An effective Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) marketing strategy is needed more than ever. 

‍Statistics show shoppers' interest in Black Friday dropped from 61% in 2022 to 44% in 2023. This implies that the market has become much more competitive, with brands trying to get attention from a smaller group of target customers.

Although less concrete evidence suggests clear trends in shoppers' interest in the holiday season 2024, it’s advisable to prepare early with the proper marketing to make the most of BFCM in 2024. 

Why is BFCM the most important season for online/e-commerce businesses?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday is a tradition for Americans. Like you plan holiday meals, shoppers plan their holiday shopping, making it a critical time for e-commerce businesses. 

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) drive potentially the year's highest sales. It is not just about driving revenue but capturing a massive audience ready to purchase. This shopping season gives e-commerce or direct-to-customer (DTC) businesses a unique chance to reach new customers. Once you get them in the door, you can convert them into loyal customers through lucrative deals. 

A well-thought-out BFCM marketing strategy puts your brand front and center, solidifying your position in the market. During this promotional sale, you can clear out the old inventory and restock it with fresh products. You’re on a level playing field with your competitors at this time since they’re putting in their best efforts to drive sales.

Every online and retail consumer brand's primary goal is to boost sales during the BFCM season. The data doesn't lie, either. Based on statistical data from PwC, nearly half of the surveyed users intend to increase their online spending over the next six months. The differentiators would be how you plan the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales to drive maximum business for your e-commerce store.

Sales during this time of the year increased by roughly 189%, making a strong case for brands to develop a comprehensive BFCM marketing strategy to capture the rising demand.

How to plan for a successful Black Friday 2024

The only and arguably the most popular way to plan a Black Friday and Cyber Monday is to consider customers' needs, expectations, and behavior. Think about or research how modern customers make purchases, especially during the holiday season. 

For example, when PwC asked customers to identify their research preferences, 54% said they preferred search engines to source pre-purchase information. 35% of people preferred researching on Amazon marketplace, while 33% of shoppers went straight to the individual retailers’ websites.

This means you must be present in all the above places to attract shoppers' attention. Remember, it’s not a one-size-fits-all plan. Take cues from what’s worked for you in the past and use these insights to create a Black Friday and Cyber Monday strategy.  

Below is a high-level checklist that you can use to tick boxes when ideating and strategizing your BFCM marketing plans.

• Start to sell early. Don’t wait for the actual Black Friday to arrive. Instead, introduce early-bird offers before you go in for your big day. The selling and purchasing trends tend to change every year. You need to start testing early to understand what’s working. Moreover, starting your sale lets you engage customers for longer, offering you several repeat sales opportunities. Relo makes it easier to drive repeat revenue into your e-commerce business, especially if you’re selling products that need replenishment, like F&B and beauty products. It gives you precise insights to target customers for reorder. 
• Choose the product you’ll promote. Refer to your data from last year to pick the product you’ll promote this year. Focus on what sold well and clear out your old stock with discounts. If you observe, many brands offer discounts only on some specific items, but they promote them as upcoming deals. This excites customers about the upcoming deals, ensuring they’ll keep purchasing in the subsequent months. 
• Give customers great deals. If you’re selling in a competitive market, give your customers bigger and better discounts. These give you more chances to sell while adding upsell opportunities in the foreseeable future. When you offer customers a genuinely valuable deal, it adds to customer loyalty. BFCM promotions might look like discounts on steroids, but in reality, these are ways to draw in new shoppers who may not have considered your product or services otherwise. 
• Reward loyal customers. Think of ways to make your past customers feel valued when they’re ready to shop again during the holiday season. You can offer them free products or special coupons for discounts, or maybe an extended period of special service that you aren’t offering to new customers. Peel Insights will help you identify your champion, loyal, potentially loyal customers, and several other types of customer segments. 
• Plan shipping. The whole setup of the BFCM strategy can easily backfire if customers don’t get their orders on time. The worst situation would be when the order never reaches the customers. Make sure your shipping is planned and you can inform your customers about an expected date before you scale up your orders in the holiday season. 
• Keep everything on schedule. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are special events that occur on specific dates. You need to ensure your entire strategy, promotions, and discounts are effectively scheduled to attract maximum attention from people. 
• Keep your past customers posted. As an e-commerce business owner, you likely have an e-mail list for direct customer communication. Before launching any BFCM marketing campaign or deals, reach out to your past customers in advance and let them know about it. When you deliver such news early, these customers will feel valued, and most importantly, they will feel encouraged to make purchases when the sale goes live. SmartrMail will help you reach out to customers via emails with personalized messaging based on their segment. 
• Offer omnichannel customer support. Set up customer support tools that let your customers communicate through multiple channels. It’s advisable to deploy chatbots to ensure no customer query goes unanswered. Omnichannel customer communication software will help you take inquiries on your website, social media, email, or phone and will help you deliver memorable experiences to shoppers. 
• Prepare for high traffic. Your website's traffic will increase. Make sure you have a plan to scale up as user traffic increases. Up-time and availability are crucial during the holiday sales, as any slowdown or crash can quickly lead to lost revenue. 
• Deliver excellent customer experiences. The holiday season is your chance to meet new customers. Take care of their experience to turn them into your product or service champions. Consider simplifying checkout processes, creating a more accessible return policy, and offering seamless navigation.

