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Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) — historically the busiest shopping weekend of the year. For millions of shoppers, BFCM marketing presents an unmissable opportunity to gain a head start on their holiday shopping and cash in on some massive savings.
2023 brought an expected surge in sales during the annual shopping spree, with merchants earning $9.8 billion in Black Friday sales, up 7.5% from the previous year. Customer spending tends to reach a record-breaking high over the sale weekend. It’s not just Black Friday though — consumers also spent $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday alone in the year prior.
In summary, you cannot miss the Black Friday weekend or Cyber Monday. You also need to develop a strategy and prepare your store well in advance to see the highest gains in profit margins. To help you ready your business for the upcoming craze, we’ve broken down the vital BFCM marketing tactics that capitalize on the sales season.
The best marketers and eCommerce owners prepare for Black Friday well ahead of the holiday season. As one of the biggest shopping days of the year, it’s imperative to have a strategic BFCM marketing plan in place to reap the benefits. The earlier you start to plan, the more time you’ll have to construct a Black Friday campaign that wows shoppers.
Customers will be ready to drop some coin during BFCM, and you’ll be competing with offers from dozens, if not hundreds of other merchants. With that in mind, you need to ready killer deals, exceptional customer service, and brand loyalty campaigns to drive sales. From optimizing your eCommerce store to hosting events and scheduling email sequences, the following strategies will make your online sales soar this Black Friday weekend.
From the moment people land on your eCommerce website, they should be able to navigate to your Black Friday offers easily. With a few simple strategies, you can optimize your online store without compromising style or user experience.
Besides simply generating email sign-ups, website pop-ups are also excellent for promoting offers and information of interest to your audience. If you already use exit intent pop-ups on your site, consider giving them a seasonal Black Friday touch-up to remind site visitors of your upcoming or current holiday deals. This quickly and easily informs shoppers of your sale while they browse your online store.
Delivering exit intent pop-ups also helps prevent people from leaving your site without making a purchase, which boosts customer retention and can increase your online sales. The top-performing pop-ups have a nearly 10% conversion rate, demonstrating the power of these messages.
When designing Black Friday pop-ups, a good BFCM marketing rule of thumb is to have them appear after four seconds or when someone goes to close the browser window. Well-designed, carefully timed messages could yield up to a 60% conversion rate.
Gamification makes shopping more entertaining for customers and can encourage them to take action. eCommerce quizzes can be a powerful method of increasing customer engagement and driving revenue, and you can craft one for Black Friday to personalize the shopping experience. Add some fun personality and interest-based questions, then use the answers to shape buyer shopping recommendations.
For instance, an eCommerce brand that sells scented candles could use their Black Friday quiz to ask shoppers about their dream holiday destination, favorite scent, and go-to seasonal treat. At the end, they could present customers with recommended candle scents based on their answers. As a concrete example of this strategy in action, by using LeadQuizzes on their website, the eCommerce brand Bourbon and Boots generated 35,752 leads and doubled their sales in just three weeks.
Consumers want choice, and how they can pay is an important one. Multiple options let your shoppers enjoy purchasing flexibility.
While credit, debit, and Paypal are among the most common options, other methods are growing in popularity thanks to their flexibility and convenience. For example, in 2023, Adobe Analytics showed that Buy Now, Pay Later usage hit an all-time high with an increase of 42.5% from 2022.
Consider offering avenues like:
Further, the faster your checkout, the higher your conversion rate will be, as lengthy processes are notorious for driving away would-be buyers. Tactics like guest, streamlined, or one-click checkout on eBay and Amazon or via PayPal, as well as mobile-optimized checkout processes can reduce unexpected friction during checkout and reduce shopping cart abandonment.
More than half (52%) of loyal customers will join a rewards program. Further, over 39% are willing to spend more money on a brand they’re loyal to, even if there are cheaper options elsewhere. So, reward loyalty to nurture customer relationships and increase repeat orders.
If you offer a program for returning customers, you could reward Black Friday shoppers with bonus points to encourage them to shop with you during that sale. More importantly, it’ll persuade them to shop with you again in the future, knowing they can cash in their points. So, advertise your BFCM marketing offer of Black Friday bonus loyalty points to existing customers through email marketing, on social media, and on website banners.
