November 26, Cyber Monday, is upon us.
What’s with Cyber Monday that businesses should be paying attention to it? Here are some compelling facts:
- Cyber Monday sales figures have been rising over the years. In 2017, sales have reached $6.59 billion, the largest online sales day in history. This is a 16.8% year-on-year increase.
- Adobe Analytics reported that online shopping surged during the holiday season of 2016 and 2017, grossing approximately $91.7 billion and $108.2 billion
- Retail analytics firm Euclid said in 2017 that Cyber Monday has already surpassed Black Friday as the most popular holiday shopping season.
- Cyber Monday is not exclusive to the United States. Other countries including Canada, Chile, Colombia, India, Japan, Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand also have their versions of this shopping holiday.
5 Strategies Your Brand Needs for Cyber Monday
With the above facts in mind, it’s obvious that the annual consumerist tradition called Cyber Monday is a great opportunity for businesses. Take advantage of it with the help of the following pointers.
1. Get your site ready
Your e-commerce site is the centerpiece of your Cyber Monday campaign. It is only logical to prepare it for the occasion. Online stores can encounter challenges that come with the surge of online customers. It’s imperative to take note of the following factors:
- Uptime. You can’t sell anything if your online store is down. That’s why you have to ascertain that your server can handle the massive increase in traffic brought about by the holiday shopping season. Consider using services like Uptime Robot to keep watch of your site’s uptime.
- Page loading time. Google’s Maile Ohye says that the ideal page loading time is half a second and “2 seconds is the threshold for e-commerce website acceptability.” Anything longer than 2 seconds can have adverse effects on visitor reaction and perception. It is advisable to evaluate site speed. You can use Google’s developmental tools to check how slow or fast your online store loads, then identify and address the problems that could be slowing it down.
- Mobile-friendliness. In 2018, more than half of all web traffic originate from mobile devices. This means that if your website is not mobile-friendly, you are missing on this massive chunk of potential customers. Arguably, the best way to create a mobile-friendly website is to use responsive web design. Through this, you don’t have to maintain separate desktop and mobile versions. Responsive web design allows the site to automatically adjust its layout and the content displayed to suit the display size of the device used to access the site.
- Hidden gems. This is a marketing strategy but it’s something that will be prominent in the website. You can introduce concealed promos or offers in your site like a scavenger hunt game. Instead of simply publishing coupon codes, consider having a fun way to attract potential buyers to your site.
- Pop-up. That pop-ups solicit frowns is not an understatement. However, they can still be useful in doing promotions for Cyber Monday. You just need to minimize the interference they create. Having them on your site for a day or two can help catch the attention of potential customers.
2. Get your site ready
Once your site is ready for the possible rush of customers, you can start your specialized holiday shopping marketing campaign. The following are some of the most effective approaches:
- Run ads well beforehand. Of course, you should advertise before Cyber Monday takes place, but how early should you be running your ads? Marketing pros say it should be before, during, and after Black Friday. Many companies run ads weeks or even more than a month before the big day happens. The goal here is to get the message across effectively to potential customers to build up hype and to make sure your marketing is not buried deep in the noise competing companies will be stirring.
- Advertise based on your location. Make use of the targeting options offered by advertising platforms such as Google and Facebook. Localizing advertising campaigns has numerous benefits.
- It allows local businesses to compete with much larger brands.
- It is more easily measurable.
- Personalized and targeted ads are more likely to establish deeper connections with customers.
- Location-based ads reach audiences who are more likely to buy what you sell.
- It costs less to run ads in a specific city, state, or region.
- Deploying ads limited to a specific area, by the way, is not just about online campaigns. You can and should also run traditional offline ads for your online store. Selling online does not mean that your adverts should only be web-based.
- Consider doing a “share this” promo on social media and blogs. This is a common tactic that almost always works. You can harness activity on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by asking people to share information about your Cyber Monday deals in different ways. Run a contest for the most creative post promoting your store or hold a raffle for those who share your affiliate marketing link.
- Boost newsletter signups by introducing a Cyber Monday exclusive newsletter offer. The hype around the holiday shopping season can be a good opportunity to increase newsletter subscriptions, which in turn boosts potential sales.
- Localize your marketing materials. Sometimes, you can connect to prospective customers better by using the languages they more frequently use. In the US, in particular, almost everyone uses English, but there are still many migrant citizens or residents who are more comfortable using the languages they grew up with. Study your target market and spend on localization services to have your site and marketing materials accurately translated, if you think there are many potential buyers you can reach with your localized ads and marketing content.
