With the US-originated shopping holidays Black Friday and Cyber Monday becoming increasingly popular globally, marketing and sales strategies need to be finalised and alligned way before the big rush.
The two days, which this year fall on November 27th (Black Friday) and 30th (Cyber Monday) are likely to be the biggest shopping days of the year – with IMRG reporting online spend at £810m on Black Friday and £720m on Cyber Monday in the UK in 2014.
2015 is set to be even bigger, with Salmon predicting UK online retailers will collectively take more than £1bn on Black Friday, naming it the £1bn+ day and IMRG already forecasting Cyber Monday spend of £943m, up 31% year on year in the UK.
Here are some last minute tips to make you and your team survive Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year:
Make sure your customers know what’s coming.
Many people may know about Black Friday/Cyber Monday, but do your existing and potential customers know what your brand is doing this year? Email marketing reportedly drove the most sales over the weekend in 2014 and accounted for more than a fifth (23.9%) of sales on Cyber Monday, so correct messaging within this marketing channel is key.
Tease some of your offers and promotions in your marketing messaging beforehand, letting your customer base know about your campaigns, including countdown timers to the big day to build suspense.
Consider adding a Black Friday/Cyber Monday hashtag specific to your brand, so social shoppers can easily follow your deals. Argos have a dedicated Black Friday page on their website with all these elements, including a ‘register now’ button, so savvy shoppers can stay in-the-know – also allowing Argos to market to them in the future.
Know your promotions and sales goals.
Use existing data to determine which products are best for your promotions, and ensure you set sales goals in advance. If you predict sales of a product to increase 60%, determine that figure up front in order to track success after the promotion has ended.
Savvy shoppers always want the best deals at the best prices, so big slashes in prices will always prove most popular amongst customers. Once promotional products have been confirmed, do a last minute inventory check to ensure you can handle a sudden influx of sales. Promoting out of stock items can anger customers, wasting both their time and yours due to lost sales – giving competitors an advantage.
Jess Stephens, SmartFocus CMO, adds:
“Anything you can do as a brand to stand out on Black Friday will sow seeds of recognition throughout the year. Brands could reduce the level of discount offered by a percentage point and use the saving to literally ‘give away’ a high-ticket item each hour. Or if your target amount of sales is reached, why not give something to a charity that means something to your organisation.”
Keep it simple.
Retailers need to resist the temptation to graffiti their websites with sale/offer banners, turning it from a cool, classy site to a virtual jumble sale. A cluttered user experience is never good, and you can still showcase your best promotions and offers with a clean and easy to navigate customer journey.
Last year tibi.com kept their clear, crisp branding without screaming and shouting their Black Friday promotions from the rooftops. Of course, brands differ with regards to branding and what audiences respond to, but easy navigation is key in any instance.
Remember to use dedicated landing pages if you decide to do any paid-for promotion, particularly on social media, so the ROI tracking is easy.
Prepare for data overload.
Be ready for the vast amounts of data that will become available to you. Ask yourself, can your current CRM system and insights tool currently handle a sudden influx of customer data? And furthermore, what tools do you have in place, if any, to action upon these valuable insights gained?
There are powerful customer and marketing analytics tools out there which will enable you to understand your customer’s behaviour, which in turn leads to a world of actionable and valuable data.
You need to use customer data to ensure the buyers you acquire during Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain customers after the holidays. And moving forward, ensure these buyers become loyal customers to your brand.
You need to ensure your ecommerce site is equipped to handle the amount of traffic that could potentially land on your page? Last year, large UK retailers such as Argos and Currys experienced issues due to the high volume of visitors, consequently having to limit the number of visitors entering the site.
Be mobile ready.
Mobile commerce accounted for over a fifth (21.9%) of online shopping on Cyber Monday last year, up 15.9% year-on-year, and is expected to increase in 2015. Make sure you have a mobile optimised site and make mobile engagement easy with clear call to action buttons standing out on the page. Be also sure your site is optimised for mobile searching as over half of all mobile searches lead to a sale. Vitally, every 100 millisecond increase in load time decreases sales by 1% (Amazon) so ensure thorough testing takes place regularly to ensure fast page loading. More mobile marketing tips for the holiday season can be accessed here.
What is your returns policy?
With many impulse buys comes many returned items, unfortunately. If your Black Friday/Cyber Monday returns policy differs from your regular one, you need to ensure both new and existing buyers are aware of the details. Create an icon which clearly states ‘Click here for our Black Friday/Cyber Monday returns policy’ which takes users to a dedicated page displaying what they can and can’t return including time restrictions. This way there should be no confusion surrounding returns after the event.