In 2023, Cyber Week — the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday — generated a stunning $38 billion in online sales, proving shopping events don’t have to be restricted to the date of the sale. Further, ads for online sales drive impulse buys that consumers otherwise wouldn’t give in to unless they went to a busy retail mall or outlet.
To make your Black Friday sale feel like its own unique event, you could, for example, offer customers an interactive virtual experience and reach out to encourage them to shop with you over the weekend. Event hosting can form part of your BFCM marketing promotional activity in the lead-up to Black Friday. You can use it to advertise your deals, let customers know about new product launches, and offer them something in return for their loyalty — all while boosting your ROI.
BFCM marketing deals start rolling into people’s inboxes and popping up in digital advertising channels almost as soon as the Halloween makeup comes off. In fact, some retailers have taken it a step further and moved to a bigger sales period: “Black November.”
If you want to extend your sales period and take some of the pressure off your BFCM weekend, consider running your deals throughout the entire month of November. However, if you do that, you need to keep your creatives and messaging fresh and avoid bombarding existing customers with the same content over and over.
For instance, you could run a newsletter campaign to remind people of a daily or weekly deal once each time the offer is refreshed. If your deals stay the same though, consider an email campaign that gives a week’s advance warning, an announcement the deal is going to start, and then a reminder in the 24 hours before it drops.
Many retailers will simply share special discounts as a BFCM marketing tactic, so running a contest where customers can win a prize as part of your Black Friday event strategy can give you an edge over your competitors. Adding this fun, interactive element will help you reach your target audience and incentivize them to engage with your online store.
When running contests, make sure the prize is something that genuinely interests potential customers, such as giving all event attendees the opportunity to win a Black Friday “golden ticket” that grants them a large discount or free items. You could also encourage people to share the contest with their friends to gain a bonus entry into a prize draw. This is a great way to expand the reach of your Black Friday campaign and entice even more people to visit your online store.
If you’re thinking about hosting a BFCM weekend event, you may want to incorporate live shopping into your marketing strategy. Retailers that invest in this tactic have experienced increased conversion rates, so hosting a livestream shopping event could be a lucrative way to ramp up your Black Friday revenue.
This BFCM marketing tactic is also a great way to increase demand and encourage impulse buys; you could offer limited-time promotions and flash sales during a live stream, for instance. Display a countdown timer to remind attendees that time is running out to redeem the offer. This creates a sense of urgency and can subtly increase purchases throughout the event. Of course, you’ll have to market your event and give sneak peeks into what will be on offer to convince people to participate in the first place.
Make your live shopping event interactive as well. Consider teaming up with popular influencers to raise interest and work some engagement elements into your event, such as Q&As, live product demonstrations, and competitions.
Whether you sell on Amazon, your own website, or multiple channels, you need an air-tight BFCM marketing strategy for your BFCM event. That means carefully planning your budget, figuring out how much to dedicate to Sponsored Products, and crafting social media posts about your sale.
Social media allows online retailers to connect with customers outside of the retail environment. So, it’s important to develop a show-stopping social media campaign for Black Friday. This should include organic social media posts in the lead-up to and duration of the BFCM weekend. Use these posts to promote your offers and products.
However, your social media pages shouldn’t be strictly sales focused; share fun or informative posts that pique the interest of your target audience as well. Outside of organic social media, you may also want to run influencer campaigns or Black Friday social media ads.
A look at social media during any shopping event will quickly yield information about what consumers do and don’t like. Using that information, tailor your BFCM marketing campaign to your unique shoppers and sales channels. Keep in mind the following tips to support a fruitful campaign:
Show your existing customer base some love by offering early access to newsletter subscribers. This could take the form of a special coupon code that’s available in the days leading up to your big sale to give loyal followers a little something extra.
You could also create a custom landing page specially for your newsletter subscribers to purchase from. They would simply have to click a tracked link to reach it or confirm the email address they used to sign up.
Starting your sale early for subscribers will also spread your fulfillment load a little further, which can ease the burden on your logistical operations.
Diversifying your revenue streams across various sales channels can help you capture a larger consumer market share and boost visibility on different platforms.
Consider tweaking your BFCM marketing deals based on what does best on each channel, such as offering one bundle on Walmart and another on your Shopify store. You’ll also want to learn what the marketplace allows and is likely to promote when picking deals for a platform. Additionally, advertise your BFCM offers across sales channels well in advance of its launch to excite customers and help them plan ahead for their shopping activities.