20 Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing strategies for 2024

The PwC customer survey suggests shoppers buy directly from brands’ websites lately instead of marketplaces. 63% of consumers purchased products directly from the website, and 29% of shoppers consider the DTC option. This shift in consumer preference benefits you since you have more control over your e-commerce store and can apply innovative marketing strategies. 

When you’re looking to capitalize on the trends this BFCM season, here are a few strategies that can increase revenue opportunities. 

1. Use social proof push notifications to create FOMO

When you use social proof to create a fear of missing out (FOMO) in shoppers, they’re more likely to feel that they must act quickly to avoid missing out on a popular deal. In a BFCM sale, you need the customers to make decisions quickly. 

Showing how many people view a product or have recently purchased it taps into the herd mentality. When potential customers see that others are actively buying or showing interest in a product, they’re encouraged to purchase to grab the deal quickly. 

You can deliver such social proof notifications using Fomo, a social proof marketing and push notification software. E-commerce stores like Petzyo have increased their sales using the software. 

The software automates notifications that show shoppers other people’s actions on the website. When shoppers feel that others are snapping up deals, it heightens the product's perceived value and can lead to quicker purchasing decisions.

Learn more about how SingleSwag added $114.24K to their sales with Fomo. 

‍

2. Create a BFCM landing page

With a dedicated BFCM landing page, you can effectively personalize messaging and deals, specifically curated from Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Moreover, you can optimize this page for relevant keywords like “Black Friday deals” or “Cyber Monday discounts,” helping you capture the demand on search engines.

Since it would be a dedicated page, optimizing its content would be easier, increasing its visibility. You can A/B test different page elements for conversion rate optimization, allowing you to optimize for conversion events. 

Here’s an example of Young and Reckless’s landing page slashing their prices for a Cyber Monday sale.

‍

This will also give you more control to try something new, like putting up specific social media feed just about BFCM on a website with tons of user-generated content. This content generated by your customers will add credibility to your brand. 

3. Put live social media feed on landing pages

A live social media feed on your landing pages brings real-time engagement. It creates a dynamic and interactive experience for visitors. You can show posts, tweets, or customer reviews full of content from people actively participating in the BFCM buzz. 

It makes the deals feel more relevant and timely, increasing visitors' excitement and urgency to take advantage of the offers.

You can add a live social media feed to a website using Flockler. It’s super easy to configure. Just answer a few questions from the bot, and as soon as the conversation closes, you’ll be able to add the social media feed on any website or landing page. 

These feeds accumulate social proof.  When visitors see others discussing your deals, sharing their purchases, or expressing excitement, it builds trust for your brand. This peer influence can be a powerful motivator, as people are more likely to take action when they see others doing the same. 

Here’s an example of Opus Art Gallery showing its live social media feed on the website. 

‍

It creates a viral effect, increasing your store's campaign visibility and BFCM sales.

4. Create a Black Friday and Cyber Monday contest

Contest boosts excitement around your brand. It gives people a reason to pay attention to your promotions in a fun and exciting way. People love a chance to win, especially if it’s a holiday-themed competition. 

It resonates with their value for tradition and gives them a chance to win something, attracting their interest in your brand. Running a BFCM contest and promoting it well on social media creates a buzz, attracting more people to your store. It might even bring in new customers. 

Here’s an example of a photo contest from CatSnacks. 

When shoppers come in through a lively experience, they explore and might purchase your offerings, especially when they get lucrative discounts on BFCM deals.

5. Grow your BFCM email list

Emails offer a direct way to communicate with your customers. It’s a direct line through which you can keep shoppers updated about the latest BFCM deals you’re running on the website. 

