The best season to target more sales is the BFCM. For the eCommerce industry, the holiday season (BFCM) is a world cup match.
In 2018, with close to 7.9 billion U.S. dollars spent on online shopping, Cyber Monday became the biggest U.S. online shopping day ever.
As an eCommerce business owner, you need a solid business analytics software that takes care of everything at your desk to make decisions and build profitable Black Friday marketing strategies.
Shooting in the dark won’t get you results. You have to be data-driven to make educated guesses to make profits that you desire and deserve. In this post, you will discover not just the Black Friday marketing ideas but the actual actionable steps on how data can be used this BFCM.
1 Tool, 8 Hacks
We at Putler have curated eight hacks that you can take action on right away!
Putler takes care of all of your business analytics and Black Friday reports. It runs on auto-pilot mode, gathering and visualizing the data from the different sources and provides you reports at a single glance.
Let’s dive into implementing Holiday Season strategies using Putler:
Hack 1: Identify the best selling time on your store
Identifying the best times of the week to target the customers is a tough task that is not available with the other analytical tools.
Putler specializes in showing the heatmap of the sales in a week so that you can plan a Black Friday strategy accordingly.
Go to Sales Dashboard > Check out the heatmap on the right side of the screen showing the sales intensity at different hours of the clock.
Hack 2: What worked last year, will it work this year or not?
The customers’ sales behaviour won’t stand the same every year. It will change based on their purchase power, trends, offers available from the competitor, and due to the change in taste and preferences.
If you don’t have Putler, you may have to put the sales graphs, excel sheets in front of you without and do the comparison manually.
But with Putler, this task is a breeze!
Putler has a new insights option on its dashboard that compares the sales revenues between two specified timelines.
Go to Insights Dashboard > Click on the dropdown > Change it to ‘Holiday Season Comparison’. A similar window as shown below will appear. Do your comparisons right on a single screen, summarized.
Hack 3: Who is more likely to take my offer?
Imagine what if you knew the customers that would take your offer? Wouldn’t that be super cool?
It would cut you all the extra work and help you reach out to customers who will definitely take your offer. Right?
Well, the way you identify such customers is really simple. They are called discount buyers. They are a special category of customers who buy whenever there is a discount.
Now if you don’t have Putler, you will have to go into your database, check orders and manually find out the customers who have purchased during the last Holiday Season.
But if you are using Putler, here’s how simple identifying such customers becomes:
Log in to Putler> Sales Dashboard> Select the date range to be the exact dates when you had the Holiday Season sale for the last year
All the customers that bought during this range will get populated in the grid below.
These customers are the ones who purchased during last time’s discount sale – making them discount buyers.
What you do next is, export these customers and send them your this years Holiday Season offer.
Chances are these customers will grab your offer more than the rest of your customers. Try it out.
Hack 4: Freebies? Which product can I afford to give as freebies?
In a competitive marketing environment, freebies have their prominence. But deciding which products to be given as freebies is another battle.
Now generally, people create a freebie or randomly pick a product and give that as a freebie.
But using Putler, you can get data-driven and make smarter choices.
Go to the Products Dashboard > Product Grid > Scroll to the lowermost products
The last two products are the perfect candidates to be given as freebies. Why?
Firstly, because they don’t sell anyway. Secondly, they are of value and that’s why they are being sold on your store, right?
Hack 5: Which products have more chances of getting sold together?
It is easy to attract customers with combos rather than single products. So, which products should be sold together as combos?
Finding this with Putler is just a click away. But incase, you don’t have Putler, you will need to go to your shopping cart system > go to each order and jot down which products get sold together. You can analyse this for around 2 months and then identify which products get picked together.
Putler has this option. Just go to Products > Select a product from the list and then click on ‘Frequently bought together’ tab for list of products that are bought together.
Incase there is a product which is bought together with the product you selected, it will be shown there.
You can then start upselling this frequently bought together product whenever a person is buying the selected product and in the bargain increase sales.
Hack 6: Free coupon to loyal customers
Loyal customers are always to be rewarded. It is one of the best ways to keep a stand in the market tackling the competitor’s strategies.
But identifying loyal customers is a real challenge. Businesses find it very difficult to keep a track of which customer is loyal and who is not.
Using Putler, you don’t have to worry about this at all. Putler automatically processes all your customer data and using recency, frequency and monetary value segregate customers who are loyal.
All you do is, go to the Customers Dashboard > Click on the Loyal segment on the RFM chart
All the loyal customers that fall in the date range selected get populated. You can then export these loyal customers and send them an email showering them with extra love in the form of a gift or a free coupon.
Hack 7: Country-wise landing page
English is a global language but think about reading a sales page in your own mother tongue. Moreover, something which makes absolute sense and which is not just a Google translated page?
Would be much more appealing right?
Now I’m not telling you to make country-wise landing pages. What I’m telling you is something much more structured and simple.
Also since Putler has the easiest way to do is, I will be explaining the Putler way here.
Log in to Putler Beta > Sales Dashboard > Look at the Country Facets.
Putler will list the countries in descending order (countries which give you the maximum revenue)
Next, click on the topmost country, all the customers from this country get populated in the grid below.
Export these customers and send them an email in their mother tongue or direct them to a sales page in their mother tongue.
This is a great way to standout and make customers feel special.
Hack 8: Order status emails
Putler Beta provides you order statuses like – Completed and Refunded. Now generally, refunds are considered taboo. And once a person asks for a refund, business owners tend to sideline such customers out of rage. But that’s wrong.
Customers that ask for a refund are gold. Sending them an email asking about their experience will provide you with excellent feedback. Also solving their queries even after a refund can help you win them over for your business.
Putler provides you a readymade filter (facet) called ‘Refunded’ which when clicked gives you all the customers who have asked for a refund in the selected date range.
You can export this list and send them a feedback email and take forward the conversation thereafter.
Ready for This Holiday Shopping Season?
I hope these 8 hacks will help make this Holiday Season a success. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or suggestions. Wishing you a fruitful Holiday Season!
FAQs
1. Why is a BFCM Strategy Essential?
A lack of planning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday could cost retailers thousands of dollars in missed sales. It is important to have a planned approach that is organized and backed up with data in order to increase sales and reduce potential stress during such a busy period.
2. What strategies do stores use to attract customers on Black Friday?
When it comes to Black Friday, even the best discount in the world won’t guarantee traffic to your store. A successful marketing campaign is key to generating traffic, so you need to work hard to let people know about your incredible offers.
- Make sure your Black Friday sale is clearly announced on your site’s landing page, social media channels, and email marketing campaigns.
- Create a sense of urgency by using countdown timers.
- Create a themed appearance by using the BF colors (black and red).
3. Is Black Friday profitable for retailers?
In short: yes. The BF/CM weekend was officially designated as the busiest shopping day of the year in 2000, with small businesses expecting a boost of +107% in revenue.
4. When should you start marketing for Black Friday?
Black Friday marketing strategies don’t need to start on any particular date, but starting as early as possible is generally a good idea.
During the Thanksgiving weekend, many stores (online and offline) will offer discounts, many of which will begin early and end later. It’s up to you to spread the word about your amazing promotions before anyone else does.
5. How can I increase sales on Black Friday?
The best way to increase sales on Black Friday is by reducing abandoned carts, but there are numerous other tactics you can use.
- Offer exclusive offers to loyal customers.
- By upselling relevant products or offering free shipping if you spend $X, you can increase AOV
- Bundle complementary products
- Discounts for referrals
- Offer customer-specific discounts based on user behavior
- Mystery gifts can be added to qualifying carts
- Sell to previous customers as a pre-sale