The influencer industry is growing fast, and with good reason: Almost 90% of marketers report their ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels. With such high potential, eCommerce brands should strongly consider incorporating influencer marketing into their upcoming campaigns.
Whether it’s micro-influencers who have smaller followings and more accessible budgets, or large-scale influencers with millions of followers and large budgets, this type of marketing can be a lucrative avenue for retailers of any size.
Be sure to prep your influencer marketing campaigns for a Black Friday promotion. You could send your chosen partners products in return for online promotion, or invite them to speak at a Black Friday event or collaborate with you on a special offer. Research influencers to find ones who align best with your brand and target audience, then work on developing a campaign that’ll appeal to your audience.
Social media ads are powerful for two reasons: First, they reach people outside of your existing audience; second, they reengage existing customers and store visitors. So, increase your social media presence with a Black Friday-focused social ad campaign.
The platform you use for this type of promotion will depend on which channels your audience is most active on. Wherever you go, be sure to tailor your ad objectives and messaging to your audience. Use branding and messaging that’s consistent with your website and wider Black Friday marketing activities. Customers appreciate this uniformity, which can help drive up your sales revenue.
Emails offer retailers a direct line of communication with an already engaged audience. Take advantage of this channel by creating a winning Black Friday email sequence. Place email collection fields and sign-up pop-ups on pages so you can email shoppers who’ve visited but aren’t ready to buy and generate suspense and buzz about your upcoming sale.
As part of your campaign, you may want to include the following types of communications:
When sending emails, it also pays to segment your audience. Doing so allows you to tailor their contents to suit different customers. That greater relevance and personalization can, in turn, increase click-through rates and on-site conversions. Good segments to separate your audience into include:
Automate and schedule as many of these communications as you can in advance, but double-check everything before you go live.
In addition to scheduling Black Friday email marketing campaigns, remember to craft convincing abandoned cart emails.
All online retailers experience cart abandonment. But, with well-thought-out emails, you can recover some of those and turn them into sales. In fact, half of people who click on cart abandonment emails will then go on to complete their purchase. You could go the extra mile by creating a personalized Black Friday email template and offering would-be customers a time-sensitive coupon code if they complete their purchase during the BFCM weekend.
To increase the efficacy of abandoned shopping cart emails, be sure to:
The more you streamline the process to purchase from your email, the more effective it’ll be.
While running BFCM marketing promotions and campaigns can be brilliant for increasing sales, it’s equally important that you fulfill orders, especially with the anticipated uptick during BFCM. You’ll also want to increase customer support over the sales weekend and beyond, announce shipping deadlines early, and invest in inventory and fulfillment support.
Every brand is different, so it’s important to analyze your past metrics to make decisions on how to proceed. Review 2021, 2022, and 2023 to predict sales for 2024. Pandemic surges may impact earlier data, and even 2021 wasn’t entirely “back to normal,” so you may want to leave out metrics for that year. Look at:
This will identify ways to offer deals that can save you money as well, such as:
If you can boost the size of the order while offering a deal, you boost revenue while reducing the cost of fulfillment (e.g., boxes, pick and pack), and increase the number of units sold at once.
Conversely, it’s also crucial to look at what didn’t work. Maybe your newsletter tanked, or a particular sales channel didn’t perform as well as you’d expected. By learning what didn’t work, you can hone in on opportunities to improve and make 2024 your best BFCM yet.
If you suspect shipping may be slower than usual due to the increased demand, you should preemptively warn customers. Add a Shipping Information page to your eCommerce store that informs shoppers of any shipping delays that may occur for orders placed over bank holiday weekends. Pair this with updates on the status of buyer orders to help calm their nerves. You can also partner with a 3PL like MyFBAPrep so you can offer tracking with every order.
To make sure your Black Friday orders are fulfilled to a high standard, you may want to invest in inventory and fulfillment support. The last thing you want is to sell a product, only to realize it’s already sold out. Solutions like Preptopia® provide a clear picture of your inventory status at all times. This is ideal for high-traffic periods like Black Friday weekend when you expect a greater influx of orders than usual.
