It’s that time of the year again when consumers are preparing for the busiest shopping days of the year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
By now, most of them already have a shopping list and know what shops they want to buy from.
On the other hand, we’ve got business owners who are probably thinking:
“Since consumers are willing to spend, how do I leverage this opportunity?”
If that sounds like you, we’ve got your back!
That’s why in this article, we want to show you:
- Why you need to prepare for Cyber Monday
- Marketing ideas that can help you prepare for it
- Tips to boost sales
We’ve got an interesting journey ahead so let’s get started!
What’s Cyber Monday?
Cyber Monday is a shopping event that falls on the Monday just after Thanksgiving in the United States. It usually happens in late November or early December.
Cyber Monday was introduced back in 2005 by the US National Retail Federation.
They were looking for a term to describe the influx of online sales they witnessed every Monday after Thanksgiving and that was how the Cyber Monday trend started.
Since then, it has only become more popular.
An Adobe study showed that online retailers have earned an average of $10.75 billion from Cyber Monday sales in the past two years.
That tells you brands similar to yours are leveraging Cyber Monday deals and you can too.
You need to start prepping up to make sure your products are more discoverable online.
We’ll show you how to do that in a minute.
But first, let’s show you why it’s important.
Why is Black Friday/Cyber Monday Marketing so Important?
To begin with, both days are the busiest shopping days of the year for both physical and online stores so having a marketing plan before then can help you make the most of that day.
As per the Adobe study mentioned above, marketing can help you increase your revenue if you play your cards right.
Here are other reasons why Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing is important:
- You get to leverage the shopping extravaganza
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just before the holiday season, when consumers’ buying behavior is at its peak.
People want to buy gifts for their kids, friends, and family and store up their houses for the winter.
There’s also the hype that products are cheaper and deals are better on those days and people want a piece of that.
On the other hand, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the main saving events of the year for businesses. They are an opportunity for brands to:
- Increase their profits
- Acquire potential customers
- Keep current customers loyal
Coming up with a marketing strategy will help you position your brand well so more people will buy from you.
Since people are looking forward to spending their money, you have a chance to help them and ensure they have a remarkable experience.
- It’s your chance to stay ahead of the competition and economic uncertainty
The competition among businesses is almost always high around these big days. Everyone wants new customers and more sales.
By creating Black Friday/Cyber Monday marketing strategies, you’ll be able to come up with better ways to drive sales and increase awareness.
Also, inflation fears are predicted to create a unique holiday shopping season this year.
Nearly 50% of shoppers have made plans to start making purchases way earlier in 2022 to beat the possibility of price hikes.
Small business owners and marketers need to optimize their marketing efforts to pull in those holiday sales.
7 Cyber Monday Marketing Ideas that Work
It’s time to get practical!
With so many online retailers and ecommerce businesses selling products similar to yours, you need ideas that can help you capture people’s attention before and during the big day.
We’ve got some amazing Cyber Monday promotion ideas we’d like to share with you.
So, here they are:
1. Sell your products in bundles
One way you can get shoppers’ attention is to bundle your products and services together for a limited time.
This way, instead of selling them individually you get to sell them as a single unit.
It’s a great incentive for several reasons.
Why?
The reason is simple:
Customers are always looking for great deals so offering themed gifts and sets of similar items with a discount would serve as good incentives.
Selling in bundles is also a good way to increase the average order value and upsell shoppers to a slightly higher price than they’d normally go for.
Let’s show you what we mean:
This is a 2021 Amazon bundle – a wired doorbell alongside an Echo Dot – selling for $41.99 when it should typically be around $105.
That’s how you can sell your products in bundles.
You can arrange or categorize items and showcase sets, bundles, and one-plus-one offers and it’ll boost engagement and improve conversion rates.
2. Reveal exclusive offers
Giving them exclusive deals is another thing you can do.
Now, when creating your offer, keep in mind that what people are looking for are deals that can give them maximum value for their dollar.
So, what you should do instead is create an offer so irresistible they feel they’re getting a whole lot more than what they’re paying for.
“What do I do, then?”
You run flash sales!
You know, those with limited-time offers and short-term discounts or promotions.
A good example is this pre-holiday offer from DreamCloud:
The offer comes with a countdown timer which tells customers they’ll be getting an exclusive offer.
Yours can be a one-day-only deal, a deal-of-the-day, or even a 1-hour deal on the items you choose.
The fear of missing out (FOMO), scarcity, urgency, and the discount itself will both encourage people to buy and increase the rate of impulse buying.
3. Create a gift guide
Gift guides point your customers to where they can find cool gifts or a pack of your best-selling products.
Create gift guides for different segments of your target audience.
