Black Friday is around the corner, and so is Cyber Monday. These are the two most important days for small businesses. According to a well-placed source, businesses earned around $9 billion on Black Friday last year, a figure that is 21.6% higher than that in 2019. Similarly, Cyber Monday business earnings for businesses were upwards of $10.8 billion, a 15% year-on-year rise. Experts believe this year BFCM could be even more awesome for businesses.
As online sales gain more prominence vis-a-vis brick and mortar stores, this year they are likely to take an even bigger pie of the BFCM sales. It is predicted that Black Friday sales this year are easily going to breach the $12 billion mark while Cyber Monday sales are set to reach close to $12 billion as well.
True, these figures send a positive signal across, yet, these sales cannot be had for asking. You must plan and strategize smartly to make your business stand out from the others you are competing against. Here are 5 strategies to help you get a headstart and grab a bigger share of the BFCM sales extravaganza.
1. Focus your resources on prospective customers
Your site visitors are your best prospects for landing conversions. You can prioritise optimization of Ad spends on Facebook and Google Ads to increase your sales. You must retarget your website visitors. These are visitors who have shown an interest to buy your goods/services. Before you start targeting prospective customers, you need to remember that the early bird catches the worm. Hence, it would be best if you start well in advance and build an audience/following through a prospective campaign.
2. Announce “Early Access” Black Friday Offers
In the mad rush of emails to customers' inboxes on Black Friday, you can rest assured that not even catchy subject lines can help you.
Although customers know that black Friday and Cyber Monday's bring them the best deals, still your emails are likely to get lost in the email flood on BFCM as you face off with your competitors. Here's a way you can stay ahead of your competitors: Email your BFCM offers a week in advance.
There are some retailers such as Walmart that are already taking steps to cash in on the feature season sales opportunities.
3. Avoid spamming your subscribers
Email marketing is obviously a useful marketing strategy to gain leads and conversions. While some of your mail recipients might become your engaged contacts, others may completely ignore your emails. In order to make sure that you are not spamming their inboxes, it is a good idea to segment your email contacts list. This will help you to automate emails' frequency, as well as better, personalize it for greater impact. In case your email marketing engine has any preferences feature, use it to tailor the emails you send as per the preferences of the recipients. Certain audiences may choose to receive a particular type of email. When this happens, you have a better chance of your email getting viewed, and consequently better chances of conversion.
If you wish to know more about the best email marketing strategies, you might want to check this out.
4. Use all your marketing channels to push your campaign and Revamp Website
In the months and days leading up to BFCM, your goal should be to increase the reach of your campaign as far as possible. In order to maximize the reach of your BFCM campaign, promote your offer across every marketing channel, especially social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and emails. Paid ads on Facebook and Instagram have been proven to yield great Returns Ad Spend (ROAS), especially in the holiday season. So make sure you capitalize on these opportunities to promote your sales on BFCM days. Also, take care of any loose ends that you find on your website, especially pop-ups. If necessary, do not hesitate to revamp your website.
5. Make sure your website is in its best shape for the BFCM sales
Website performance is a key factor that can spoil all your marketing efforts made in the pre-BFCM days. It is of no use if all your engagements who visit your website for purchase are turned off due to website performance issues such as slow loading, low server capacity that can even make your website crash. Invest a good portion of your resources in making sure that your website is up and running. When you have a site that performs reliably and fast enough, you are bound to get significantly better sales. Remember that even a second’s delay due to your website's slow performance can potentially make you lose about 30% of your traffic. Hence, the stakes are really high for you to be even a little complacent on website performance. Also, make sure that your website is optimized for mobile browsers since a good number of visitors actually visit your website from a mobile/smartphone.
6. Make your website conversion funnel smooth
Customers visiting your website can easily find themselves stuck in what marketers call the conversion funnel. While evaluating your website performance, you must take into account the overall experience of people and not merely the website landing page.
You must ensure that your website has a hassle-free purchase funnel through which your customers are able to navigate. If all the sections of your web site are working well together, we are sure you would make more sales.
7. Personalize Your Campaign
Adding that personal touch to your marketing content has proved to be a potent strategy to generate leads and increase conversions. According to research done by a reputed marketing agency, close to 80% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that dishes out personalized shopping experiences. Some low-hanging fruits in a personalization marketing strategy include addressing customers by name in email and chats and awarding discounts based on user profiles. If you wish to know more about personalization marketing strategies, you can refer to this link.
8. Create Content That Converts
The next crucial step in driving conversions is creating unique and impactful marketing content. This enables companies to do a trial run with the help of small creative before pumping in money in larger-scale production.
In order to lift your marketing content to higher levels, you may consider partnering with influencers on TikTok, Instagram, or Youtube. This will definitely help in getting more conversions for you during the BFCM season.
9. Implement Smart High-return Strategies
The Black Friday Cyber Monday sales battle will porch the smartest marketing brains against each other. The prize is the mammoth sales pie. In order to grab a lion's share of the sales, you must come up with the best and most attractive offers.
Here are some marketing strategies you can try implementing
● Integrate referral programs into promotions for Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) campaign.
● Use the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) trend to get shoppers to purchase before others.
● Create excitement with flash sales
● Upsell/Cross-sell with discount offers.
10. Implement live chats in your omnichannel marketing strategy
Marketing experts believe that brands who’ll do extremely well this BFCM are those leveraging their omnichannel platforms. Live chats done with the help of human/chatbots can prove to be handy for marketers looking to benefit from deep segmentation. As a flexible channel of communication, the live chat can help smoother the sales funnel at every level going you land conversions.
11. Pay attention to after-sales service
You must make sure that your shoppers have a smooth check out process. You can further add value to their experience with offers such as free shipping, loyalty and bonus points for post-BFCM purchases. This way you can connect with your customers and establish a long-term relationship.
Conclusion
We at Enalito understand your business pressures as the BFCM days fast approach.
Let us help you lessen some of that pressure. We can help you in crafting and implementing the best BFCM e-commerce marketing strategies. We hope you make the best out of this Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) sales with Enalito by your side.
Thanks for reading!
