Yup….it’s that time of year again. Is your eCommerce business prepared for BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) this year? Whether you had a successful BFCM weekend last year or you wish it could have been better, starting your ad campaigns and sales promotions sooner rather than later can benefit you greatly. After all, these two days are the biggest shopping days of the year, so make sure to make the best of it!

Black Friday 2020 Was Disappointing for Shoppers

Last year wasn’t the greatest for Black Friday shoppers. A study revealed that more than half of UK consumers felt that BFCM discounts did not meet the expected standard, and 58% of them feel that the products they want to purchase are never discounted. The research also found that 56% of customers felt that brands prioritized selling their products over supporting good causes and living up to their values during BFCM. Another 55% felt that brands were disloyal and focused more on winning new customers than making their existing customers feel special. 

eCommerce Growth is Hot

A lot has changed since 2020, including the growth of eCommerce. The self-isolation at home had made businesses successfully transition their brick and mortars to online stores. A recent Digital Commerce 360 article gathers an outline of the staggering changes the pandemic has brought to eCommerce businesses: 

• eCommerce sales increased by 32.4% from $598.02 billion in 2019 to $791.70 billion in 2020. 
• eCommerce accounted for 19.6% of total U.S. retail sales in 2020, increasing by 25% from 2019. 
• In 2020, 17% of shoppers purchased grocery online for the first time, leading to a 100% increase in online grocery and food sales.

BFCM: What’s in Store for eCommerce Businesses? 

Before we jump into the tips and tricks, let’s see what makes BFCM weekend worth prepping for. 

During Black Friday 2020, there were 174 million shoppers in total compared to just 83.3 million in 2019. Also, Black Friday sales exceeded $9 billion, beating the previous year’s sales by 21.6%. Not only that but Cyber Monday 2020 in the US gained $10.8 billion, making it the highest sales day of the year. Global sales-wise, the total amount came up to $717.5 billion for the entire BFCM weekend! 

What does this mean for eCommerce businesses? 

If your business has a strong strategy, you have a great chance to drive sales and gain new customers within one weekend! 

7 Ways You Can Skyrocket Your BFCM Profits This Year

1. Early Birds Eat First!

Have you ever gone to a restaurant and been given a spot based on a first-come, first-serve basis? Just like that, businesses are treated on a first-come, first-serve basis as well. Whoever starts promoting and reaching out to customers the earliest ends up having a higher chance of getting customers’ attention. With the high number of emails and ads being promoted on Black Friday, it can be difficult for you to stand out from your competitors. Chances are, your emails and ads have disappeared in the endless pile of content being provided by every other eCommerce business. How can you get a head start in the game? 

• Use Content and Influencers – Partnering with influencers can boost your followers as 63% of consumers trust influencers more than brands. Partnering with content creators can allow them to create promotable content for you, such as product videos, product demos or unboxing videos. 
• Send Email Reminders – When it comes to BFCM, you shouldn’t stop at just one email. Send multiple emails that lead up to and during the BFCM weekend. This way, you’ll warm up your customers and have them most likely purchase from your brand instead of others. There’s no excuse to not send your emails a couple of weeks before Black Friday. Send various emails like a Black Friday sale teaser email, Black Friday sale announcement email, Black Friday sale reminder email and finally a Black Friday email once the huge day arrives. 
• Offer Trial Promotions – This is a great way to familiarize customers with your product or service. In fact, 62% of companies get 10% or more of their business from free trials. 
• Send Out PR and News Releases – These tools are the best way to grab attention quickly, clearly and concisely. Using PR and news releases for busy holidays like BFCM can make you stand out, build brand awareness, recognition and generate hype around your product or service. 

2. Use Simple and Consistent Messaging

Creating a marketing campaign across all your channels means giving your target audience a seamless and consistent experience. Whether it’s an email, social media post, or landing page – customers expect to see consistency. Try using the same imagery and CTA across all channels to get this tip into practice.

3. Show Social Proof

As more and more companies sell similar products and services, social proof is becoming a big determining factor of customer loyalty. Research shows that social proof has a significant impact on purchasing intent. Here’s how:

• 50% of customers will visit a company’s website after reading a review 
• 63% of customers prefer to buy from companies who have ratings and reviews on their website 
• 80% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations 
• 93.4% of shoppers rely on reviews when searching businesses they are not familiar with 

Thinking of using social proof as one of your marketing strategies? Consider using various social proofs, including: testimonials, case studies, reviews, social media, product demos, awards, and certifications. 