3. Deploy strategic promos and address the problem of abandoned carts
Cyber Monday for many is all about the deals and discounts. You can’t just randomly offer these promos, though. Consider the following points.
- Offer a one-day deal. Daily deal websites continue to be popular. Take advantage of the scheme these sites have sustained over the years by offering a single-day shopping promo.
- Give away free digital items. You may hate getting baited by online stores (by digital freebies), but this strategy is quite effective. It wouldn’t hurt offering ebooks, coupons, raffle tickets, apps, free accounts to special sites or services, or even cryptocurrency in exchange for a newsletter subscription or the purchase of “special” product.
- Run a free or discounted trial program. This is another commonly used marketing technique that is proven effective most of the time. This works especially well for e-commerce sites that sell products and services on a subscription basis. You can even offer a “money-back guarantee.” Just carefully formulate terms and conditions to shield your business from possible problems. For example, limit the money-back guarantee to a few days or a week. You can also write a provision voiding the guarantee if the customer violates the terms and conditions of your trial program.
- Emphasize limitedness. When making discounts and other offers, create a sense of urgency among customers by emphasizing the scarcity of what you are offering. Highlight the fact that it is only available for a certain period or there are only a few products sold. Make use of countdown timers on your website or in the marketing emails you send.
- Find ways to minimize instances of abandoned carts. It’s not uncommon during Cyber Mondays for customers to stuff their shopping carts with various items, only to not check them out later on. In short, they end up not buying anything. According to Baymard Institute, the cart abandonment rate averages at 69.89% based on different studies from 2006 to 2018. This is usually because of the following reasons:
- Too high shipping, tax, and other fees and costs
- The online store require buyers to sign up for an account
- Complicated process for checking out
- Total purchase cost not shown up front
- Crashing, freezing, or errors in the e-commerce site
- Unsatisfactory returns policy
- Slow delivery
- Few payment methods supported
- Declined credit cards
To address the problem of abandoned carts, the reasons listed above should be fixed. Also, don’t forget to make sure that your customer service team is adequately responsive to be able to promptly address customer concerns and help them in checking their orders out.
4. Use upselling and cross-selling
A Forrester research estimates that upselling and cross-selling account for 10% to 30% of all retail revenues. For the uninitiated, upselling is a technique designed to convince customers to buy a pricier premium version of a product or an upgrade, thereby increasing the amount of sales made. Cross-selling, on the other hand, is about increasing sales revenues by suggesting related, complementary, and other products to the buyer.
Shoppers who can afford to splurge may not be that sure of what to buy as they go over the available options. If you suggest related or hot products to them, they may easily be convinced to add these products to their carts. Don’t hesitate to aggressively offer something to these buyers as well as to those who have already decided to buy something. Online shoppers who have already started making purchases cannot easily resist the idea of buying another product once they see more interesting items displayed in front of them.
Take note that it is easier to upsell to an existing customer than to find a new potential buyer. If you spend time and resources to attract new customers, why not exploit the easier routes of upselling and cross-selling?
5. Extend sales past Cyber Monday and launch new products
This does not contradict the points on making one-day promos and creating a sense of urgency by emphasizing scarcity. Rather, this is about piggybacking on your Cyber Monday success to make more sales later on. It may sound like you are being dishonest in claiming that your discounts and other promos were only available on Cyber Monday, but you are actually extending them way past Monday. There’s nothing wrong with this, and customers may even appreciate seeing that there are more deals for them to avail of.
Moreover, don’t think it’s wrong timing launching a new product on Cyber Monday. According to Fundivo’s Cyber Monday statistics and trends, around half of American shoppers plan to buy something on Cyber Monday. This means that if you are introducing something new, there are many eager buyers who would want to consider getting your product. Take advantage of this enthusiasm and attention.
Make the most of Cyber Monday by being prepared for it and exerting more than the usual effort on sales and marketing. Your brand can significantly benefit from the strategies discussed above. There are things you have to do before and after Cyber Monday to boost your brand and capitalize on the hype to raise revenues.
Aim for record revenues this Cyber Monday
Consumer confidence in the US has been increasing for the past months.
At Day Translations, we provide topnotch language services to help clients across industries, from translation to interpreting, localization, and transcription. We can also help businesses that are preparing localized ads and marketing materials to target specific markets on Cyber Monday.
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