The key to making the biggest retail events of the year successful for your brand is to begin the planning process early. Despite the unique circumstances that will affect the nature of Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM), there is still a major opportunity to end the year on a strong note with an effective strategy for the holiday season rush. Check out our all-encompassing checklist to ensure your brand is prepared for the most wonderful time of the year!
Design Your Campaign
- Select Products with Irresistible Offers – It is never too early to begin BFCM planning. The first step to this process is to select the products that will be the main focus for the sales event. Remember that the bigger the discount, the better! Offer at least 20% off to catch your consumers’ attention.
- Visual Assets – Once your sales strategy is in place, begin creating visual assets to generate excitement around your promotion. One of the best ways to build the buzz is to add a countdown clock, which can be added to email campaigns, social content, and your homepage. Create a header and a hero image to display on the homepage of your site during the holiday sales event for consumers to remember while they shop. Creating these visual assets early on will improve your efficiency as BFCM quickly approaches.
- Plan Your Promotion – Determine how you will get the word out about your highly-anticipated sale. Consider a multi-faceted approach with public relations efforts, influencer marketing, paid and organic social, email marketing, Google and Amazon ads, and more. By defining your budget to leverage the holiday push, you will be able to hone in on the efforts that will be most effective for your brand. Continue reading to learn more about the execution of your campaign.
- Make Inventory Decisions Early – Ensure your brand will be able to handle the volume of purchases made during BFCM. Prevent running out of stock by discussing the amount of inventory you will need and what your fulfillment team can support. Reviewing previous years’ sales figures is a great starting point in how much stock your team can anticipate selling. This is an absolute-must in the early stages of planning for the event.
Execute Your Campaign
- Public Relations and Influencer Marketing – As BFCM approaches, craft engaging pitch angles to share your deals with bloggers, deal site editors, and lifestyle publications. Focusing your efforts here can land your offers in various gift guides, deal roundups, and more. By partnering with a variety of influencers, you can further leverage your deal by getting in front of your key target audience and other consumers you have been eager to reach. With their endorsement of your product, you can watch your sales skyrocket on the most important days of the year.
- Email Marketing – Design and launch an email marketing campaign that will entice consumers to shop. One of the most effective tactics used by thousands of brands is a limited sales drip campaign, which is perfect for BFCM. Begin the campaign ahead of the sales event to make your subscribers aware of the huge savings coming. Once the sale is available, send out an eye-catching email with an offer they won’t be able to ignore. Be sure to also create various CTAs that add urgency to further drive conversions. Our team recommends delivering this campaign throughout the weekend, sharing the different deals you have available for Cyber Monday, as well. Since shoppers may feel overwhelmed with all the deals flooding their inboxes, consider implementing an abandoned cart campaign to prompt them to purchase the items left sitting in their cart.
- Paid and Organic Social – Social media is another excellent channel to increase awareness of your sales by running a website traffic campaign to drive shoppers to your site. Ensure the copy of your ad stands out due to heavy saturation of deals on the platforms these days. Pair the powerful copy with a graphic that makes a statement, displaying bright colors, bold typefaces, and emphasis around the product being discounted. Video animations have been proven to perform better for these types of campaigns and should be considered for the creative of the ads. In conjunction with your paid social campaign, ensure your organic social presence is in optimal condition. Share the visual assets you created surrounding the BFCM deals on your channels to build trust with your consumers that the deal is legitimate.
- SEO and Google/Amazon Ads – Ecommerce will dominate in-store shopping during the biggest sales weekend in 2020 due to COVID-19. So make sure your website will be able to handle the surge of traffic! Check your site’s speed and ensure that your checkout process is quick and easy. Any glitches this weekend may cost your brand conversions. As many consumers will be on the go for the holiday weekend, they’ll likely be shopping on their mobile devices so ensure that your site is mobile-friendly. Add holiday key words, such as “Black Friday” in your product descriptions to help your brand ranks higher on search engines. Google and Amazon offer a variety of advertising options to drive consumers to your site and Amazon storefront. Consider allocating part of your budget to these types of campaigns to increase sales even further!
Track and Analyze Results
- Set Up Google Analytics – This free traffic tracking tool can provide you with valuable intel on how your consumers get to your site, shop your products, and much more. Analyze the results from BFCM to understand how your efforts helped you to reach your goals and which were most effective.
- Understand How to Analyze Reports – Google Analytics provides insight on various metrics, such as website visits, conversion rates, and more. Brush up on how you can track and measure the results that matter most so you can improve your campaigns headed into the new year.
- Use Heat Maps to Understand Consumer Behavior – Heat maps can show you where your visitors are clicking, how they read your product descriptions, and how to upsell with your product positioning in the future. This advanced tool can help you improve the shopping experience on your site for sales events and beyond.
- Reflect on Mistakes and Successes – By tracking all of your BFCM efforts, your brand will be able to better understand which marketing efforts drive sales the most, what didn’t work as well, and how to improve for next year. Taking time to reflect on this campaign will assist you in building your strategies in the future.
The planning and execution of your Black Friday/Cyber Monday campaign is crucial to the success of the event. Follow these tips to ensure your brand makes a statement on the biggest shopping days of the year!
Do you need assistance in designing and executing your BFCM strategy? Get in touch today!