As this holiday season approaches, retailers across the country are preparing a plan of attack for snagging extra customers during the busiest shopping period of the year. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest shopping events for both retailers and e-commerce, and bargain hunters and Christmas shoppers will be out in droves. Our latest Black Friday report showed that in 2018 the sales increased by +23% compared with Black Friday 2017. It’s important for stores to have a plan in place to leverage the power of these shopping days and make the best of the holidays this season. We’ve put together a checklist planner with organizing steps and tips to get your e-shop properly prepared for Black Friday & Cyber Monday.
Step 1. Determine Which Promotional Channel to Focus On
The first step is to figure out where you’re going to focus your energy on during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Best practices call for choosing at least two or three marketing channels and focusing your energy on those instead of spreading it too thin over a variety of channels. Email marketing and remarketing are two of the best strategies to focus on. They have higher conversion rates than standard ADs, and they are easy to personalize so you can target your existing customer base with deals they really want. Email is by far the most cost-effective form of campaigns that allow you to really control the design and layout of your messages. Check out these tips on writing compelling sales copy in your emails.
Step 2. Choose a Promotion
What types of promotions are you planning to run? Are they site-wide sales? Limited time? Redemption coupon codes? Gifts or giveaways? The more specific you are about your actual value propositions, the better off you’ll be.
Step 3. Define Your Audience
To make the most of your marketing spend, you will need to clearly define your target audience list. Use segmentation to divide your list into granular groups for more targeted campaigns. For example, you can segment the top 10% spenders or most frequent shoppers within the year as your VIPs, and provide a special offer for Black Friday or Cyber Monday to reward their loyalty.
Step 4. Create a Promotional Calendar for Black Friday & Cyber Monday
A promotional calendar is essential to ensure that you stay on schedule with your marketing plan. You want to have dates and times laid out to update promotional creatives for banner ads, social campaigns, email campaigns, new site designs, landing page updates, launch campaigns and so on. Start with the actual date of the holiday promotions, and backtrack to make sure you have all your bases covered. This way you’ll have a clear idea of the time constraints and duration required for each task.
Step 5. Develop Marketing Content
Now that you have a timeline and marketing plan to work off from, it’s time to roll up the sleeves and get into the detailed content development. Make sure you have all the content you need well before you launch your campaigns. This includes AD copies, creatives, promotional designs, web design, email copy and so on. Prepare landing pages that will go along with your promotions.
Step 6. Execute Campaigns
Once you get into the actual holiday season, it’s time to execute your campaigns. Tee up your promotions with announcement newsletters before they happen — a few weeks in advance is best. Then, follow those up with more targeted campaigns the week before Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s also key to send out email campaigns on the day of the promotion, especially an hourly based expiring offers that will drive traffic to your site.
Step 7. Tracking and Outcomes
Campaigns like these are a critical part of strategizing your e-commerce marketing plan for the years to come, so make sure to track your success and any relevant data. Understand that the best source of your traffic and revenue split is key in helping you improve future promotions and maximize profit. So next year, you can double down on the winning approach.
Once you have wrapped up your campaigns, plan how to continue to reach out to your new and existing customers and re-engage holiday traffic for future nurturing. Happy selling!