This wonderfully engages your loyal customers and keeps the speculating ones aware of the deals they’re currently missing. It creates FOMO and the possibility that they could miss buying a product at discounted prices. 

Based on your cohort of customers, you can segment the email lists on email marketing software like Smartrmail and send personalized communication to them based on their previous purchases or behavior in your store. 

TABB Apparel used Smartrmail to achieve decent results from their email marketing efforts. Read the full story. 

‍

‍

6. Personalize BFCM marketing campaigns

People are more likely to respond to marketing that speaks directly to their needs and interests. You can use data like past purchases, browsing history, or demographics to create personalized customer offers. 

This increases the likelihood that they will take action, whether clicking on a link, making a purchase, or sharing your offer with others. This personalization helps you stand out in the crowded market, allowing you to win deals amid high competition in events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales. 

It helps you expand your offerings beyond generic promotions, keeping customers’ specific interests in mind. This grabs their attention. Software like Relo tracks customers’ purchases and activity, giving you insights into when they’re ready for reorder, and attracting repeat revenue for your business. 

‍

7. Check your website health

When you run BFCM marketing campaigns, you get substantial traffic on your website. It’s your responsibility to give them a seamless shopping experience to make sense of the resources you invested to drive this traffic. 

If your website’s health is poor, it might crash or slow down at peak times. This leads to revenue loss and, most importantly, frustrates customers, who might refrain from purchasing from you because their experience suffered. 

Below are a few things you can do to assess your website’s health. 

• Check page speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights
• See to it that the website is responsive on mobile devices. There are free tools you can use to verify this. 
• Conduct a link and page analysis on any SEO software. Ensure your links work as they’re supposed to and that there aren’t duplicate pages or pages with 404 errors.
• Lastly, make sure you have an active firewall to prevent malicious traffic from messing with your website. 

These steps are basic checks you can do. If you feel issues beyond these on your website, it’s best to seek professional help before you go in for a BFCM sale. 

8. Reduce abandoned carts through push notifications

Abandoned carts are common to see in e-commerce. This results from a shopper being on the fence regarding their purchasing decision. In a BFCM sale, you cannot have shoppers abandon their carts when you have invested dollars in attracting them to your website. When you observe such things, try to understand the cause.

If they’re on the fence regarding trust, quality, or experience issues, social proof will help them move closer to purchase. Based on the events on your store, you can show them how many people are currently purchasing the product. Consider showing them reviews, testimonials, and other user-generated content (UGC) to establish credibility. Fomo can help you deliver social proof when they’re on the website. 

If buyers move outside the store, automated emails will help you bring them in. They would gently nudge, encouraging them to return and complete their purchase. However, there can be many reasons why shoppers abandon their carts. 

26% of online shoppers abandon their carts because the site wants them to create an account. Statista shows various other reasons for shoppers abandoning their carts while shopping online. 

‍

‍

To eliminate these issues, look at these reasons and ensure your store has relevant features or content. 

9. Make your retargeting more effective

BFCM sales are fierce. It’s competitive, requiring you to invest intensively. However, you can’t let the prospect slide when it doesn't convert into sales. You need to recapture lost sales when shoppers slip away from making immediate purchases.

You can do this by retargeting customers with personalized offers. Look at their journey and the products they added to their carts and remind them about them. Consider creating more lucrative deals that inspire them to move forward with the purchase. 

Retaining customers interested in your products will be cheaper than acquiring new ones. You can run retargeting ads and get customers back on your store at a fraction of what you’ll invest in acquiring a new customer. 

10. Promote deals on social media

People spend a lot of time on social media platforms, especially during the holiday shopping season. By sharing your BFCM deals there, you can capture the attention of potential customers. 

Promoting on social media can create excitement around your deals by using eye-catching visuals and engaging captions. It helps your posts stand out in busy feeds, encouraging people to click and explore your offers. 

You can run hashtag campaigns around your BFCM sale. This will bring in more UGC from shoppers, encouraging others to participate. Later, you can put this campaign on your website, where it will continue to influence shoppers with social proof. 

Here’s an example of a hashtag campaign on the Waterloo Catholic District School Board. 

‍

11. Create a loyalty program

During the BFCM sales, many shoppers are looking for the best deals, and a loyalty program can give them an extra reason to choose your brand over others. A loyalty program rewards customers for their purchases, making them feel appreciated and valued. 

When customers know they can earn points, discounts, or exclusive perks by shopping with you during BFCM, they are more likely to make a purchase and return in the future. There are software like Peel Insights that helps you get in-depth insights into customers’ journeys with a company. You can use these insights to give shoppers what they expect while increasing their lifetime value. 

