Black Friday & Cyber Monday - How to Plan for the Unexpected
Submitted by Jim Davidson on November 3, 2011
There have already been a few twists on the traditional Black Friday & Cyber Monday tactics in the market this year. Many retailers have offered Black Friday deals months in advance. TigerDirect and CompUSA even have a monthly Black Friday email. Target launched a Black Friday promotion in July touting "Yeah, it’s only July, but huge Black Friday deals are on the way." A few brands such as Costco, Toys "R" Us, CVS, and Target have used "Cyber Week," "Cyber Monday," or "One Day Cyber Sale" promotions since August.
Another shift has been offering the holiday season go-to promotion of free shipping a given. Gap, Banana Republic, L.L. Bean, and even Bloomingdales are offering free shipping year round. A few have a minimum purchase requirement, but the thresholds are low. L.L. Bean gives it away with no minimum at all!
The in-store shopping experience is also breaking the mold this year. Stores are opening at midnight or wrapping up turkey dinners early and opening their doors Thanksgiving evening and staying open overnight. The Wall Street Journal recently commented "Holiday Shopping’s New Hour: Midnight." Macy’s and Target will open at midnight. Expect many other brands to follow suit.
With the biggest shopping days quickly approaching, you most likely already have your promotional and communication plan locked down. Great! Good job. Just be prepared that there maybe some kinks in the process. So, let's discuss ways that you can prep for the big days ahead and the unexpected that may come with it.
Competition:
You should already be signed up for competitors’ email programs but if not, this is the time to do so. It is important to see how they are messaging their Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers in advance of the big day. This will help you to understand any advantage that the customer may see when deciding between you and the other guys. Closely monitor their emails throughout the sales period to see if their promotions are becoming more aggressive. Have members of your team not open, open and not click, click and not purchase, and even purchase from the emails to see if the mailing frequency or promotions change based on their interactions.
Reporting:
Know where to get your results and how to get them fast! You most likely have grown accustomed to viewing your email performance data several hours or the day after a mailing deploys. On game day, you should monitor your results as they come in. Make sure that you are aware of all of the options available to you. Do a trial run for a pre-Black Friday mailing to make sure you understand the immediate trends for your mailings so you have a baseline to measure against. Doing this will help you to make informed course-correcting decisions along the way.
Resources:
Prep the troops! Make sure everyone on your team understands the importance of Black Friday and Cyber Monday to your business. Outline last year’s performance and make sure the team understands the goals for the current year. Make everyone part of the process. Discuss the expectations for availability over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Create a contact list and establish roles and responsibilities for decision making. Document any hours when resources aren’t available (when someone is flying, in the car for hours, etc...). Also, don’t forget to plan something fun for the team. Having the team know that there will be a celebration for the extra hours and effort over the holiday will help encourage a positive team spirit.
Promotional Options:
You may have already chosen the products that will be featured, the offer that will be promoted, and who you are mailing, but engagement and conversion may not take off as well as expected. Make sure you have a back-up plan. Select additional products and price points that you can offer and prep your commerce platform with secondary coupon codes or discounts. This could save you hours if the needle is moving slower than expected.
Creative Variations:
Valuable time and revenue can be lost if you need to make creative revisions during peak hours. While we as marketers can typically make quick adjustments to our segments and deploy a mailing, making creative changes can take hours to turn around. This is not the time to get stuck in a creative bottleneck. Prepare email creative alternatives in advance. This can include variations on your layout such as:
- Featured Product Mix
- Product-to-Copy Ratio
- Prominence of Calls-to-Action
- Animation
- Reminders such as "Hours Left"
- Promotional Variations
Remailing:
Hopefully you already have a remailing strategy included in your communication plan. Customers will have a huge spike in the amount of email in their inbox so make sure you have a calculated approach to your remailing. This will help decrease abuse complaints and unsubscriptions which in turn could help avoid some blocking issues. One method is to build segments based on engagement:
- Openers who have not clicked: These subscribers have shown that they are engaged yet they didn’t see anything in the email that made them interested enough to click through. Remail this group with a creative variation, changes to calls-to-action, or try using an animated image.
- Clickers who have not purchased: This is your most engaged subscriber. They were not only interested enough to open your email but also clicked. Something happened on the path to checkout that made them abandon the purchase. If you already have a high frequency communication plan laid out and want to limit the audience of your remailings, this audience will be the one to go after. Make sure you use a subject line and creative that drives to purchase. In addition to featuring your promotion, reference customer service information, your return policy, and shipping options and deadlines.
Remember that this is the season to prepare as much as possible but also accept that your plans will change and flexibility is key.
What other ways do you and your team prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
Jim Davidson
Manager of Marketing Research
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About the Author
Jim Davidson
Manager of Marketing Research
Jim Davidson helps guide Bronto clients to increase revenue and build relationships through email, mobile, and social marketing. Jim brings over 12 years of experience in online marketing, managing email and cross channel programs for top retail clients. From strategic vision to implementation, Jim has led clients to successfully meet aggressive revenue and performance goals.
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