As the saying goes, “the early bird gets the worm.” It’s no different for the eCommerce industry, though a better phrase might be ‘the business that markets early for Black Friday and Cyber Monday gets the customer.’
Because it is such a momentous eCommerce holiday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday call for plenty of preparation. Just last year, a study by the National Retail Federation estimated that more than 174 million Americans shopped in stores or online during this busy cyber weekend.
For an eCommerce merchant, that’s a lot of potential customers that your business could target with proactive marketing campaigns.
Codal has already composed a timeline that you should follow for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But what about the marketing efforts?
Our eCommerce web development company’s marketing experts have come up with a guide on how early you should start marketing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, organized by the activities you should be doing each month.
SEPTEMBER
In order to give your business ample time to develop and fine-tune its marketing strategy, we recommend that you start preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday as early as September.
By starting this early, you can determine what is the best way to bolster your audience for the campaigns you should be executing in October and November.
One way that you can focus your efforts is with a drip marketing tactic. You can roll out your emails according to different times and triggers, based on what you think would best suit your customers.
In September, you should be focusing on how you can fortify this email list and increase your reach. How can you get more email addresses in your arsenal?
Another way to prepare for the more heavy duty marketing months ahead is to start segmenting your search ads. If you place an ad in a search engine, you can get results on what your users are searching for. And that can get you an enhanced perspective on who your target customer is.
Your business should also nail down the offers, deals, and coupons that you want to roll out in the following months. If you solidify what deals you are going to offer, you can strategically plan when they will be sent to your customers (perhaps right after they purchase an item).
Each of these tactics can increase the number of users that know about your BFCM deals. In order to get more eyes on your brand and company, you should be focusing on how to attract these customers.
Any good marketing campaign has plenty of preparation, and that should be the month of September for your business.
OCTOBER
Once October rolls around, you should start building upon the foundation you created in September and increase the intensity of your marketing efforts.
You should be increasing your presence on social media and start implementing light website ads. You can start advertising the upcoming cyber holidays, your products, and the deals that your business is offering.
In mid-October, your marketing team can then start cranking out the email campaigns you composed the month prior. A good measure of your email campaigns’ success can be quantified in your click-through rate (CTR). You can follow up with your email list will coupons and deals that your business will be offering for the holidays.
And if your business was planning on doing member-exclusive, early bird deals, this is the time to start promoting.
As you increase your marketing efforts in October, you should take measures to ensure your campaign isn’t too abrasive. Too many ads or emails, and your user might unsubscribe from your email list.
From a marketing perspective, a good rule of thumb is to simply use a bit of introspection. Although a little elementary, you can ask yourself, “how would you feel if someone were sending you this many emails or posting this much?”
October should be your month of gradually increasing your marketing efforts, in preparation for the most intense month: November (dun, dun, dun).
NOVEMBER
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday taking place in just a few short weeks, you want to kick your marketing efforts into full gear. Earlier in the month, you should be rolling out coupons to your email list and amping up your social media presence.
Throughout this month, your team should also be posting more ads and advertising a stronger call-to-action.
And late November, as you’re stressing out about the impending cyber holidays, it doesn’t hurt to do some last-minute marketing. Your marketing team can post last-minute ads and email campaigns reminding your customers of the upcoming event.
Then, with a sigh of relief, as Black Friday and Cyber Monday hit, you can know you’ve done all you can marketing-wise to advertise your business.
SO, WHAT’S NEXT?
With all of these marketing tips and tricks, your business can be off to a good start in your preparation for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. However, your efforts shouldn’t only be confined to marketing.
You should be working on developing your website, doing testing for your website’s speed, checking with your host to ensure that your site can handle the traffic, and have a streamlined design. No eCommerce merchant wants a gaffe like Amazon on their Prime Day.
However, if your design also needs some assistance and development during these months, you should be reaching out to an eCommerce website design and development agency.
Because as we’ve said before, “You can’t market bad design.”
