As the most anticipated shopping event of the year approaches, retailers must continue to diligently prepare to capitalize on the massive opportunities that Black Friday and Cyber Monday provide.
To give you a boost or two (or nine), we’ve asked some of experts in the retail space, gathering their invaluable tips and proven strategies to help you outperform your competition and achieve maximum sales during this holiday shopping season.
1. Keep in Mind: BFCM Comes Early This Year!
"Thanksgiving this year is on November 23, the second-earliest date that it can take place, and one day earlier than 2022. Keep this in mind when considering year over year projections, inventory buys, and marketing campaigns. Be prepared for some of your overall holiday-season demand to shift from actual BFCM weekend to post-BFCM.”
-Sean Corson, Co-Founder at Daasity
2. Good Data In = Great ROAS Out.
"It isn't news that data-driven ad campaigns perform better, but to really maximize ROAS this holiday, feed ad channels like Facebook and Google, as well as email providers, with the highest quality data collected across user sessions. Shopify merchants are immediately achieving 20%+ increases in revenue with Elevar’s Session Enrichment. Get it now, in time for BFCM.”
-Darren Sepanek, Head of Partnerships at Elevar
3. Implement a Testing Strategy for BFCM.
"For many brands, this is the highest demand period of the year, and more site visitors, email clickers and new customers means your best chance to acquire learnings. Think about testing new pricing strategies, new website or email copy, or new email cadences to understand if your customers will respond to something new.”
-Dan LeBlanc, Co-Founder at Daasity
4. Use Real-Time Data to Swiftly Adapt.
"Extract real-time insights from your data in order to anticipate and respond to customer preferences and trends in the lead-up to Black Friday & Cyber Monday. By swiftly adapting your strategy, you can optimize your marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions that enhance customer engagement and drive real-time sales during this critical period.”
-Colin Dougherty, Director of Marketing at Zenlytic
5. Be Strategic With Discounts.
"Before BFCM, assess the profitability of past BFCM customers and categorize them into two buckets: customers you acquired during BFCM, and customers who buy during BFCM. With these segments in place, you can decide on your acquisition vs. retention strategies and how much discounting you want to offer. You should give better discounts in your retention channels vs. your acquisition ones.”
-Michelle Golladay, VP of Marketing at Daasity
6. Schedule Your Campaign Over Time On Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
"Rather than send a large campaign at one time, schedule your campaign over time on Black Friday & Cyber Monday. This helps to reduce the number of messages in your carrier queue, specifically for toll-free senders. And, don’t send right on the hour, which is when most brands schedule their sends. There are times that are less busy. For example, mornings are good for sales, but carrier networks tend to be slow. Sending during off-hours can increase your send speeds.”
-Laura Serino, Senior Manager, Content and Community at Postscript
7. Find Balance in Your Inventory.
"One of the biggest headaches for brands heading into BFCM is inventory. Buying too much can kill your bottom line; buying too little is a huge missed opportunity. Make sure you are taking product promotions, pricing changes, and year-over-year changes in marketing spend into account when creating your forecast and inventory projections.”
-Dave Swendeman, Sr. Content Manager at Daasity
8. Implement a Post-Purchase Survey.
"Implement a post-purchase survey that asks customers if their order is for themselves or if it’s a gift. That will allow you to tailor your post-purchase communications to them, and in the case of gift purchasers, potentially convert them into a customer as well.”
-Brandon Amoroso, Founder at Electriq, A DRINKS Company
9. Optimize Your Acquisition Strategies.
"BFCM may be your largest customer acquisition period of the year, but are you acquiring the right customers? Big acquisition numbers in Q4 are not very valuable if those customers never come back to repurchase and end up with lifetime value far below your other customers. Understanding your LTV by both channel of acquisition and first product purchased can help guide where you are spending your marketing dollars at BFCM and which products you are pushing in those marketing channels.”
-Sean Corson, Co-Founder at Daasity
.png)
