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Making the Most of Black Friday & Cyber Monday

25 November 2016 10:16

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are finally here! But what are these spurious dates? What do retailers tend to do? And how can you make the most of these festive highlights of the eCommerce calendar?

What is Black Friday & Cyber Monday? 

Black Friday is an unofficial holiday that is hosted on the day following the US Thanksgiving. It originated in the United States in 1932 and has been known as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Recently, Black Friday has expanded outside the US into the UK, Canada and many other parts of the word. A lot of major retailers host Black Friday promotional sales where they sell their products/services at a reduced price for the day. Many stores open early and close late, some even stay open all night. This is because Black Friday Sales have been seen as a great way to boost sales and to gain new customers. 

Cyber Monday is a tradition where online retailers and eCommerce businesses host sales where they reduce their prices three days after Black Friday. It was created by marketing companies to try to get more people to shop online. According to Shop.org, 77% of online retailers said that their sales increased substantially on the Monday after Thanksgiving.' Cyber Monday deals are only for online purchases and are usually for smaller businesses who can't compete with the bigger retailers on Black Friday.

What methods do online retailers use?

On Black Friday you will see eCommerce stores employ a variety of well-tried and tested online marketing methods:

Site Wide Discounts / Voucher Codes

Online sales are up 45% in 2016. Many eCommerce stores are adding vouchers and discount codes and in some cases, even entire site re-designs to capitalise on this growing market and to promote their Black Friday Sales. 

HTML Emails

The days leading to and on Black Friday, businesses are taking advantage of HTML email campaigns to advertise their sales and to send out their vouchers and discount codes. It is important to have a good email campaign. Personalised emails improve click-through rates by 14% and emails with personalised subject lines are 36% more likely to be opened.

Check out this blog post to learn more about email marketing. 

Encourage brand engagement

As an online seller, at the end of the day you are keen for customers to engage with you on other occasions besides Black Friday. By using strategies such as promoting email sign up or blog subscriptions, you can encourage your Black Friday customers to interact with your brand, whatever the season.   

How to make the most of Black Friday?

It’s easy to be overwhelmed or even think that you have missed the date. It’s not too late. Our advice is to choose one simple marketing method and employ this consistently. Worried that you've missed today? No need for concern, there is always Cyber Monday...  

Can we help?

If you have any questions about Black Friday or if you want further advice about online marketing in the run up to Christmas, do not hesitate to get in touch with our team of eCommerce specialists.

 


Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Monday 

http://www.outerboxdtesign.com/web-design-articles/mobile-ecommerce-statistics

https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2016/01/70-email-marketing-stats-you-need-to-know/