The Ultimate BFCM Marketing Guide for Shopify

The holidays are a hectic time for everyone, but especially for eCommerce businesses. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday right around the corner, now is the time to start planning your marketing strategy if you want to make the most of these two huge shopping holidays.

Luckily, we’ve put together the ultimate eCommerce marketing guide for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so you can make sure your business is ready for holiday shoppers. From creating attractive deals and discounts to using social media and email marketing effectively, this guide covers everything you need to know to make the most of these two important shopping days.

Why do you need a Black Friday strategy?

A Black Friday eCommerce strategy is a plan for how you will market your business and products during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales period. This usually includes creating attractive deals and discounts and promoting these offers through social media, email marketing, and other channels.

Customers anticipate discounts and specials from their preferred businesses. They respond by lavishly rewarding companies. On Black Friday in 2021, US consumers

 spent $9.03 billion.

A follow-up to Black Friday, known as Cyber Monday, when online businesses unveil their greatest deals, was born with the advent of eCommerce. With $10.90 billion in sales, Cyber Monday actually outperformed Black Friday in terms of consumer spending in the United States last year.

Together, these two holidays can generate an influx of traffic to your eCommerce site. With a strong Black Friday eCommerce plan in place, you should be ready.

Remember, marketing is not just about getting your message out to potential customers but also making sure that all your tools are in place to make the most of the opportunity when they are ready to buy. From website design and functionality to effective sales campaigns, these tips will help you make the most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday – two of the year’s busiest shopping days.

Optimize your Shopify Store for the traffic surge

There are a few key things that you can do to optimize your eCommerce site for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Here are some tips:

  • Make sure your site is fast and responsive: This is one of the most important things you can do to ensure a successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Your site needs to be able to handle the influx of traffic without slowing down or becoming unresponsive.

Say you are a customer and encounter an error message when trying to buy something on your site. How would you feel? You would be frustrated and likely go elsewhere. This is why site speed is so important, not just on Black Friday and Cyber Monday but all year round.

Testing your traffic capacity may seem difficult, but many tools are available to help you do this, such as LoadImpact and Pingdom. These tools will help you determine whether your site can handle the expected traffic on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

This is very important as 1 out of 2 shoppers will not return to a site if it is too slow. You will lose potential customers and sales if your site is not fast.

  • Have a sale or offer special discounts: Of course, one of the best ways to attract customers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday is to offer them special

deals and discounts. This is a great time to clear out old inventory or offer steep discounts on popular items.

Whatever you do, make sure that your sale prices are clearly visible on your site. You don’t want potential customers to have to hunt for the deals.

Creating a sales campaign strategy before the sale begins is the best way to go about this. You want to plan and test different versions of the sale to see which works best for your customers.

You can use tools or plugins such as Bulk Discount & Sales Manager by Amai with your eCommerce shop. This Shopify app makes creating and managing sales, offers, and discounts on your site easy.

Create sales and discount campaigns and schedule them in advance so everything is ready to go when the sale starts. This will save you a lot of time and stress on the day of the sale.

  • Make sure your site is secure: With all the increased traffic and activity, it’s important to ensure that your site is secure. This is the time of year when hackers are most likely to try and take advantage of vulnerabilities in sites.

Make sure that your site has a good security system in place, such as an SSL certificate. This will help to protect your site and your customers’ information.

You can also use a security plugin or service such as Sucuri to help secure your site. Sucuri offers malware removal and protection, as well as security hardening and monitoring.

  • Have a plan for dealing with customer service issues: With the increased traffic and sales comes to an increase in customer service issues. Be prepared for this by having a plan in place for how you will deal with customer service issues. This may include having additional staff on hand to help with customer service or using a live chat tool to help answer customers’ questions in real time.

Whatever you do, make sure that your customer service team is prepared for the increase in the volume of questions and issues. Having a plan in place will help to ensure that your customers are taken care of and that any issues are dealt with quickly.

  • Have an SEO strategy: Make sure that your site is prepared for increased traffic by having an SEO strategy in place. This may include optimizing your site for certain keywords and making sure that your site is mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. You want to make it as easy as possible for potential customers to find your site and make a purchase.

You can use tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics to help you with your SEO efforts. These tools will help you track your progress and make necessary changes.

How to create ‘must-have’ offers for customers

When it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you want to create a sense of urgency for potential customers. This may include your site countdown timers or email blasts about the sale. You want to make sure that potential customers know about the sale and are motivated to take advantage of the deals before they expire.

Users are more inclined to buy something today if they believe they won’t be able to get it tomorrow. To further understand how scarcity affects perception, researchers Adewole, Worchel, and Lee carried out a study in 1975.

They used cookie jars, some of which were nearly empty, while others had a few cookies left. They found that people valued the nearly empty jars more highly than those with a few cookies left. The reason is that people believe there are fewer opportunities to get something when it’s scarce.

When you use scarcity in your marketing, you create a sense of urgency that encourages people to take action now rather than later.

The best tool for the job, especially for Shopify Merchants, is the Sales Countdown timer for Shopify, it’s the most modern and effective way to create urgency and encourage people to buy before it’s too late.

With just a few clicks, it can easily add a beautiful countdown timer on top of your eCommerce website. It’s fully customizable; the best part is that it can be viewed on any device, including mobile.

Leverage the power of affiliates and influencers

A recent survey found that 8% of shoppers bought something because of an influencer recommendation, and that number is only going to grow.

When it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, partnering with social media influencers can help you reach a larger audience and generate more sales.

You can find potential influencers by searching for relevant hashtags on social media or using an influencer marketing platform such as BuzzSumo or Upfluence. Once you’ve found some potential partners, reach out to them and see if they’re interested in working with you.

When partnering with influencers, make sure that you clearly define the goals of the partnership and what you expect from them. You should also agree on a compensation plan upfront. Once you’ve found some partners that you’re happy with, start promoting your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals through their channels.

Final Thoughts

As the holidays approach, eCommerce businesses need to start preparing for the biggest shopping days of the year: Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

There are a few key things you can do to prepare for these days, such as making sure your site is fast and responsive, offering special discounts and deals, and having a  plan for dealing with customer service issues. You should also have an SEO strategy in place to help potential customers find your site.

Creating a sense of urgency can also be helpful in getting people to take advantage of your deals before they expire. One way to do this is by partnering with social media influencers and promoting your deals through their channels.

By following these tips, you can optimize your eCommerce site for Black Friday and Cyber Monday and take advantage of the huge amount of traffic and sales that these days bring.