Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) is a stressful but exciting time for any business. Whether you run an online or physical store, BFCM drives a massive amount of traffic, boosting a company’s profits. The benefits of a successful BFCM can span beyond the two to four days that it is held. BFCM is more than just having a killer sale; but is an opportunity to attract new, recurring customers.
To achieve your full potential and run a successful BFCM campaign, you need to plan ahead. In this blog post, we break down how to prepare and survive BFCM.
Preparation Is Everything
With a monuments event like BFCM, preparation is everything. Nothing can be thrown together at the last minute, but instead, carefully pieced together months before. From creating a strategy to getting the store ready, here is an overview of everything you need to prepare when it comes to BFCM.
Understanding BFCM Customers
The success of BFCM will be determined by a company’s understanding of its customers. There are three things that a brand needs to keep in mind when planning its BFCM for its customers:
1. Existing Customers Drive Sales
Almost half of sales come from existing customers who already had a relationship with a brand – especially during the holidays. Customers who purchased over a year before BFCM are more likely to engage and buy during the following year’s BFCM. Therefore, you need to invest in building customer relationships well in advance.
2. Nurture All Customer Relationships
You need to remember that not all customer relationships are the same. There is no cookie-cutter approach to dealing with individual customers. Paying attention to how customers and potential customers interact with your brand messaging is essential as not every customer interaction is equal. Customers who have a long-term relationship with your brand are more likely to make more significant purchases. Therefore, you must build trust with those customers throughout the year so that they show up on BFCM.
3. New Customers Will Probably Not Buy Again
BFCM customers are usually once-off bargain hunters that will most likely not buy with your brand again. Only 30% of first-time BFCM customers will return for more purchases. It would be best if you, therefore, started building relationships with customers before the BFCM period.
Create Strategy
BFCM is one of the most profitable times of the year. In just a few days, you can double your yearly revenue or learn some valuable lessons. To ensure a profitable time of the year, you need to have a strategy with goals, a sales plan, and actionable items. A strategy allows for a solid plan of action and gets everyone on the same page. Here are some critical elements to creating a strategy for BFCM:
Set Goals
From more sales to brand awareness, setting goals is a simple as asking yourself what you want to achieve during the BFCM period. Examples of goals you may want to set for you and your team could include the following:
- Increasing sales numbers
- Increasing visitors to your online store
- Obtain a certain amount of revenue
You could attach smaller objectives to these goals to help to obtain them easier. It would help if you were realistic with your goals, so use your day-to-day numbers and previous BFCM numbers to help set them.
Plan Your BFCM Special Deals
Knowing your revenue goals for BFCM, you can now create special offers that will help you achieve them while remaining profitable. There are a few things that you can achieve with a sale, including the following:
- Get rid of old stock
- Attract recurring purchases – add-ons or refills
- Engage with old customers
- Acquire new customers
- Promo for new products
Look at what your business needs and create special BFCM deals or offers around those needs. Remember that you can make multiple sales discounts, offers, and deals to achieve different things.
Develop A Content Strategy
Using your goals, objectives, and planned deals, you can now plan a content strategy. Whether through email marketing, social media, and video content, you know how your target audience engages. Therefore, you can plan strategically and send customers and potential customers relevant content that they will open and engage with.
To have the most successful BFCM period, you need to start engaging with customers now. Remember that it takes time to develop relationships, but in the end, when the sales are rolling in, it will be worth it.
