Syra’s Tip: Make sure your sale is easy to discover!
Let's start with the most obvious tip: There is little point in investing time in a BFCM campaign if your customers can’t find your deal(s). In the run-up to Black Friday, add a countdown timer to your site to promote your promotion and gather subscribers so you can email them your deals when the big day arrives.
Think carefully about where you can highlight your promotion on your site During Black Friday / Cyber Monday. Add a banner to your homepage and consider adding banners to other (collection/product) pages as well as to your menu, navigation bar and search dropdown.
Midge’s tip: Email Marketing segments
The key to BFCM success is understanding your audience and delivering them the right message. That’s why segmentation and personalization in your Email flows are so important. Midge (Head of Klaviyo at Code) shares his tips to do just that.
Consider addressing different personas in your BFCM flows and campaigns:
- Deal Hunters: These shoppers aren't particularly loyal and may not be concerned with high quality. Use short, urgent messages to grab their attention, highlighting the deals on offer.
- Last-Minute Shoppers: These infrequent customers might have shopped with you previously during BFCM and are concerned about delivery times. Emphasize shipping estimates to prevent cart abandonment. Add countdown timers or reminders for the last shipping days.
- VIP Shoppers: Loyal, frequent buyers who are big spenders and need no extra incentive. Offer them early access to sales or include personal touches like handwritten thank-you cards or surprise gifts.
- Window shoppers: These shoppers are considering your brand, often as a gift. They're new to your brand and are looking for information, weighing the pros and cons. Engage them with user-generated content (UGC) and informative material. Target recent browsers through Google and Facebook ads.
How do you segment those personas, you may ask? Defining what different personas look like for your brand is not a one-size-fits-all. However, we're happy to give you two examples in the images below (using Klaviyo as the ESP).
The segment filters (amount of actions, revenue, etc.) depend on your brand. Of course, persona definitions look different for a coffee brand compared to a bike brand. If you need help segmenting, contact us!
Note: Make sure to exclude segments from each other while sending out a campaign.
Tips to enhance your BFCM email campaigns:
- Reduce time delays in abandonment flows (cart, checkout, browse abandonment) to 30 minutes.
- Retarget openers or clickers (but not non-buyers) in the last 72 hours. Resend campaigns with different subject lines or preview texts to this segment.
- Make use of countdown timers in banners or attention bars to create a sense of urgency.
- Use a holiday template, highlighting promotions, seasonal banners, countdown timers, more urgency, and highlighting USPs. You can use these in high-engagement flows like Added to cart, Abandoned checkout, Welcome Series, and Browse Abandonment.
Coen’s tip: Gifting
Many people use BFCM to stock up on gifts for the holiday season. Help them find great gifts! Here are some thoughtful gifting tips:
- Product recommendation quiz: Make finding the perfect gift a breeze for your clients by setting up a product recommendation quiz in Product Recommendation Quiz or Octane. Need inspiration? Check out the quizzes we realized for Fascino Coffee and Olcay Gulsen.
- Gift collection page: Create a dedicated gift collection page like BOSKA, simplifying the gift-finding journey for your customers. It's a thoughtful touch that can spark additional purchases.
- Gift wrapping and personal cards: Many gift shoppers prefer to directly send their gift to the receiver or outsource gift wrapping. Add gift wrapping and a personal card service to your checkout to win from your competition.
- Giftnote: Giftnote allows Shopify stores to enable an automated and paperless gift messaging and gift voucher experience that drives new revenue through gifting. Currently, they offer it for free to Code clients until the end of BFCM. After that, they can extend a 20% discount on Giftnote for our clients. Send an email to sales@code.nl if you’d like to try Giftnote!
Bob’s tip: Increase AOV by implementing Upsell, Cross-sell and Bundles
Maximizing Average Order Value (AOV) during BFCM is a smart strategy. One of our favorite ways to do this is by offering bundles and other upsell and cross-sell features.
