They may sound dramatic but Black Friday and Cyber Monday are simply named after retailers saw an annual increase in traffic and sales the day after Thanksgiving, when many non-retail employees are off work.
Marking the beginning of the Christmas shopping season, Black Friday has become a yearly craze for Christmas shoppers seeking must-have retailer discounts. This is shortly followed by Cyber Monday; an extension of Black Friday discounts and deals, promoted by ecommerce sites for hungry bargain hunters.
There are a variety of online marketing strategies ecommerce sites use to promote their offers during this period such as: advertising on comparison sites, remarketing, and regular channels including email, PPC and social media.
With recent changes from Google including Hummingbird here are our tips on how to make the most of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and more with an ecommerce website:
1. Optimize landing pages for your offers
Every offer you have should appear on its own landing page, it may not be appropriate to do this by individual product, but definitely by product category. Optimise the page with product keywords and mentions of exclusive offers for “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday”. Update your meta descriptions so this pulls through into the SERPs to increase click through rates during this period. If you want to go creative why not have a temporary “Black Friday” takeover on your site’s theme?
2. Utilise your social following
Post all your offers on to social media. Make your posts interesting and well-timed as to not spam your social fans. You could even release codes/discounts early as an exclusive, or run a competition whereby fans can like/share/comment on your post to be in with a chance of winning a free product. This will raise the reach and awareness of your brand and offers increasing your potential for more sales.
3. Go mobile
You know what we’re going to say, mobile is still growing! More and more buyers purchase via their mobile so ensuring your site is mobile friendly is crucial. Your site should be easy to buy from, require minimal form-filling, and the user’s journey should involve as few clicks as possible.
4. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes
You know your site inside out because you have been working with it for years. A brand new customer doesn’t. Put yourself in their shoes, or run a focus group. Viewing your site from a different perspective is vital in understanding areas for improvement, and most importantly knowing if your festive promotions are easily accessed and understood. The simplest thing like adding a bigger button or coloured call to action can improve conversion rates significantly.
5. Measure and review
Once the Christmas rush is over you should review how your campaign performed. Did traffic increase, and did sales increase in line with this? What products were most popular? Did social media impact sales? How many transactions were performed via a mobile? It may sound like the Spanish Inquisition but you need to learn what you did well and not so well, so you’re well prepared for 2014.
Get in touch to find out how we can improve your Ecommerce site in time for Christmas, and view our portfolio of Ecommerce website‘s we’ve designed and built.
