Cyber Monday Marketing Strategies: 10 tips to win offline and online

Cyber Monday is the virtual twin of Black Friday. Cyber Monday marketing strategies began in 2004 as an attempt by online retailers to coax brick and mortar shoppers to buy online. Needless to say, the retail landscape has changed beyond all recognition since then and the worlds of online and offline retail have merged.

A 2016 Price Waterhouse Coopers study showed that 27% of UK consumers were interested in Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) and intended to spend, with a further 15% interested but not intending to spend. That’s a significant chunk of UK shoppers potentially responsive to your Cyber Monday marketing strategy.

Furthermore, people hold off on spending in the run up to BFCM according to the PwC study.

So this means that there’s a held-back cache of spending power that only a fit-for-purpose Cyber Monday marketing strategy can tap into.

Here are ten tips and tricks for your Cyber Monday marketing strategy.

1. Plan ahead

Planning ahead is probably the single most important thing you can do. Remember that you’re competing with the top brands here. That’s not to say things are hopeless, far from it. The reality is that most small businesses fail to plan properly for Cyber Monday. If you learn a trick or two from the big hitters you will actually put yourself ahead of the SME competition. If nothing else, make sure your website and online store are geared up to not only withstand a potential rush of visitors, but that they offer a streamlined user experience and capture as much user data as possible without being interruptive.

2. Know when to start your campaign

The trick is not to start your campaign too early or you could hit your revenue streams as customers hold off on spending in anticipation of what amazing deals you might offer them. But if you start too late you risk your customers being sucked into a competitor’s sales funnel, or you will fail to get yourself heard above the noise of an over saturated Cyber Monday marketing environment. That said, you should start thinking about your campaign as early as possible, so that nothing is left to chance.

3. Make an impact with an email campaign

Email is probably the most powerful way to connect with and sell to your existing customer base online. And that’s despite the dominance of social media communication platforms.

We recommend you start your Cyber Monday email marketing campaign 10 to 14 days before Black Friday. That gives you enough time to guarantee that your campaign gets maximum exposure.

Your email campaign should be clearly designed, using a platform like MailChimp to ensure it runs smoothly and it is automated for maximum effect… and in such a way that you don’t irritate people with unsolicited emails and spam. It should have an attractive, straightforward subject line that’s enticing without being too much of a hard sell.

4. Consider doing some offline marketing

Given that we’re focusing on Cyber Monday, the bulk of your marketing can be done online. However, if it’s relevant for your enterprise, think of real-world ways of informing your customers of your campaign. If you have a brick and mortar shop or venue, put up posters. Consider advertising outdoors on billboards, bus stop panels or similar. This shows audiences that you mean business and is a great way of sidestepping the overcrowded online marketing scene.

Our ‘plan ahead’ point applies to this step too. To guarantee the widest choice for your out-of-home advert, you should book 8-12 weeks in advance of your campaign start date.

5. Promote your ads

Unless you are a viral marketing sensation you will need a bit of extra elbow grease to get your message out there.

Paying to promote your campaign on search engines is the most effective; 64% of B2C businesses found paid promo effective, according to one study. Promoted posts such as promoted tweets were the second most effective (61%).

6. Reach out to loyal customers

Often, Cyber Monday marketing focuses on reaching new audiences and drawing new customers into your sales funnel. It’s easy to forget to think about your existing customers. Every customer goes through a customer journey with you.

For your business to really flourish your want to ensure existing customers continue to come back to buy from you.

Cyber Monday is a great time to show your customers that you haven’t forgotten about them and that you value them. Consider setting up a customer loyalty campaign, where you direct discounts or giveaways to your loyal customers. It’s up to you how you define “loyal”. This could be someone who has made a purchase and signed up to your email list, or simply someone who’s subscribed but hasn’t bought yet. Use an email manager like MailChimp to send emails to specific segments. It’s up to you how granular you want to get. The main thing is to send a message that you value your customers and want to give them extra value.

7. Focus your giveaways

One downside of Cyber Monday is that it becomes a race to the bottom. There’s no point bringing people to your shop if you’re giving away all your products. There are various ways to get round this race to the bottom.

One way to do this is to only discount specific items. This is a good way to sell seasonal stock or shift slow moving items. You don’t necessarily need to offer discounts either. One Shopify promotion saw the ecommerce provider giving away free tote bags with purchases. The bags themselves cost very little but are popular and make customers feel like they have gained extra value.

8. Run a contest

You can shake things up a bit by running a contest to coincide with Cyber Monday. Contests are great ways to excite existing customers and attract new prospects, not to mention grow your email list. The other great thing about them is that you can limit the amount of stock you actually give away by only having a few winners. The campaign still has the effect of being a general offer available to all, in the sense that each customer who enters will entertain the possibility that they may become a winner.

9. Offer free shipping

This is a fairly staple offer, but it’s popular for a reason. Many customers will expect free shipping on Cyber Monday, which is one reason to offer it if you haven’t already.

10. Reward bulk purchases

Another approach is to focus on maximising the spend of your customers by offering deals for people who spend, say, over £50. This means that the hit you take from discounting your products can be compensated for by raising average purchases.

Our top 3 Cyber Monday Marketing Tips

We’re aware that it may be resource-intensive to implement every point on this list, and that not all of them will be relevant to your business. But if you had to only implement three of these tips, we’d suggest the following.

• Plan ahead to maximise the run up to Cyber Monday
• Reach out to existing customers with a loyalty programme
• Purchase out-of-home advertising to boost exposure