Rebuy’s Up & Cross-sell solution is used by successful brands like namuk, DOUXE & McGregor New York to create bundles and give consumers smart recommendations. Calculate your ROI with Rebuy Engine to see if it’s worth the investment for your brand.
Also, discover their own 10 tips, tricks & strategies for a successful holiday season from the Rebuy BFCM Playbook.
Looking to start using Rebuy? Contact us, and we'll get you 25% off your first 2 monthly bills.
Mark's tip: Engage with your customers to gather reviews
By now, we've all come to appreciate the significance of reviews, especially during the Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) rush. But here's the twist: they're not just a BFCM thing; they hold even more weight after the shopping frenzy.
Reviews are like the glue that cements enduring relationships with your customers. They signal that you genuinely care about what they have to say. Imagine, after the whirlwind of BFCM, you send out review requests in your welcome emails to new customers. It's a subtle yet powerful way to tell the world that your brand takes its customers seriously.
Just think about the influx of shoppers during BFCM. That presents an opportunity too good to pass up for collecting reviews. Given that 75% of consumers lean on reviews to steer their buying decisions, launching into 2023 with a treasure trove of new reviews sets the stage for a great year!
Aina's tip: Keep the BFCM spirit alive with a post-campaign
Your Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) campaign should not stop in November. Encourage your customers to share reviews and User-Generated Content (UGC), like photos or videos of their new products, in return for a discount or free shipment.
USG is a proven way to attract new shoppers to your store and increase conversion. The execution is easy: send out your request via email and broadcast it across your social media channels. Reviews.io is a powerful Shopify app that combines reviews and USG.
User reviews aren’t merely “important” — they are critical to users’ confidence and their ability to arrive at an informed purchase decision. 53% of consumers wouldn't make a purchase without reading reviews. Plus, 54% of shoppers turn to social media for product research, so a post-BFCM campaign supercharged with UGC is your ticket to soaring sales.
Wouter’s tip: Mollie Capital
As the biggest sale event of the year approaches, the days and weeks leading to Black Friday can often feel like an obstacle course for many online businesses. Finding those essential short-term funds to stock up on inventory, rev up your marketing, bolster your team, or even make those long-desired website enhancements can be a real challenge.
Could you benefit from a boost in cash flow before one of the year’s biggest sales events? Our long-term partner Mollie got a solution for you: Mollie Capital. Capital is a proven way to perfect Black Friday preparations. Here’s some ideas about how to spend those extra funds:
- Stock up: Get the financial boost you need to bulk up your inventory, ensuring you don’t lose sales due to stock shortages and delighting every Black Friday customer.
- Invest in marketing: Promote your Black Friday deals far and wide: whether it’s social media, email campaigns, or partnerships, Capital can help you fund your marketing to drive sales.
- Improve your website: Make sure your site’s ready for the Black Friday rush by fine-tuning it to boost conversion and win more sales.
- Spend on staffing: Need extra hands to handle increased customer inquiries, order processing, or shipping? Ensure everything runs smoothly by bridging your cash flow gap with Capital.
- Streamline shipping: Invest in shipping and logistics solutions that make sure every customer enjoys a seamless Black Friday shopping journey.
- Boost cash flow: Need a safety net to manage your cash flow? Ensure you have the liquidity needed to cover any unexpected expenses or emergencies.
How to apply for Mollie Capital:
1. Visit your Mollie Dashboard and check how much you’re eligible for.
2. Take a few minutes to apply, and within 24 hours (or even less), you'll receive three tailored offers.
3. Choose the offer that best suits your needs, and voilà, you have the funds you need at your disposal.
Repayments are automatically deducted as a percentage of your daily sales. That's one less thing to worry about during your Black Friday preparations.
Good luck!
The choice to partake in Black Friday & Cyber Monday is yours, and the road to success begins with your vision and strategy. It's not just about offers and discounts; it's about building relationships, creating value, and propelling your brand to new heights. Some of these tips are also very valuable and useful outside of the holiday season. If you find yourself in need of some help with any of these tips, don't hesitate to reach out.