4. Show Love to Your Shoppers

When shoppers feel valued by your company, they’re more likely to support your product or service. Contrarily, failing to care for your customers can put them right into the hands of your competitors. That’s a huge loss in sales and loyal customers, especially during busy holidays like Black Friday. What can you do to show love to your customers? 

• Implement Chatbots – Nowadays, digital customers expect answers within seconds. In fact, in a survey with more than 2500 customers, 60% of them stated that one minute is too long to be put on hold. The use of chatbots can provide customers immediate responses and 24/7 service. Chatbot’s advanced abilities can allow them to interact with multiple customers simultaneously, speak multiple languages and collect and analyze data. 
• Write Effective FAQs – Whenever someone clicks on your FAQ page, you know they’re in for business. To prevent customers from looking upon this page, you must include high-quality content that explains your products and services precisely. Keep your FAQ page simple and organized by reducing overly wordy answers. Ensure your FAQ page is searchable by letting customers type a keyword into the search bar to get their answers within seconds. Along with this, make sure to update your FAQ page regularly when coming out with new features or products. Over time you’ll notice that some questions are becoming repetitive, so they must be moved and replaced with popular questions to be more visible to customers. 
• Offer rewards and bonuses – Everyone loves to get a little something, especially on BFCM, and that’s what makes rewards and bonus points successful! When you offer members additional points for each action they complete, you convince members to engage with you long-term.

5. Bring Audiences Back

I’ve got two words for you: Cart. Abandonment. Sound familiar? It’s an issue that affects all eCommerce stores, and traffic generation will not solve the problem. Baynard Insititute states that as many as 69% of carts are abandoned. What can you do to prevent this from happening to your carts? Remarket your ads. This way, you can convert on-the-fence shoppers and spend less than regular ads. Here are some ways you can put retargeting into practice: 

• Segment Your Audience – Instead of retargeting a broad audience, segment your website visitors into interest-based groups. This allows you to customize your ads and appeal to specific groups. 
• Cross-Sell and Upsell – Offer an upgraded product based on the user’s browsing behaviour or….. offer a complimentary product or service to give users twice the reason to purchase from you! Facebook’s enhanced cart recovery ads and cross-sell ads are great tools to utilize this strategy. Check out this blog to learn more about these ads. 
• Retarget Using Email – Retarget users through email in a timely manner. Users get tons of emails sent to their inbox during this busy time. The quicker your email lands in their inbox, the more likely they are to return to your site and reconsider purchasing the product they dismissed initially.

6. Ensure Your Website is Mobile Friendly

A seamlessly working mobile version of your store is a requirement now. According to Statista, on Black Friday 2017, mobile transactions increased by 15%, accounting for almost half of all online retail traffic. However, Black Friday was not the only day this occurred. In 2017 on Cyber Monday, mobile drove more than 44% of site visits and accounted for about 30% of the revenue received. 

With that being said, failure to ensure mobile readiness had customers abandoning their carts. The graph below shows the number of cart abandonments on phones, tablets and computers during Black Friday 2020. Out of the three devices, cart abandonment occurred mainly on mobile.

If your online store isn’t optimized for this year’s BFCM, you will be at a great disadvantage, giving an easy way through to your competitors who have upgraded their mobile strategy. To compete in the mobile landscape, ensure that your website is responsive, don’t feature pop-ups that disturb users’ browsing experience and optimize your eCommerce website for speed. 

7. Use Multi-Channel AI for Ads Leverage

AI is transforming the world of multichannel marketing. By using AI you’ll have effective and optimized advertising results, conducted by real numbers rather than guesses. Using AI for your business can provide: 

• Better Customer Insights – AI can strategically look through data and pinpoint trends to help you create personalized and targeted offers across multiple platforms.  
• Enhanced Marketing Campaign Tracking – AI has the power to understand prospect lists when paired with applicable data from the web and predictive models to better anticipate customer behaviour and profiles.
• Improved Targeting – AI can improve your targeting by identifying what’s not working and blocking it.
• Enhanced Lookalike Targeting Campaigns – After inputting your ideal audience into the AI feature, it searches the web to identify more users who share your ideal audience’s interests and behaviour. 

Growvare can help you leverage your ads through having social media, and eCommerce ad channels – within one interface. Save time and money by not needing to format your ads for multiple ad channels, and let our AI-driven targeting feature find your ideal audience. Book a meeting with us to find out more!