small businesses start marketing after launching their e-commerce stores.

• Access Post-Launch Considerations 101 Here  

• Access Post-Launch Considerations 201 Here. 

Social media can be an important marketing strategy for any business.

View this in-depth guide to Create a Marketing Plan for Social Media in 8 Steps (Mailchimp).

Need more help getting started?  

Review Meta’s guides on How to Create a Social Media Strategy and How to Build a Social Strategy To Drive Engagement. 

Need help planning your content?  

Check out Meta Blueprint’s lesson on Tips & Tools for Creating Social Media Content and The Importance of a Content Calendar. 

Need content ideas? 

Click here to access Google Trends to keep up with the latest trending searches. 

Effective marketing is key to building a successful business and driving traffic to your e-commerce store.

There are several beneficial ways to market your business without an extensive budget, check out this resource to learn more: 12 Free Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Online Store (Ecwid)

Don’t forget!

Set up your free Google Business Profile to turn searches into customers.

Have you ever wondered what Search Engine Optimization is or how you can use it to grow your businesses? 

You can learn SEO fundamentals with This Webinar (Shopify) or check out these guides:  

•  The Ultimate Guide to SEO in 2022 (HubSpot)
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide (Google)

Need help getting started with SEO keywords? 

Click here to access Google’s Free AdWords: Keyword Planner and click here for more information on how to use this tool. 

Email marketing can be a free and easy tool to attract and retain customers.  

Check out Email Marketing 101: A Beginner’s Guide for Small Businesses (Mailchimp) to get started!

Running an email marketing campaign? 

Check out this article on How to Create High-Performing Email Marketing Campaigns (Mailchimp).

Looking for important do’s and don’ts for creating a successful email marketing strategy?

Get email marketing tips to help improve your emails for successful campaigns in this guide (Mailchimp).

Reviews can help a customer decide to purchase your product, but how do you encourage other customers to leave reviews? 

Learn more here: How to Ask for & Actually Get Customer Feedback (HubSpot)

Need a way for customers to leave reviews?  

Learn more about Google Reviews here. 

Now that your customers are leaving reviews, how should you respond? 

Use this guide to learn more: How to Respond to a Google Review: The Ultimate Guide (HubSpot)

Tracking the analytics of how your customers are engaging with your e-commerce presence can help you develop new marketing goals and determine if you are achieving these goals. 

Need a way to track your analytics?  

Check out Google Analytics, a free tool that can be used to understand your customer’s experience across different platforms and devices.  

Check out Meta Pixel, which allows you to add a piece of code to your website to measure, optimize and build audiences for your ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. 

Alternatives for social media analytics: HubSpot, Buffer Analyze, Sprout Social, Hootsuite 

Need help translating your analytics into goals? 

Learn analytics with free online courses from Google: 

• Analytics for Beginners  
• Google Analytics Certification 

Google Ads can be a great resource to grow and market your business.

Use this ultimate guide (HubSpot) to Google Ads to learn how to create ads for your business. 

Interested in learning more about Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools but you’re not sure where to get started?

Read about 5 Ways Every Small Business Can Get Started with Generative AI (Google)

Learn How to Use AI Tools Effectively as a Business Owner (Ecwid)

Then review the Top AI-Based Tools to Streamline Business Processes (Ecwid)

Interested in learning how to develop strategies to stay up-to-date in the emerging landscape of AI?

• Take Google’s beginner level AI course to learn how to use generative AI tools to help develop ideas and content, make more informed decisions, and speed up daily work tasks.

Discover Shopify Magic, Shopify’s commerce-focused AI tool that empowers and enables entrepreneurs in the website building and optimization process.

Access Intuit Assist, MailChimp’s AI tool to assist businesses tackle marketing tasks from producing tailored and personalized email marketing content to turning this data into actionable insights.

Explore tools like Google Gemini and Product Studio to find efficiencies in your business.