For example, you can provide customers with a list of gifts under a certain price or from a certain category, as Amazon did here:
Here, they created a gift guide for homebodies which is something you could do too.
Or perhaps just make up a list of items you’d recommend to customers for their significant others including family, friends, and associates.
Why is this important?
During this season, people can feel overwhelmed by the number of deals they see.
By creating a gift guide, you’ll make it easier for customers to discover, choose, and buy your product.
Guide them and it will definitely pay off. 😃
4. Partner up with influencers and content creators
On days like Cyber Mondays, everyone is trying to capture your audience’s attention and people have ads thrown at them from all angles.
If you stick to conventional ads, there’s a good chance they’ll ignore them and your store.
What you can do in this case is partner with influencers and creators.
They can create user-generated content ads for your products in the form of reviews, unboxing videos, or more.
When consumers see them in an ad, they’ll be more inclined to stop, watch, and possibly, buy from you.
Does it work?
Well, yes! A study found that 84% of shoppers have made a purchasing decision based on a recommendation from creators or influencers.
That’s what Govee did as we see in the screenshot below:
They partnered with a TikTok influencer, Nancy Bullard, to promote their deals to a wider audience.
5. Provide tailored customer service
Compared to physical stores, online stores are always open and as such, people can shop at any time.
During the holiday season, the number of shoppers can go up dramatically.
There’ll be several issues customers are likely to raise; questions about their cards, sizes, shipping, and a lot more.
What should you do?
Make your customer service open longer for support during these days.
Change hours of operation on your site and inform customers on your email list via marketing emails, and others through social media or on your website.
6. Offer free shipping
Sometimes, people are hesitant to proceed to the checkout page because of the shipping fees.
In fact, half of the people interviewed in a survey say they would rather avoid retailers that don’t have a free shipping option.
What we’re trying to say is that people love freebies, especially free shipping on holidays.
They will spend above budget to get this.
A UPS 2015 survey showed that 52% of shoppers added more items to their cart just to qualify for free shipping.
So let’s cheer them up by giving them this offer.
You can give it to every customer or else set them a minimum-order price to qualify.
Brandy Melville, for example, offered free shipping for all orders through Cyber Monday.
As we’ve seen, they love it and for you, it’s an opportunity to raise more brand awareness and introduce them to new products.
7. Come up with creative gift wrapping and packaging
Getting cool packaging for your products can make all the difference in your digital marketing campaigns.
Gift wraps and packaging have a way of getting people’s attention such that they’ll be willing to buy from you.
According to an IPSOS survey, 72% of Americans have said the packaging design of a product has influenced their buying decision.
Another report showed that over 50% of consumers say packaging can make them switch brands.
What we’re trying to say is that great packaging can get people to take a look at your store.
3 Tips to Boost Sales on Cyber Monday and After
You want customers to find your Cyber Monday offers so good that they’ll buy almost immediately, right?
Well, we’ve shown you how to do that and why it works.
But beyond that, we want you to have long-lasting results. That’s why, in this section, we’ll look at different marketing tips to help you make them happen.
Shall we begin?
1. Make sure your website is Cyber Monday ready
Your website needs to be well-positioned for Cyber Monday.
By that, we mean optimizing it so anyone who visits your website knows something is going down.
How do you do that?
It could be by creating pop-ups that show your current offers with an appealing call-to-action and a deadline.
Another option is to create a landing page with all your offers that links back to your website.
2. Launch an email campaign
Email marketing campaigns are super important and should be launched long before the holiday season arrives.
They should be personalized with eye-catching subject lines that grab your audience’s attention.
The campaign needs to begin before the buying fever does, so you can build hype.
During the campaign, you can remind and retarget people who’ve abandoned their cart.
And after that, you remain on their minds after the holiday season.
Author’s Tip: You can create exclusive offers for your email subscribers to boost sales and increase the number of subscribers too, like this one:
They offered 40% off everything for their VIP members (email subscribers).
3. Show different products by the hour
As mentioned earlier, Cyber Monday comes with a lot of competition – different brands are trying hard to get customers’ attention.
Something you can do to stand out from the rest is to show different products hourly or bi-hourly.
This can get them to stop and check out your available offers.
It’s a better approach than just generally informing customers that you’ve got great deals.
Ever heard this popular phrase: “show, don’t tell?”
That’s what we mean!
Now Over to You
We hope that with the ideas we’ve shared in this guide preparations for your Cyber Monday campaign are underway.
It’s important you start early enough so you can reach more shoppers and get those Cyber Monday sales coming in.
We know you can do it and we’re here for you if you need help.
If you’re not sure where or how to get started, then be our guest, and book a demo with our team so we can show you how.
Here’s to a memorable Cyber Monday!
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