Is Your Marketing Budget Ideal? Here’s How You Can Get Your BFCM Weekend Spend Plan Right

The holidays are an ideal time for shopping: online retailers go the extra mile to woo holiday shoppers. When it is holidays + shopping, nothing beats BFCM.

BFCM or Black Friday and Cyber Monday come in quick succession, coupled with a Saturday and Sunday, so shoppers consider it the best time to shop for products and services at discounted rates.

So, if you want to increase your sales this BFCM shopping season, planning your marketing spend is crucial. This blog contains proven tips to optimize your marketing spend plan for the BFCM weekend.

Planning BFCM Weekend Spend: 5 Proven Tips

BFCM is one of the most rewarding shopping seasons in the US. For instance, Cyber Monday 2020 witnessed sales worth $10.8 billion, while Black Friday sales figures touched $9 billion.

To add to that, a whopping 93 million American shoppers purchased products during BFCM 2019. Further, 77% of American shoppers believe that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the best days to shop for products online.

However, despite such mind-numbing sales figures, it is not always easy to attract customers - a reason why you must optimize your marketing spend before the BFCM shopping season. Check out the following tips to be better prepared:

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1. Prepare Your Website

While there are unlimited things to do before BFCM, nothing should be at the expense of a responsive, optimized website.

As an eCommerce brand, you must analyze how much traffic you can expect before, during, and after BFCM. Evaluate the audience's response to your marketing outreach and guess the maximum number of hits your website might receive.

Once you figure out the number, perform a load test to check whether your website is ready to handle the additional load or not. It is wise to collaborate with a website provider to increase uptime. For instance, Shopify has maintained an exceptional uptime rate of 99.99% since its launch.

Top brands always partner with professionals to monitor their websites during BFCM. Appoint website administrators to keep a tab on your website 24x7 and start the process at least two weeks before BFCM.

Ask the administrators to browse your website continuously and address any issues the moment they arise. Remember, the last thing you can afford during BFCM is a broken website since that may throw your revenue projections into a tizzy.

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2. Streamline Shipping

Generally, small eCommerce brands are not equipped to handle a surge in orders during BFCM. However, if they wake up late addressing the issue, it becomes immensely hard to find a shipping company to help them out.

So, if you do not plan in advance, chances are high that your customers will have to wait for days or weeks to get their products.

Shipping providers usually update their rates around this time of year. Hence, proper planning is vital to handle the surge in orders, ensure timely deliveries, and keep the shipping costs within your budget.

Spend some time finding the best shipping providers. Create a list containing their names, contact numbers, and rates. You may also use an aggregator to find the top shipping companies serving the areas you cover.

Explain your needs and ask them to quote the best rates. After getting the rates, compare which provider offers you the most savings before finalizing.

However, the rates must not be your only consideration. Check reviews and the order fulfilment record of the shipping provider before associating with them. Remember, BFCM can be an excellent time to forge long-lasting relationships with customers, and quick deliveries are the first step.

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3. Offer Aggressive Discounts

Do not forget to offer discounts if your goal is to attract and retain customers while generating revenue. Try to be a bit more aggressive when giving discounts.

For instance, the average discount offered by online retailers on Black Friday 2019 was 43.3%. The same was true for Cyber Monday, with a 40.5% discount rate. The most significant discounts were offered on apparel, housewares, jewellery, and footwear - between 50% and 60%.

At this stage, you might think you can easily offer such discounts after increasing the prices. But, today’s consumers have more options than before.

They compare multiple platforms to determine the fair market price of a product before purchasing. So, increasing the product prices to offer insane discounts might not be as easy as it seems. You must provide genuine discounts to attract customers.

Innovative eCommerce brands do not rely on BFCM to generate massive revenues. Instead, they focus more on customer acquisitions. BFCM brings about a rush of shopping-friendly people to eCommerce websites. If you can position your brand among shoppers, they will keep coming back to you for all their needs.

Hence, do not mind doling out freebies, rewards, and discounts to acquire more customers. When BFCM passes, you can send them emails or text messages to retarget and upsell your products all year round.

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4. Optimize Your Ad Campaigns and Start Early

A quick scan of previous years’ data shows that the CPM (Cost per thousand impressions) increases rapidly during BFCM. Hence, if you do not optimize your ad campaigns and start early, you might be overwhelmed later.

Invest your time and resources in designing a hype-building ad campaign and launching it on top social media platforms. Ensure to include Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Google in your marketing plan and launch your campaigns at least two weeks before BFCM.

You may also display a countdown timer and a sign-up form on your website to inform customers of special offers.

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5. Send SMSes

SMS might be old, but it is never outdated. As a fact, it is one of the most effective marketing strategies to attract customers’ attention.

Research shows that, on average, people spend a little over three hours every day checking their phones. Further, not only is the SMS open rate more than 90% but also 90% of SMSes are checked and read within three minutes of their arrival.

Hence, creating short, witty text messages must be on your priority list when approaching BFCM. Also, don’t forget to include a CTA to guide them to your store’s landing page.

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Conclusion

BFCM presents an excellent opportunity for marketers to increase sales and reach more customers. However, optimizing your marketing spending is important to attract the correct customers and achieve the desired result.

Visit Glood.ai to personalize your website and boost your sales like a pro.