Top 5 Black Friday and Cyber Monday Marketing Tips

Finding the Holiday Marketing Sweet-Spot

You may love holiday shopping, or you may hate it; either way, as a business owner with an ecommerce site you need to market to both kinds of shoppers. Some shoppers will get in line two weeks early so they are sure to get the early-bird Black Friday deals, while others will procrastinate and hit the buy button on Cyber Monday.

Here are 5 hot tips for getting ecommerce traffic through the holidays:

5. Build Landing Pages Early

Make sure to build landing pages for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Even if you don’t have the actual sales advertised or have enabled the sale prices yet, these landing pages are perfect for priming the shopping pump on social media use these landing pages for PPC campaigns somewhat effectively as well. Google data has shown that in 2012 and 2013, searches for Black Friday sales began as early as 3 weeks before and peaked on Thanksgiving.

4. Social, Social, and More Social

Use every social media platform as effectively as possible. No, not every social media platform is right for every business, or for every product or even for every post. However, when you follow posting best practices for each social media platform the likelihood that your post will be seen and engaged with is much higher, and that leads to sales.

Remember, many users follow brands and businesses on social media (especially on Facebook) for promotional information, but it must be done right or they may never even see the posts.

At Synapse, we are always current on the latest social media developments , and best practices.

3. Email: Send Early and Often

Starting an email campaign for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is a great idea, especially if it is optimized for display on a mobile device. However, you will be but one voice in a choir of screaming, ranting lunatics all fighting for the attention of the customer.

Many marketers will actually give up once the day is at hand, even though this is when it is a prime time to strike. Sending several emails for “flash sales” timed throughout the day on Black Friday can increase your bottom line. Take a look at your top sellers: they are the perfect items to include for free with a more expensive or aspirational item that you’ve discounted.

Obviously, you do want to exercise some care with the number of emails you are sending and how often you send them, or you will be reported for spam. Prime the pump with a countdown of weekly pre-holiday sales to get them visiting in advance, then fire away on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

2. Have a Blog? Use it.

Creating shopping and sales related content and posting about it is a great way to bring in more shoppers. Building engagement through conversation and sharing in advance is a perfect way to build up a shopping frenzy. Connect these blog efforts with social media and you may see a huge bump in audience and sales. For example, creating landing pages and blog posts offering super savings for Facebook or other social media fans can expand your audience by orders of magnitude, and get Black Friday to live up to the name.

1. Proofread, Test, Then Do it Again

It may seem silly that this is the #1 tip, but you will regret the hassle caused by offering 100% off something that was supposed to be 10% off or sending an email advertising your sales with all of the links broken, or images that won’t load.

Most importantly, don’t let the tempo of the season dictate your marketing schedule. Plan in advance and have these things ready to go, and you will have a very successful holiday season.

Not sure how to do some or all of these things? Talk with the experts at Synapse.