‍

‍

Loyalty programs help collect valuable data on your customers' shopping habits. It enables you to personalize your marketing efforts, making your BFCM campaigns even more effective

12. Optimize for mobile commerce

If your website and marketing efforts aren’t mobile-friendly, you risk losing potential sales during this peak shopping period. Mobile optimization ensures your website loads quickly and functions smoothly on smartphones and tablets. A slow or clunky mobile experience frustrates customers, leading them to abandon your site and shop elsewhere. 

The chart below suggests the sales distribution on desktop and mobile devices during BFCM sales.

‍

‍

During BFCM, people are often on the go, checking deals on their phones throughout the day. Customers are more likely to complete their purchases if your site is easy to navigate and your checkout process is simple on mobile.

13. Offer bundle discounts

When you offer a discount on a group of products purchased together, you encourage customers to buy more items than originally planned. Bundle discounts make customers feel like they’re getting a better deal, which can lead to higher spending. 

For example, if someone plans to buy just one item, a bundle offer might convince them to add more products to their cart to take advantage of the discount. This strategy increases the average order value, helping you expand revenue. It also helps you move more inventory, mainly if you include items that might not sell as quickly on their own. 

14. Make navigation easier

Easy navigation ensures that customers can move through your site smoothly. Clear menus, simple categories, and a robust search function allow them to find products and deals without confusion. When customers can quickly locate what they want, they are more likely to stay on your site and make a purchase.

Here’s an example of what easy navigation looks like. MAC Cosmetics provides an easy way of choosing free samples and gifts on the checkout page. Moreover, it offers multiple options to pay clearly, allowing users to make the payment quickly through PayPal. 

A well-organized website feels professional and trustworthy, increasing customer confidence and encouraging them to complete their purchase. 

When time is of the essence, and the competition is high during BFCM sales, easy navigation gives you an edge. 

15. Invest thoughtfully in ads

When you invest in ads, you can target specific audiences based on their interests, behaviors, and demographics. This means you can reach potential customers most likely interested in your products, increasing the chances of making a sale. 

With the right targeting, your ads bring in new customers who might not know your brand. 

Below are various ads you can use to promote BFCM sales and how they influence purchasing decisions.  

‍

Use the above data to decide on the type of ads you want to invest in. 

Other notable Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing strategies

Below are a few additional Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing strategies you should consider to run effective campaigns. 

1. Offer a “Deal of the Hour.” When you offer a special discount that changes every hour, you encourage shoppers to check back regularly, increasing their chances of purchasing.
2. Use the Black Friday spin wheel. Beyond excitement, the spin wheel adds an element of gamification to your marketing, which can keep customers on your site longer and increase the chances of them making a purchase. 
3. Use a minimum purchase promo. This type of promotion offers customers a special discount, free shipping, or a gift, but only if they spend a certain amount of money in a single transaction.
4. Try countdown timers for limited-time promos. A countdown timer shows customers that the deal is only available for a limited time, encouraging them to act fast before the offer expires.‍
5. Tease your next campaign. Sneak peeks about upcoming deals or product launches create a curiosity that keeps customers eager for more. This anticipation makes your campaign launch more impactful, as people will be waiting with heightened interest to see what you have in store.

8 examples of brands that have made BFCM sales right

These brands have successfully pulled off BFCM campaigns. Let’s look at them and understand how they did it. 

1. Apple gave gift cards

Apple, the renowned tech giant, announced that it would give shoppers an Apple gift card when they purchase eligible items. The offer started on Black Friday and was valid for four days. 

‍

2. Nguyen Coffee Supply bundled products for BFCM

Nguyen Coffee Supply, America's first specialty Vietnamese coffee importer and roaster, offered bundled products in its Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales to boost its revenue numbers. 

‍

3. Bowmar Nutrition collaborated with content creators

Bowmar Nutrition, a health supplements brand in the U.S., partnered with a content creator to show off its BFCM sale. They got decent likes and reasonable engagement in comments.

4. SUBKSHOP announced giveaways

SUBKSHOP, an online K-Pop store, announced a dream cart giveaway for its BFCM sale, which attracted tons of engagement from users on its Instagram page. 

‍

5. OCEANSAPART offered discounts on limited edition products

OCEANSAPART, a clothing brand that makes fashionable and comfortable activewear for women, offered its limited edition products at a discounted price during the Black Friday sale. 

