As a new year approaches, it’s important to think about your Cyber Monday strategy. Shoppers expect deals and are savvy about their purchases.
This is the time to woo them with offers they can’t refuse. Here are six guiding principles to follow: 1. Personalize your subject lines. These will stand out in overcrowded inboxes and can increase opens by 26%.
1. Get your site ready early
Aside from Black Friday, Cyber Monday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year. As a result, online sales surge during this time and it’s important for retailers to prepare for the demand ahead of time. This means preparing their website for the traffic and ensuring it’s mobile-friendly, among other things.
Getting ready for Cyber Monday begins with researching deals in the weeks leading up to it. This includes scouring retail websites and looking at prior-year flyers to see what was offered in previous years. It also includes keeping an eye on newsletters, as many will begin touting the best offers for this year’s event early on. This allows consumers to begin compiling a tentative shopping list and bookmarking useful retail websites, which they can then use for the actual day of online shopping.
One thing to note is that this year, inflation concerns and general financial worries could cause people to spend less than they normally would during the holiday season. That’s why it’s even more important for businesses to make their Cyber Monday offerings stand out and deliver on the promises they made in their marketing campaigns. In addition to ensuring that their websites work well on mobile devices, retailers need to have the inventory in place to meet consumer demand. They might need to consider dropshipping or working with a third-party that will provide them with enough merchandise to keep up with the surge in orders.
2. Make your site mobile-friendly
Cyber Monday is an important day for retailers because it’s when consumers are looking to buy gifts for themselves and others. Retailers use this day to offer big discounts and free shipping to encourage sales. The day also gives retailers a chance to figure out which offers are popular and which ones aren’t, so they can adjust their plans for the rest of the season.
A mobile-friendly website ensures that your content is easy to view and read on small screens. It increases engagement, reduces bounce rates, and helps you rank better in search engines. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, make it a priority this year to update it.
One way to test your mobile-friendliness is to use Google’s free tool, which analyzes any URL — including home pages and individual web pages. Another way is to ask for feedback from a handful of friends and family members who can visit your website on their smartphones.
A few other tips for making your site mobile-friendly include making information people look for easier to find. For example, you can increase the font size on your website to make it easier to read on mobile devices. Also, make sure your forms are designed for mobile and that they only ask for the most essential information. Finally, ditch the popups; they’re frustrating for mobile users and can cause them to abandon your site altogether.
3. Create a countdown to Cyber Monday
As the holiday season kicks into high gear, shoppers are eager to get started with their gift shopping for friends and family. And with more and more retailers offering big discounts on products for Cyber Monday, it’s important that your business takes advantage of this sales day by promoting and leveraging its own offers.
One effective way to do this is by using social proof to entice shoppers to your website. Whether it’s reviews or testimonials from real customers, or even videos from YouTube influencers, social proof can help build trust with potential buyers and encourage them to purchase from you.
Another way to entice shoppers is by offering exclusive deals for Cyber Monday only. This will give shoppers a sense of urgency and encourage them to act quickly before the deals expire. You can also create product bundles that are only available for a limited time, such as two products packaged together for a discounted price.
As a bonus, you can use your Cyber Monday campaigns to capture contact information from interested shoppers. This will give you a chance to continue to reach out to them and offer more deals throughout the holidays. Email is one of the most popular ways to do this, but you can also take advantage of social media and text-based marketing tools like ReferralCandy or FriendBuy.
4. Offer exclusive deals
The key to success on Cyber Monday is finding a balance between offering low prices and maintaining your margins. By offering exclusive deals that will appeal to your customers, you can attract them and increase the likelihood of them purchasing from your store. But remember to avoid over-discounting, as this can cause shoppers to abandon their carts and never return.
If you have a loyalty program, consider using it to promote your exclusive deals. This will encourage your best customers to continue shopping with you and will allow you to track their behavior over time, making it easier for you to identify patterns and optimize your offers accordingly.
Many brands also offer free shipping on Cyber Monday, which has been shown to increase sales. A survey by UPS showed that 52% of online shoppers added more items to their carts in order to qualify for free shipping. La Provence does an excellent job of capturing shoppers’ attention with their subject line by using exclamation points and making the offer clear.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the busiest days for online and brick-and-mortar retailers alike. It is crucial to plan ahead, make your site mobile-friendly, promote your best deals on social media, and use email marketing to drive traffic and conversions. With these strategies, you can ensure your brand has a successful Cyber Monday and maintain a loyal customer base.
5. Create shoppable posts on Instagram
The holidays are all about giving, and one of the best things you can do as an e-commerce brand is to offer your customers an irresistible shopping experience. That means making your site fast and easy to navigate, offering alternatives to your most popular products, allowing BOPIS and BNPL, and using cross-channel marketing to reach the right shoppers at the right time.
Creating shoppable posts on Instagram is another great way to encourage shoppers to visit your website. This new feature allows you to tag your products on Instagram and allow customers to buy them without leaving the app. And since people are already on Instagram anyway, it’s a great way to get in front of the most relevant audiences.
To create a shoppable post, simply log into your Facebook Business Manager and click “Catalogs”. Then select the catalog you’d like to add items to. You can also add a title and description to your catalog, and you can choose who will be the owner of it.
Once you’ve set up your shoppable posts, you can use them on Instagram or in your Instagram Stories. You can also create a collection of shoppable posts into a guide, which is a great way to highlight seasonal favorites, new releases, and gift ideas. For example, sustainable fashion brand Aloha has a Black Friday and Cyber Monday Guide featuring their products.
6. Use social media to advertise your deals
If you’re a newsletter junkie, this time of year you can expect to receive emails touting this year’s top Cyber Monday deals. Your email program likely allows you to create a separate promotions folder for these, and Gmail shunts them automatically into a Promo folder so they don’t get lost in your main inbox.
Using social media to distribute your irresistible Cyber Monday offers is one of the low-hanging fruits for sales promotion. This is an easy way to reach a lot of people without them even having to leave their homes or offices, and you can get your offers out there before the day of the sale (or Black Friday).
Many shoppers plan their holiday shopping ahead of time. Some research by Deloitte found that better deals and free or fast shipping are the most compelling reasons for people to shop, so it’s important to make your offers stand out.
This can be done by announcing your deals early, offering alternative products to those that are sold out and providing convenient return options. The latter is especially important for those who will buy items from a variety of stores and might have to wait for shipments to arrive or ship back. The convenience of a buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) option was an extremely popular shopping trend during the pandemic, and it’s something that many consumers will likely continue to appreciate going forward.
