As Black Friday and Cyber Monday are around the corner, there is a huge excitement among buyers to grab the best discounts and deals. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), Prosper Insights & Analytics conducted a survey that found that 196.7 million consumers shopped during BFCM in 2022. This was a 10.7% increase from 2021. Another stat reveals that this year, more than 76% of consumers are planning to shop online.
As the holiday season approaches, e-commerce stores are getting ready for the busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday or Cyber Monday (collectively abbreviated as BFCM). If you are an e-commerce store or any business offering your products and services online, BFCM can provide you with a great opportunity to boost your brand awareness, increase your conversions, and increase your revenues.
If you are an entrepreneur looking for ways to put your best foot forward for BFCM, here are some effective tips to prepare your business for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales:
1. Start preparing early for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
A lot of customers start their holiday shopping in early October. It will also give you a chance to create brand awareness and capture the attention of customers before your competitors. However, many businesses also start as early as summer. The earlier you start preparing, the better it will be for your business. It is also important to evaluate and prepare your inventory. Make sure you have enough stocks to meet the increased demand during BFCM. You may also need to consider providing pre-orders or back-orders for popular items. By effectively planning strategy and creating engaging content, you can ensure your campaigns are successful. The earlier you prepare, the more you will be able to capitalize on the holiday rush and boost your sales. And if you have not started yet, it is never too late. Start preparing today for upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales.
Tip: Create awareness at the earliest about your offerings, discounts, and deals. Use your home page, landing page and social media platforms to let your customers and visitors know about your upcoming sale well in advance.
2. Devise your discount and promotional strategy
Devise your discount and promotional strategy well in advance instead of putting on a last-minute sale. Review your inventory to find suitable discounts to be offered. Most people are looking for at least a 20 percent offer for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. If you want to be the choice of buyers, make sure to stand out in the crowd by offering attractive discounts and deals. For instance, you may offer a gift with your products. Here are some more tips for offering BFCM discounts:
- Show your discounts clearly on the home page, so customers can see how much they are saving with your offers.
- Adding a countdown banner to the home page or each page is a way to build excitement in the customers.
- Get creative with your discount offers, and don’t just offer the same old discounts every year.
- Come up with a new and innovative way to offer discounts and deals.
- It should be easy for your customers to redeem discounts.
3. Prepare your website
Your website must be up to the task of providing a great experience to the buyers during BFCM. As your website may witness a surge in traffic during BFCM, make sure it is prepared to handle it. Here are some tips to prepare your website to maximize BFCM sales:
Fast loading: A slow-loading website can be a huge turn-off for potential customers. It will make them leave your site before even looking at your products and services. Make sure your website is fast-loading and easy to navigate to ensure a smooth browsing experience for all.
Smooth checkout process: Keep in mind that Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers have thousands of stores to select from and a limited amount of time. If your checkout is not running smoothly, they won’t keep waiting and move on to another site.
Payment options: Having multiple payment options is one way to enhance the user experience and the checkout process. You may even consider adding extra payment options, including Bitcoin or PayPal.
Easily discoverable products and services (optimally optimized): When customers approach your e-commerce store for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, make sure they are able to easily discover your products. For this, it is important to optimize your product pages for search engines.
Keyword rich descriptions: Use keyword-rich titles and descriptions to make it easy for people to find your products.
Customer reviews and testimonials: Show customer reviews and testimonials on the site to boost conversion rates. All these things can help customers discover your products and make the purchase process as smooth as possible.
Optimize your mobile experience: Many people across the globe buy products using their mobile phones and other smart devices. You cannot ignore mobile usage in your ecommerce marketing strategy for BFCM. Your website should be optimized for mobile devices. Also, make sure to make it easy for consumers to find the items they need, adding products to their cart with a tap, and offering convenient payment options. By paying attention to all such details, you can ensure a positive customer experience.
Integrate live chat: It should be easy for your customers (or potential customers) to reach you during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. An integrated live chat will help you better connect with your existing and potential customers. If you cannot manage 24 hours of live chat, you can try to get the most out of live chat during rush hour.
Build credibility through SSL certificate: Make sure that your SSL certificate is easily discoverable across your site to make your customers better rely on your business.
Test your site: Don’t forget to road test your site before the sales week. Have your friends and colleagues give feedback about your site. If no one is there, you can always seek professional help to prepare for Black Friday sales.
4. Spread the word about your BFCM deals
The next step is to spread the word about your BFCM deals. One needs to use integrated approach such as utilizing social media, engaging with email subscribers and other popular ways. Here are some of the effective strategies to spread the word about your BFCM deals:
1. Create an irresistible BFCM offer
Creating an irresistible BFCM offer is an effective way to attract customers to your site. Once the customers are captivated by the doorbuster, it may serve as a gateway to additional purchases. Here are some of the ways to captivate the audience’s attention to maximize your BFCM revenues:
- Offer a deep discount: It is one of the most effective ways to attract customers during BFCM. Depending on your situation, you may offer 50% off on all items or buy one, get one 50% off. Keep your eyes on competitors as well as your own stock and other factors to make the best offers.
- Create a limited-time offer: A limited-time offer is a way to create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to act fast. For example, you may offer flash sales that last for only 24 hours.
- Bundle items together: It is a great way to increase the average order value as well as sales. For instance, you could bundle two related products such as tops and trousers, pencil and eraser or stationery and color box or other such products and offer a discount on a bundle of products.
- Incorporate Gamification into your site: Gamification is a way to involve rewards in sales to encourage people to take the desired action. Incorporating Gamification can be an effective way to prepare for BFCM. It helps to create a unique and engaging experience for your customers, as well as encourage them to keep coming back to your online store in the future.
