How your store can take advantage of the biggest sale of the year for huge brand and customer base growth
BFCM is short for Black Friday Cyber Monday. Black Friday marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season where stores shower consumers with a myriad of discounts and promos.
Cyber Monday follows up Black Friday as the last major sales event in a year, with more focus on website-exclusive deals.
So, why shouldn’t you miss out on these holiday sales events in particular?
They’re regarded as THE BIGGEST sales events that happen in a year for retail and even eCommerce stores.
This combination of major sales events would see millions upon millions of shoppers with the latest recorded online shopper count reaching more than 186 million in 2021’s BFCM.
Another reason why you should prepare for BFCM? Your competition will be as high, if not higher, as the potential rewards you can reap from this holiday sale.
In fact, BFCM just keeps getting bigger and BIGGER as the years pass.
BFCM may just be an American sale event, but eCommerce stores from around the world are gaining huge profits for taking part in it. In fact, global sales reached $6.3 billion as of 2021’s BFCM.
Other countries also have their own equivalent of BFCM, here’s a quick list of big sales events that happen around the same season as BFCM:
What Numbers Should I Aim for in Preparation for BFCM?
BFCM may just be an American sale event, but eCommerce stores from around the world are gaining huge profits for taking part in it. In fact, global sales reached $6.3 billion as of 2021’s BFCM.
This is when you should start asking yourself questions like—
Another reason why you should prepare for BFCM? Your competition will be as high, if not higher, as the potential rewards you can reap from this holiday sale.
Why is open rate important?
This is the main metric that would tell you how often or how less your subscribers open your emails.
If your open rate is low, you can expect it could have something to do with your subject lines, preview text, send times, or even your sender name.
Why is click rate important?
Click rate can help you determine if subscribers are clicking the CTAs in your emails.
If you notice you have low click rates, you’ll need to revisit how to present your CTAs.
Are they clear and visible? Are they just embedded clickable text links or have visual button GFX? Should they be static clickable images or animated CTAs?
When Should I Start Preparing for BFCM?
As a rule of thumb, you’ll need to start preparations as soon as Q2. You’re main concern, however, would be when to start your BFCM campaigns.
Based on our experience working with our clients, we’ve narrowed the best time to start your BFCM campaigns on as early as late October to mid-November.
Here are some of the highlights from our clients who started their campaigns within that time range:
This means the revenue your campaigns would generate could potentially reach an average of 50% if you were to start your campaigns within this earlier time range.
Based on this recommended launch time, here’s a brief calendar plan breakdown of actionables for your BFCM prep beforehand:
How Should my Emails Look?
You should be sending only the best of the best that your email marketing arsenal has to offer.
This is why we recommend you start your BFCM preparations as early as Q2, it’s to give you enough time to A/B test and optimize your emails accordingly.
Here’s a great example of how a winning email should look:
How do I use Email, SMS, and Push Notification Marketing Strategies for BFCM?
Email and SMS marketing is like a match made in heaven. Email’s high personalization and customizability paired with SMS’ high reach and almost guaranteed deliverability make up for each other’s weaknesses.
Top it all off with push notification marketing and you’ve got a recipe for success.
So, what strategies of each can you use to maximize your BFCM profits?
You can break down your overall BFCM marketing strategy into three major parts:
For email marketing, the 6-Step Holiday Sales Sequence is something we’ve developed and applied in many of our clients’ email marketing systems—with promising results.
Essentially, this sequence is geared towards hyping up your audience, nurturing them throughout the sales event, and instilling urgency by the near end.
Here’s a brief breakdown of the process:
Reward your VIPs with exclusive early access to your sale. Doing this will also show how much your brand values its VIPs, further reinforcing their loyalty to your store.
It’s time to open the flood gates to the rest of your customer base. All the emails you’ve been optimizing, all the tactics and strategies you’ve been sharpening—it all leads to this moment.
For SMS marketing, you can leverage these 3 creative strategies:
Just as we mentioned in the SMS section, make sure that your automated flows reflect your current holiday.
This should maximize the relevance of your messages to your customers—minimizing spam flagging.
Use only the best strategies and collaterals your marketing can dish out from months of A/B testing. You shouldn't be A/B testing anything in the middle of BFCM.
Hype is key. Give your subscribers a huge headstart so they can start setting aside shopping funds and looking up what to buy from your store.
Prepare early. Nothing throws a wrench in your operations harder than avoidable issues that could have been ironed out earlier. Test your site and optimize your lists for a smoother sailing BFCM.
Launch early. Reward your most loyal customers with early exclusive access to your sale to maintain their strong relationship with your brand. This will also give your store a headstart on making sales BFCM sales—it’s a win-win!
Revisit your existing flows and align them with BFCM. You don’t have to make new flows from scratch. Save time and production by aligning your existing flows with BFCM.
Let’s create a tailored retention strategy to grow your CLV and scale your brand month-on-month. Book a free call with us to receive:
