Black Friday, Cyber Monday Marketing Ideas

With Black Friday only 12 days away and Cyber Monday 15 days away, you may be thinking about what deals you should have and which ones you should market.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are big sales days for many retail stores and for eCommerce stores now too! With shoppers being more wary of going into malls and wading through crowds, being an online retailer is where it’s at this year.

This once one-day event, has turned into a four-day shopping event when you account for Cyber Monday. While Cyber Monday has been to target those shopping online, Black Friday is projected to be mainly an online event this year. With many malls asking stores to limit their door-crashers and the like.

When it comes to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, there are no rules in how you should go about when it comes to marketing! Do what you think will entice your existing customers and what you think will bring in new customers.

With that being said, we’ve come up with four great marketing ideas for you for the Black Friday, Cyber Monday.

A Deal an Hour

This idea works best for high traffic stores however it can be used for eCommerce stores that want to drive traffic to their store. With this comes a fair amount of advertising that is needed, if you are a smaller eCommerce store, you want to ensure that this will reach more than just your loyal regulars.

This not only encourages spending, but it also keeps customers coming back, especially when you keep the hourly deals a secret!

You can also offer this deal in addition to your ‘regular’ Black Friday deal. Your can, for example, offer 35% off everything in the store, while your deal of the hour is 50% off on particular items.

There are a few apps out there that can help you run this kind of promotion, if you aren’t fond of doing it manually! Bold Discounts, is a great one that works with Shopify stores!

As with any type of deal, make sure that you have a post scheduled to let those who follow you what is happening at your store. And, have a banner on your landing page so that those who come to your website also know what is happening!

Use Your Email List

For every $1 you spend on emails marketing, you can expect an average return of $42. Though is may seem that getting emails from your customers is just ‘something you should do’ it is so much more than just a way to let your customers know that their order has shipped, it is another way to market; and market to an audience that has not only willingly given you their email but has also (in all likelihood) bought from you already!

Contact Previous Customers

You can contact those already on your email list and offer them an exclusive discount that gives them additional savings when buying from you, because they have already bought from you, they are likely to buy from you again!

Contact Potential Customers

On platforms such as Shopify, you can check which customers have bought from you and which haven’t. Maybe you have a few emails that have 0 orders, they may have given you their email at a market or given it to be entered in a draw, either way these are potential customers!

You can email them the deals that you will be having on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this way they check back online. When sending out your emails, make sure to look at your subject lines. You don’t want them to be too promotional, otherwise they could end up in their junk mail.

Create a Gift Guide

Gift Guides are a great way to get customers, new and old, to find you during the holiday season.

These are great to highlight not only your deals and products, but also to help those shopping with you for the first time have a sense of direction. You can create gift guide with title like these:

• Meaningful Gifts for Her

• Jewelry Gifts for the Minimalist

• Gifts That Will Surprise Him

When creating a gift guide, think about what your customer(s) would search in Google, keywords are important with gift guides too!

These guides can be shared in a blog post and on your social media platforms. You want to get them out to as many people as possible!

Someone is looking for a gift that you can provide!

Offer Free Gift with Purchase

Offering a free gift with purchase doesn’t have to be expensive! You can offer gifts that:

1. Don’t cost you much to make

2. Have free or cheap shipping

When offering a free gift, you can give all customers the same gift or offer different gifts depending on the amount spent. For example, gift A is for those who spend $50 - $75 and gift B is for those who spend $76 or more.

Using an app such as Free Gifts by Secomapp helps automate the process and take off some of the stress.

With less than two weeks until BFCM, you need to get started on these marketing ideas! As the saying goes ‘the early bird gets the worm!’

This is the start of the holiday buying season and many stores see a huge boost in sales, a boost that often justifies the ad spend and time put into marketing.