- Implement “Buy Now, Pay Later” Solution: “Buy Now, Pay Later” allows customers to pay for their purchase over time with no interest or additional fees. It is a great option for those who may not be able to pay for their purchases all at once. Apart from that, offering a “Buy Now, Pay Later” solution helps to increase conversion rates and sales, as customers are more likely to buy when they know they don’t need to pay upfront.
2. Re-target past visitors and customers
BFCM is the right time to re-target past visitors who may have forgotten about your store and wouldn’t have checked out your sale otherwise. It is much easier to reach existing customers and market to them than brand new customers. Shoppers who have already bought from you are usually more receptive to your latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
3. Pitching to blogs and gift guides
Getting featured in blogs and gift guides helps boost brand awareness and conversion rates and also provides valuable SEO benefits. When you pitch to blogs and gift guides with high traffic and strong followings, you are exposing your brand and products to a wider audience. These blogs and gift guides often have readers who are interested in the products and services you offer, making them ideal channels for reaching potential customers. This increased awareness and exposure can lead to more website traffic, social media engagement, and maximize your revenues.
4. Start your email marketing campaigns
- Start planning your email marketing campaigns well in advance, so you have enough time to create email marketing content.
- Divide your email list into segments based on various factors such as purchase history, interests, and demographics. This will allow you to send more personalized emails that are more likely to resonate with each recipient.
- Create a strong subject line and use catchy images and videos to make your emails appealing and encourage recipients to act.
- Make your call to action clear in the email.
- Send out a series of BFCM emails to the targeted customers to build excitement and anticipation.
- Email analytics can be used to track your open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. It will help you know what’s working and what’s not so that you can make improvements for future campaigns.
- Send last day reminders to subscribers before the sale ends. It will help to make subscribers aware that your sale is almost over and may get some buyers jumping on the expiring deals.
5. Create a landing page on your website
It is a common practice to create a landing page dedicated to all your BFCM deals. It should include all of the relevant information, such as the dates of your sale, the products that will be discounted, and the discount codes that customers can use.
6. Post about your BFCM deals on social media
Use eye-catching images and videos to capture attention and create excitement. Run ads on social media and search engines to reach a wider audience.
7. Partner with influencers
Influencers can help you reach a wider audience and generate buzz about your Black Friday Cyber Monday deals and discounts.
8. Cross-selling
Black Friday Cyber Monday is also a great time for cross-selling. If your customers are buying something from your store, you should refer them to the other products that naturally fit together.
9. Use different offers in your shopping cart
A study reveals that almost two-thirds of the buyers add something to their shopping cart but don’t check it out. When your customers add items to your shopping cart on an e-commerce site, you can present them with different offers from the store. These offers may include discounts, free shipping, and other special promotions.
10. Use an omni-channel strategy to increase your sales
With so many options around, customers nowadays rarely stick to one channel or platform when making a purchase. They may discover products through websites, social media, or email; check out prices on mobile apps, websites, or more. It is prudent to build an effective omni-channel strategy to make sure your customers don’t miss your deals.
5. Prepare to deliver top-notch customer service
It is equally important to provide top-notch customer support along with attractive discounts and deals for the customers. The discounts and deals draw the attention of the customers, but great customer support helps to retain them.
1. Ensure to provide a quick and courteous response to the customers
Customer support is an important part of providing a great experience to clients and ensuring they return next time. One must ensure to provide a quick response and make sure to be courteous and respectful to all your customers. Make sure you have enough staff to handle the increased workload and that you have a plan for resolving issues quickly and efficiently.
2. Easy and hassle-free returns
When you offer an easy and hassle-free return, it will create a great impression on the clients. It will demonstrate that your entity, as a business, shows concern for the customers and confidence in its offerings. Make sure your return policy is fair, clear, and well communicated at the store.
3. Have a backup plan
It is very important for a business to plan for contingencies. For instance, what if the shipment doesn’t arrive at the last minute? If you have planned your ads for a CPC of $1.00, however, cost increases amidst competition. In such a case, you should be flexible enough to embrace Plan B. The more planning and preparation you do, the higher your chance of success.
FAQs
What is e-commerce Black Friday?
Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are two of the biggest shopping days of the year, occurring on the Friday and Monday following Thanksgiving in the United States. These days, most brands offer massive discounts and deals, which attract a huge surge in online traffic. In the past few years, BFCM has become increasingly globalized, with retailers around the world offering discounts and promotional deals during this period.
What is the Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) marketing strategy?
A Black Friday marketing strategy is a promotional plan that helps businesses maximize sales during the BFCM period. It is usually a combination of online and offline marketing tactics.
How do I prepare for BFCM e-commerce sales?
It is always recommended to start preparing for BFCM e-commerce ahead of time. Plan, prepare and optimize your website and product pages, and implement integrated social media, email marketing, and search engine marketing strategies.
When should you start marketing Black Friday Cyber Monday?
The best time to start marketing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) is early October. This will give you enough time to plan and execute your marketing campaigns and to build excitement among your customers. A lot of businesses also start preparing for Black Friday in the summer.
Conclusion
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are vital for e-commerce websites, so it is crucial to start preparing as early as possible. Get everything in order and implement the steps shared above to reap the maximum benefits from it.
Keep in mind that it should not end with a sale, and don’t forget to send a thank-you email to your customers. Use tools to analyze your BFCM results and identify areas for improvement to plan better for next year’s BFCM campaign.
BFCM is much more than maximizing revenues. Focus on how you can offer value to your customers to nourish long-lasting relationships with them.
Are you excited for the upcoming Black Friday Cyber Monday sales?
