Chances are, the holiday season is going to look different this year than it did in 2020. It will probably also look different than it did in 2019. For eCommerce brands, building a marketing strategy for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the rest of Q4 will be challenging in the face of so much uncertainty.
In July, Yotpo hosted “Black Friday/Cyber Monday Strategy With ThirdLove,” a Destination Online event where we talked about loyalty, pandemic trends, and how to navigate the holiday shopping season with Rebecca Traverzo, ThirdLove’s VP of Marketing. And the attendees — many of them from small brands — had questions and concerns.
We rounded up the top takeaways from this online event, along with advice, to help you create a successful Black Friday/Cyber Monday marketing strategy.
Black Friday won’t look like other years in 2021
We asked the brands in attendance what they thought Black Friday/Cyber Monday would look like this year, and the vast majority — 44% — thought it would be somewhere between 2019 and 2020. More thought this year would look like 2020 (30%) than 2019 (just 11%).
Revenue is still the top goal for brands on Black Friday
When asked about the top metric for Black Friday/Cyber Monday, revenue won by a landslide, with SMS/email/loyalty signups a distant second at 13%, with AOV not far behind at 10%.
When it comes to holiday shopping promotions, timing is the big question
We fielded a lot of questions during the event, but the issue on most brands’ minds was when to roll out Black Friday campaigns. Shoppers bought earlier last year due to shipping delays and fulfillment issues, and while they are expected to start later this year, the timeframe will probably still start earlier than in normal years.
The entire month of November is fair game for Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions. It’s best to tease out smaller offers throughout the month and save your highest value promos for the week of. And if your brand isn’t already using SMS, the holiday season is a great time to start. Because SMS is such an engaging, immediate channel — the average open rate is a whopping 98%, and 90% of messages are read within three minutes — it lends itself well to limited-time offers. It also provides a unique opportunity to leverage data to create personalized messages and flows to boost conversion.
Brands want to know how to best leverage their marketing channels on Black Friday/Cyber Monday
After “when?” the question on many brands’ minds was “how?” — specifically, how to leverage individual channels like social, loyalty programs, and email most effectively. Here are some tips:
- Social: Get creative! Try offering limited-time promos on TikTok and Instagram Stories. Ephemeral content drives urgency and engagement.
- Loyalty: Offer early access to Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions to loyalty members, and urge them to use their points to treat themselves during the busy season.
- Email: Use email effectively to promote offers, first by teasing them, then announcing them, followed by one last chance email.
The most effective holiday marketing strategy utilizes all of your available marketing channels. An omnichannel strategy allows you to meet customers where they are, whether that’s on their phones in the checkout line, on their desktop at work, or browsing their social channels.
