We’re in the last weeks of the year, and that means it’s time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday! For many online retailers, this is a very exciting time. Not only do you get to discount your products, but you also get to jump on board with a huge sales event. If you’re preparing for the holiday season, here are 13 marketing tips to help build up awareness for your WooCommerce store and increase sales during BFCM.
What is Black Friday & Cyber Monday?
Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, and Cyber Monday is the first Monday after Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday because retailers used to open their doors at 5am to sell products at a discount. The name has stuck over time, even though many stores now have longer opening hours on this shopping weekend.
On Cyber Monday, you can expect to see prices slashed even further than what you’ll find during Black Friday sales. There will also be more deals available online than ever before—so it’s important that your store is ready for this massive influx of traffic!
Solid Marketing Tips to Prep Your WooCommerce Site for BFCM Sales
These two days are the biggest sales days in the US, with Cyber Monday being an excellent opportunity for online retailers to grow their business.
To make sure that your WooCommerce store is ready for this event, you should prepare it now. You can’t wait until it’s too late and then try to fix all the issues onsite at once.
Let’s get into some of the critical marketing strategies sure to boost your potential customers visiting your online store. The better your conversion rate this holiday season, the more money in your pocket!
1 – Prepare Your Holiday Deals Early
The first of the tips is to prepare your holiday deals early. If you’re looking for an edge over your competition, it’s best to start planning as early as possible. Here are some of the things you should think about:
- What product line will you be featuring during Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
- What goals do these deals need to achieve?
- How will they fit into your marketing campaign?
- Is there enough inventory available for the sale period? Do you have a plan in place in case demand exceeds supply?
It’s also essential that you know how much activity and competition is going on around Thanksgiving and Christmas for ecommerce companies like yours. Look at what your competitors are building up to and try to match or improve upon the deals provided.
2 – Create a Festive Landing Page
Landing pages are a great way to drive traffic to your website. They can also be used for lead generation, email marketing, and website optimization.
Landing pages are designed with one goal: convert visitors into customers! Unlike other types of web pages (like product listing pages), they don’t get distracted by other tasks or messages because all attention is focused on converting visitors into paying customers.
You can theme your landing pages around the holidays – like Black Friday and Cyber Monday – to further exploit the sense of shopping need your target audience will have. Even if you do not break sales records, you will at least improve your brand awareness online.
3 – Don’t Forget Email Campaigns
The third part of your BFCM strategy should be email campaigns. Email is an integral part of any holiday season, and it should be no different for you during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Don’t overlook this tactic! While it is not as flashy or exciting as some other marketing strategies, email campaigns can be highly effective if they are done right.
- Make sure that they’re automated.
- Personalize each message to each customer.
- Include a call to action.
- Make your potential buyers feel special.
- Save your templates for next season.
4 – Ramp Up Social Media Marketing
Social media is a powerful marketing tool. It’s also one of the best ways to reach your audience during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you have not started using social media for your online store, now is the time to get on board.
While you can use advertising, PPC, and photos/videos of your brand during BFCM deals, the best option is UGC (user-generated content). Host a competition for the best holiday photo with your product to generate unique and engaging marketing for free!
5 – Offer Free Shipping
Free shipping is an important factor in online shopping. It’s a great way to earn more customers and increase your sales by as much as 20%. In fact, 68% of consumers say free shipping is what changes their minds about making a purchase online.
You can offer free shipping worldwide for all products or specific product categories (like electronics). You can even offer free shipping only on certain minimum order amounts or specific shipping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
You need to pay close attention to your bottom line so you are not losing money, but if you can swing it, free shipping goes a long way to gaining more online shopping attention.
6 – Tap into Holiday Nostalgia
One of the best ways you can tap into holiday nostalgia is by using it to remind customers of the good times they had with your product. If you have a product that brings people together, like a game, for example, then this is an excellent opportunity for you to show off how fun it is to play with others.
If you don’t have much in the way of marketing collateral around happy memories shared with family and friends, now would be a great time to start brainstorming ideas! Take some time right now to think about what makes your brand special—and look at your past marketing materials with fresh eyes. You’ll be surprised by how much new creative inspiration will come out of this exercise.
7 – Match Competitor Cyber Deals
It’s also important to match competitor cyber deals. To do this, you’ll need to determine what they are doing and then decide whether you want to compete with them. If it’s a good deal that your customers will appreciate, go for it.
Remember: if you’re going to offer a discount code or coupon code on Black Friday/Cyber Monday, make sure you have enough inventory in stock before the sale begins. The last thing you want is for people who buy through your website during these sales only to have their orders cancelled because there aren’t enough products available.
8 – Display a Countdown Clock to Create Urgency
One of the most powerful ways to create a sense of urgency is to display a countdown clock. This gives your customers a clear idea of how much time they have left before you stop offering the promotion or gift, and it can be extremely effective in getting them to act quickly.
You can even go one step further by displaying how many days are left until Black Friday or Cyber Monday so that you don’t lose any potential sales for these significant shopping holidays.
9 – Upsell, Cross-sell, and Bundle Products
There are many ways to encourage customers to spend more on your store.
Offer a bundle of products together at a discount (e.g., buy one item, get the other for free). You can also try bundling complementary items (e.g., two products that complement each other).
Upsell or cross-sell related items when someone adds an item to their cart or clicks through from another product page on your site. This can be done automatically via WooCommerce plugins or manually by adding specific links in your email marketing campaigns and social media posts.
10 – Limit Your Discounts to Specific Dates
It’s important to only offer discounts on specific dates. For example, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are popular times for online shopping, so you might want to limit your discounts/promotions during those days.
As a rule of thumb, discounting products during holidays like Christmas Day and Boxing Day is also a good idea because there are more people buying gifts for others or themselves during these times of the year.
Again, you are building urgency for consumers to “act now” or lose out.
11 – Leverage Abandoned Cart Pop-ups and Email
WooCommerce provides many plugin options for abandoned carts. You can run pop-up ads offering a deeper discount to entice consumers to buy. Or you can send an email to the account they used when selecting items but did not finish the purchase.
The goal is to recapture potentially lost revenue, so you maximize BFCM holiday shopping.
12 – Bundle in a Free Gift
Instead of bundling items at a discount, create a free gift specific to BFCM. This could be a digital resource or a smaller item that doesn’t sell, and you have too much inventory on hand.
This way, you are getting a tax break from the write-off and encourage greater sales to your online WooCommerce store.
13 – Create a Gift Guide
You can create a gift guide for your store. This will help you establish yourself as an authority in the field and get more people to buy from you.
It’s also great for customer engagement, especially during Black Friday when everyone is looking for deals.
To ensure your gift guide is practical, consider researching trending products that might interest your customers and create a top 10 list based on those products.
If you need help figuring out where to start with this research, check out Amazon’s Best Seller lists or browse through blogs that talk about topics related to yours (e.g., fashion blogs).
Take Advantage of the Holiday Season
As a WooCommerce store owner, you are likely to be extremely busy during the holiday season. You’ll want to make sure that your online store is ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday by taking advantage of this seasonal opportunity to promote your products and boost sales.
There are many ways to prepare your WooCommerce store for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While the strategies outlined in this article should be considered as a starting point and not a comprehensive list, they will help prepare your ecommerce site for these two huge shopping days.
Take some time now to make sure that your online store is ready for online sales during the holidays. This will ensure that when Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around, you’ll be ready to take advantage of all the traffic coming to your site by providing customers with an easy shopping experience that drives sales!
If you are looking for a marketing partner or tools for your storefront, feel free to contact us! We will be happy to assist.