We mentioned earlier how it’s important to order the appropriate amount of inventory for the BFCM rush as early as possible. Supply chain issues are a concern at this time each year, so you’ll have to prepare ahead for issues. For instance, if you sell on Amazon, start thinking about inventory in the third quarter. Inbound inventory deadlines for Black Friday are set on November 1, but your restock limits will be based on sales for the preceding quarter.
Work on boosting your Amazon IPI to increase your FBA storage allocation, and store as much as you can in FBA. For best results, ensure your inventory is light and moves quickly. Also, make sure you create mirror FBM listings in case your FBA ones run out of stock, and prep your goods for sale early. You’ll want your items ready to replenish FBA inventory as soon as it begins to run low, and you can use that pool of stock to fulfill FBM orders as well.
For multi-channel merchants, the key is to store inventory in strategic locations and use redundancies to help prevent stockouts. That means you want backup stock that can kick in if something happens to your primary fulfillment provider. For example, if you sell on Walmart through WFS and on Amazon through FBA, you’d want to pick another 3PL partner to have as a backup. Of course, you can use FBM to fulfill Walmart orders, but not the other way around. A 3PL will also allow you to fulfill Amazon orders (provided you’ve set up mirror listings) if FBA runs out of stock so you won’t lose income during the sale.
Learn how MyFBAPrep can take care of the prep and fulfillment of orders to both Amazon Fulfillment Centers and direct-to-consumer orders.
BFCM is a highly lucrative sales event, but it can also be a logistical nightmare if you fail to plan ahead and arrange your operations. Each year, a few variables change, such as the state of the supply chain, dates and deadlines, and marketplace events. So, before you dive into your BFCM planning, make sure to consider the following aspects:
Check with your preferred shipment partners about their cutoff dates and communicate them to your customers to limit last-minute scrambling. For Amazon, that’s generally November 1 for Black Friday.
The key to successful BFCM marketing and fulfillment lies in a great deal of advanced preparation. The below checklist should cover most of what you need to have in place for your best sales event yet.
As previously stated, sales and promotions now run for weeks (or even months) prior to BFCM itself, especially online. Since door-buster deals and long lines at stores are waning, you need to expect a longer sales period. This means offering your BFCM marketing deals before and after BFCM.
In 2023, 62% of holiday shoppers planned to make their holiday purchases before Thanksgiving, and 59% of them shopped online. You should be ready to attract those shoppers, even if what you’re offering is convenience and free shipping rather than a traditional “deal.”
There’s never a good time to have your site slow down or crash, but the BFCM weekend is probably the worst occurrence for a seller. Your online store’s speed is important to customers and a major contributing factor in both your conversion rate and your store’s discoverability in search.
Make sure you test your server load capacity, then wait for the surge of shoppers to flood in. If you’re unsure, try to redirect traffic to other sales channels to distribute load (e.g., instead of aiming all your ads at your own website, distribute them across your online marketplaces).
Surges in sales mean more orders to fulfill. While this is a great problem to have, there’s no denying the logistics can be challenging. That’s why you need a clear fulfillment strategy in place.
Will you fulfill all orders yourself, or will you outsource? Can you optimize your fulfillment workflow to improve the process for your team? Decide how you’ll fulfill orders and organize operations for it before the sales begin. Some ways you can hone your logistical workflow in advance of BFCM include:
You don’t need to offer every delivery method out there. It’s more important to align with your customers’ needs and balance affordable and feasible options for your business. Moreover, too many choices can actually have a negative impact, so keep it simple and offer a few options (e.g., two-day, regular shipping) to create a better customer experience.
Also, how you charge customers has a big influence on both your conversion rate and profit margins. Consumers now expect free or fast shipping (preferably both). Although you eat the cost of free shipping, absorbing that expense can lead to a big payoff, especially if it increases the average order value (AOV), such as in instances when you offer free shipping over $X amount. Or, you could offer a “buy online, pick up in store” (BOPIS) option if you have brick-and-mortar locations.
Mobile commerce, or MCommerce, is on the rise, with 51.8% of Cyber Week sales made on handheld devices in 2023 alone. This means it’s crucial your store is optimized so people can easily and intuitively purchase via mobile. Test your processes through handheld devices and make any necessary changes before the BFCM kickoff.
Social media is a great way to hint at your upcoming event, build anticipation, and grow your audience. You can use it to expand your email marketing lists too. To draw attention on social platforms, consider:
If you already sell on more than one channel, identify those that are most lucrative to your business and double down on them during the holiday season. Look at:
Explore the sales channels that resonate most with your target shoppers so you can reach potential buyers early this year.
Even the best-laid plans go sideways sometimes, so make sure you have a backup plan waiting in the wings. Imagine the worst-case scenarios and prepare for them so you’re ready no matter what’s thrown at you. For example, you can craft up backup bundles, flash deals, and prepare landing pages for pre-orders that’ll kick in if something sells out.
Plan your deals and discounts well in advance rather than throwing together a sale at the last minute. Take time to review your margins and inventory so you can set enticing discounts that also make sense for your business.
Craft sales maps, prepackaged bundles, and exclusive deals. Then, share them across your team and with fulfillment partners so everyone can prepare. By documenting and planning ahead, you set your business up for success as your sale dates approach.
In the month leading up to BFCM, have images and graphics ready to go live on your website, including your home page, banners, product pages, and even pop-ups. Prepare these creatives in advance so you have a uniform, branded look across all your communication channels (e.g. social, emails, website).
If someone visits your website coming from an ad or social media, you want them to know they’re in the right place and be able to find their deal right away.
When you retarget past store visitors, you reach people who may have forgotten about you and would have otherwise missed your sale. Aim at customers who’ve previously purchased from your store as well. Existing buyers are usually easier to reach and market to than brand new ones, so they should be high on your priority list. They’re also more likely to buy, which boosts your likelihood of closing a sale with them.
“Buy now, pay later” (BNPL) solutions allow customers to make an online purchase today, then pay for the order in installments over a period of time, similar to layaway. These solutions are proven to boost conversions as well as AOV.
BNPL can also reduce cart abandonment rates by offering an additional payment option. And, like we said above, it was one of the hottest payment options in 2023 and is likely to soar higher in 2024.
The holidays can be a hectic time for customer support, and unfortunately, they don’t always bring out the best in shoppers. One way to improve the buyer experience is to be courteous and respectful of people and respond quickly when issues arise.
Arm yourself and your team with pre-written, helpful phrases and replies so you can deliver consistent service in the moment with minimal effort. Some common consumer frustrations to anticipate include:
Chat support on your website is another great way to connect with your customers in real time and provide much needed support and personalization. When you or your team is unavailable, this avenue can supply FAQ links to connect shoppers with answers they need.
Returns are as much a part of the buying experience as payment options, with most shoppers today expecting free and easy returns.
Clearly communicate your returns policy and make sure it’s easy to understand. Popular places to showcase your policy include a dedicated Shipping and Returns Policy page, an FAQs page, and sections on product pages. It should be included in all order notification emails as well.
If this sounds too much for you to handle, consider shifting as much of your Black Friday event as possible to FBA so Amazon takes care of it for you. Just keep in mind you’ll pay a per-unit fee for every returned item, but that’s still likely to be more cost-effective than hiring additional staff to handle returns for your BFCM sale.
A fresh set of eyes helps uncover issues on your website and provides important feedback that can improve your shoppers’ experience. Look for common problems or areas where visitors are confused or frustrated and work with your existing consumer base to find solutions before you kick off your BFCM sale.
Once you’ve earned a customer, it’s imperative you nurture them to increase the likelihood they’ll return to your store to purchase again. Prepare email campaigns to keep your BFCM shoppers engaged long after the sales have ended to turn those one-time buyers into repeat consumers with a higher lifetime value.
You can send post-sale emails to subscribers, engage with them on social media, or set up retargeting campaigns to remain top of mind through relevant products and enticing messaging. Or, retarget with helpful advice, accessories, or complementary products.
While it only lasts a few days, the Black Friday weekend is a key sales period for online retailers. Solidify your BFCM marketing strategy in advance to ensure you have the best marketing campaign that drives sales for your online store during this shopping craze.
Remember to look at cross-channel marketing opportunities, including email marketing, social media, and live shopping. The more places your Black Friday offer is visible, the more people you’ll connect with. After the sale weekend, continue your marketing efforts with post-event promotional campaigns that reengage these shoppers. The BFCM spree may seem far off, but it’ll be here sooner than you expect. By preparing early, you’ll be ready to launch your deals and tactics efficiently and effectively.
Published: October 12, 2021
Updated: August 23, 2024