Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and for retailers, that means a lot more than turkey dinners and pumpkin pie. As we all know, the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is the most popular time of the year for shopping. According to SEO and marketing expert Neil Patel, approximately 130 million people in the U.S. shopped over cyber weekend in 2022, and Salesforce Inc. reported that online retail sales reached $17.2 billion in the U.S. that weekend. That means that more than 100 million people will be shopping this BFCM weekend, potentially spending over $17 billion.
The question is, how do you get them to buy from you, instead of your competition?
Preparing ahead of time is essential for both brick-and-mortar and online stores to succeed this BFCM weekend. The good news is, there are lots of effective strategies you can implement to increase traffic, sales and conversions both online and in-store.
Here are my top tips for getting ready for BFCM sales:
Start Now
It takes time to put together an effective marketing campaign for the BFCM weekend, so start as early as possible on planning, optimizing, and implementing smart tactics.
Get Your Ecommerce Website Ready
Make sure your site is optimized for a spike in traffic and sales. Dotdigital predicts 94% of shoppers will do some or all of their BFCM shopping online this year, so having your site mobile-friendly and responsive to various devices is imperative. Along with responsive design, optimize your site for mobile by limiting large images and making sure clickable elements are not too close together.
Make sure your site can handle the increase in traffic, so it doesn’t go down during peak days and hours. If necessary, check with your web provider for options to upgrade your hosting plan during the holiday season.
Do a site audit and check your page load speed. You only have one or two seconds to make an impression on visitors, and a quarter of visitors will bounce if your site is even one to two seconds slower.
Increase page speed by ditching lazy loading pages, removing videos, and optimizing images by converting them to fast-loading WebP images with an online image optimization converter. Use ALT image tags and have a menu and site that is easy to navigate. Backup your website just in case.
Create holiday-focused BFCM landing pages with seasonal assets. Strategically place buttons and calls to action (CTAs) where they are prominently displayed and isolated, such as above the fold, and keep your messaging consistent. Create a sticky CTA that moves down the page as a user scrolls.
Test your CTAs in A/B testing for copy as well as button shape, size, color and placement. This can increase conversions by 25%.
Get Your Store Ready
Brick-and-mortar stores can offer online ordering, local pickup options and buy-in-person exclusive deals with limited quantities. Use QR codes to help customers access your offers and promos. Don’t forget to update your holiday hours.
Optimize your Google Biz profile for brick-and-mortar stores so you get Google and Yelp reviews for your biz and rank higher. Have local biz schema markup on the location pages of your site and add your store to local biz pages like Yellow Pages.
Tailor the Customer Journey to the Holiday
The customer journey is a crucial part of your sales funnel. It includes increasing awareness of your brand, generating interest in and desire for your product, and encouraging customers to take action by making a purchase. The first two steps in the customer journey can be customized to take advantage of BFCM weekend. Increase awareness by creating dedicated seasonal landing pages on your site with attention-grabbing headlines, eye-catching visuals and copy that reflects the holiday season. Generate interest to make them stay on your page, by offering special holiday sale bundles, deals and promotions. According to the National Retail Federation, free shipping was the biggest factor (49%) influencing buyer decision-making during BFCM 2021, ahead of promotions and limited-time sales (36%) and an intuitive website or app (21%).
Things to Avoid
- Too many images or slow-loading images.
- Videos that slow the page load speed.
- Flash.
- Pop-ups: These irritate customers, so use them only when people are getting ready to leave the site and keep their use to a minimum.
There’s a lot to think about as you prepare for BFCM weekend and the holiday season, so get started today — like right now! — to make sure you get your slice of that $17 billion pumpkin pie. Let’s make this Black Friday weekend your best ever!