Making the Most of Mega Sale Days: 5 Must-Use Tips for Converting Holiday Shoppers

As the holiday season kicks off, it’s essential for retailers to make the most of mega sale days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM). But it’s no longer enough to simply offer great deals and discounts and assume shoppers will come your way. In today’s overcrowded digital landscape, brands must power their BCFM sales with innovative and engaging strategies to capture consumers’ attention across multiple channels. To make sure your business stands out this season, here are five proven tactics for boosting your BFCM sales and getting holiday shoppers to convert.

Start Your BFCM Campaign Early

Last year, 59 percent of consumers had already started their holiday shopping by the beginning of November. This trend is expected to continue in 2021, which means retailers need to get a jump on promoting their BCFM discounts and events — in other words, start now!

Launch a BFCM Preview Campaign

October is the perfect time to begin teasing your BCFM deals. By sending preview emails to subscribers and posting sneak peeks to social media, you’ll create anticipation and build momentum for your upcoming holiday sales. You’ll also give your customers ample time to familiarize themselves with the types of deals you’ll be offering so they can incorporate them into their holiday shopping plans.

Bulk Up Your Email List

Now is also the time to amplify your reach for November by making sure you have a robust list of email subscribers. If your email list is thin, you still have time to capture leads by boosting your data collection efforts. Offering special discounts and early access to upcoming BCFM sales is an excellent way to get shoppers to participate in data-rich surveys and questionnaires. 

Leverage Last Year’s Data

Lastly, you can use this pre-season time to pull valuable insights from data yielded during last year’s holiday promotions. Which targeting strategies produced the best results? What types of content drove the most traffic? Which keywords were used most frequently? Diving into data from the 2020 holiday season can help you strategize smartly for the one that’s ahead.

Choose the Right Channels

We’ve previously discussed the importance of omnichannel marketing in the modern landscape and how to optimize your audience targeting strategies for the impending endemic market. 

Both of these tactics can help increase conversions during the holiday season, especially if you segment your BFCM campaigns based on your customers’ channel preferences:

Mobile

You should be utilizing mobile shopping apps and making sure that all your holiday content is optimized for mobile. Last year, smartphones alone accounted for $3.6 billion in holiday sales*, with 75 percent of Black Friday shoppers* using their mobile devices to make purchases, research products, and compare prices. And on Cyber Monday in 2020, 37 percent of all sales* were made from mobile phones. Clearly, this platform has become a prime holiday shopping channel, which means you’ll miss out on essential conversion opportunities if your e-commerce tools and campaigns aren’t mobile-friendly.

Text Messaging

Another sales-boosting channel you should consider incorporating into your BFCM campaigns is short messaging service (SMS). Stats show that these simple text messages create a sense of urgency that motivates shoppers to take advantage of time-sensitive sales. In a recent survey, 53 percent of consumers* said that being granted access to early sales and new releases was their top incentive to sign up for SMS. You can use SMS marketing to alert your subscribers to all kinds of limited-time BFCM discounts and deals, including flash sales, exclusive offers, sale exertions, and more.

Capitalize on Cart Abandonment

Cart abandonment rates always spike during mega sale days as online consumers bounce around from shop to shop to compare prices and score the best deals. While there’s nothing you can do to deter this behavior, you can capitalize on it by sending out BFCM emails to users who still have items in their shopping carts. When targeted abandoned cart emails include information about limited-time promotions and sales, they’re made all the more engaging and persuasive.

 

Additionally, you can reinforce the limited-time nature of your BFCM sales by adjusting the language in your cart abandonment emails. Subject lines such as “Your cart total increases tomorrow” or “Complete your purchase before our big sale ends” will heighten feelings of urgency and motivate subscribers to take immediate action.

Personalize Your Deals

Personalization has become an essential marketing tactic for online retailers in their continuous quest to engage and convert customers. In addition to taking advantage of data-driven strategies such as dynamic creative optimization (DCO), you can enhance your BFCM strategies by personalizing the deals themselves. 

For example, you could offer shoppers limited-time discounts on specific products they’ve clicked on multiple times. Or you could provide special one-time BFCM promo codes that feature shoppers’ names, such as JENN21 or ANDY76. The bottom line is that shoppers love feeling special (77 percent say they’re more inclined to shop with brands that personalize their online shopping journey), and they’ll be thrilled to receive (and more likely to take advantage of) holiday promotions that take their interests and shopping behaviors into account.

Establish Loyalty

We know that loyalty programs make shoppers feel valued and appreciated — 78 percent say they’re more likely to buy from a brand that has a loyalty program. But loyalty programs can also be very helpful when it comes to the challenging task of retaining one-and-done holiday shoppers. In fact, 70% of consumers admit they’re incentivized to buy from a brand when given discounts, coupons, or points toward their next purchase.
 

You can also leverage loyalty programs to motivate existing members to partake in your BFCM deals by offering them exclusive discounts and early access to sales. Or you can gamify various member perks to help boost engagement — consider creating a holiday advent calendar that offers a new loyalty benefit each day or a holiday prize wheel that can be spun for additional bonus points.

To Wrap It All Up

When it comes to converting shoppers during the most wonderful time of the year, online retailers need to do everything they can to make their BFCM sales stand out. In addition to offering enticing deals and discounts, this requires research, strategic thinking, and the willingness and ability to leverage multiple marketing channels.
 
If you’re worried about taxing your resources or disrupting your existing online strategies to accommodate for BFCM deals, you can relax. It’s not hard to prime your digital presence for the season’s mega sale days. In our next holiday-focused blog post, we’ll share five easy website updates to help you boost your holiday sale conversions.

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