‍

6. Cartier offered extended returns

Cartier, a luxury consumer products brand, extended its return period for the products purchased during holidays. 

‍

7. BB Dakota slashed its prices to half

BB Dakota, a modern lifestyle brand, slashed the price of its products by half for Black Friday. The brand announced this on its website and through other channels. 

‍

‍

8. Kosas Cosmetics gave tired discounts

Kosas Cosmetics offered tired discounts on its product ranges and bundles across the website for the Black Friday sale.

‍

How to track and measure the success of BFCM Marketing Campaigns

There are several performance metrics you can track in an e-commerce store. However, it might be distracting when looking to achieve a specific goal during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. 

Below are a few metrics that will give you more BFCM-specific insights.

• Revenue. Visualize your revenue trends during the holiday season. Study the profit margins and evaluate whether they’re trending up compared to the previous year's sales. Tools like Peel Insights will come in handy to visualize total sales and gross revenue over a period of time. They will also help you analyze the retention and the reorder rate. 
• Sales channels. Based on the advertising costs spent on each, identify the return on investment for each sales channel. Double down on those channels that are bringing in more qualified leads. Don’t just limit your analysis to how channels are attracting customers. But dig a level deeper. Understand what happens to these customers after they make a purchase. Check if they make repeat purchases or if it’s just a one-time impulsive order. It’s advisable to monitor the cancellation rate too, for customers coming in from a particular channel. Impulsive purchases might lead to a higher cancellation rate later. Peel Insights will help you identify the channels that drive maximum average order value, lifetime value, and higher first-time value. 
• Product. Understand how your products are performing and analyze their profit margins. Once you get the most popular product, it’s advisable to maintain its stock. This analysis will also give you insights into what could help other products perform better. 
• Customer behavior metrics. Monitor your pages' click-through rate, page views, and session duration while running the BFCM sale. Compare that with performance on other pages to make the necessary optimizations for visibility and conversions. This analysis will help you find the peak shopping time. Ideally, it would be when you get maximum website traffic. You can configure the best deals in your store based on the peak shopping time.
• Cart abandonment. Cart abandonment burns customer acquisition costs but doesn’t generate revenue. You need to analyze what’s causing people to abandon carts, whether it’s a problem in the checkout process or simply shoppers’ negligence. You need to try retargeting these customers, as they have shown interest earlier and might need more nudges to purchase.
• Slow-moving products. Identify the products that are moving considerably slower than others. This will help you create new bundles and discounts. BFCM is one of the biggest sales companies, and discounting and bundling products will help you push out existing inventory faster.
• Stock turnover. Understand how quickly your stocks are moving. If some product sells faster, you must restock it before it goes out of stock.

‍

Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale - FAQs

Below are some questions e-commerce store owners and marketers ask about Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing strategies. 

‍1. How should I collect data leading up to BFCM?

Use retention analytics tools like Peel Insights to visualize all data regarding your BFCM campaigns. You’ll be able to visualize the entire customer journey and get insights into total revenue, repeat revenue, audience overlaps, and opportunities to increase customers' lifetime value. 

‍2. How to increase shoppers’ interest in our BFCM sale?

‍You need to use your current channels to increase traction in your store. Optimize strategies to capture demand on the search engine results page, social channels, and other places shoppers spend most of their time. Modify the call-to-action to attract more subscribers by giving social proof of existing subscribers and showing them how they benefit from exclusive discounts.

‍3. What content or messages should I send between BFCM and Christmas?

‍Engage the new customers who came in through your BFCM campaigns with discounts and exclusive deals. Encourage repeat purchases through special offers, especially during the holiday week. I prefer running email campaigns, as they’re a suitable mode for direct communication. Smartrmail can help you set up these email campaigns for different customer segments while ensuring personalization in offers, product ranges, and relevant discounts.

‍4. Should I use segmentation when sending text messages and emails?

‍Yes, definitely. Segmentation will help you personalize offers based on shoppers’ interests, past purchases, behavior, and demographics. Personalized offers will give shoppers more exclusive deals, increasing your chances of conversions. 

Make the most of this holiday season.

Although shoppers' interest is on the lower side in BFCM based on trends from previous years, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t push the revenue numbers you aspire to. Marketing has the power to generate interest and demand, provided that you do it right. Follow the abovementioned strategies to ideate, plan, and execute your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales with the right marketing strategies. 

Cheers to a fruitful holiday season for your store.

Subscribe to our newsletter and receive effective marketing tactics crafted thoughtfully with love.