With $900 billion on stake and 500 million people participating, an average online shopper spends a minimum of $500 during the BFCM.
Many ecommerce brands struggle to perfect their BFCM game.
Implementing effective BFCM strategies can be 10X your revenue, but the truth is, not everyone manages to do so!
I have a strategy perfected after working with 50+ brands and maximizing their BFCM sale.
By the end of this article, you will have a robust offer and campaign calendar ready for BFCM.
In this article, I will cover:
- Top-notch sales and enticing offers for BFCM.
- Brand’s essential promotional checklist during BFCM.
- how to optimize automation flows for BFCM promotions.
- Efficient planning and scheduling of your entire BFCM email campaigns.
Also, I’ll be sharing my 3 tips on post-BFCM promotional strategies that will work through December like a charm for you!
Finalizing Your Offers
Before we jump to the BFCM planning let us first understand the popular offers for ecommerce brands.
The tiered sale
A tiered sale is a great and my favorite promotional strategy for the BFCM sale!
Where customers receive increasing discounts or benefits as they purchase more items or spend more money, incentivizing higher spending and larger purchases.
These tiered sales benefit e-commerce brands by encouraging larger orders and repeat business.
As customers are incentivized to buy more, these deals lead to increasing revenue and improving customer loyalty through attractive discounts and rewards.
It’s like unlocking bonus rewards for being a savvy shopper. Imagine grabbing 10% off on one item, 20% off on two, and 30% off on three or more.
In my experience, it’s a win-win deal that encourages big orders, and puts a smile on your wallet’s face!
And some of my favorite tired sales that I recommend to my clients are
- $10 Off $100+
- $20 Off $200+
- $30 Off $250+
For example
Flat Discounts
Flat discounts are fixed and consistent price reductions applied to products, regardless of the quantity or value purchased.
They offer straightforward and predictable savings for customers.
In my experience, It attracts more shoppers, clears out old stock, and keeps everyone grinning from ear to ear, but it can hurt your margins.
For example
Selected SKUs
Having a sale on selected SKUs means, only specific products or items within a range are offered at a reduced price & not the entire inventory.
According to me, giving storewide sales or on selective SKUs, for BFCM can be confusing for users. Also, I have seen limited success with it.
For example:
Buy One Get One Offer
Offering a BOGO deal in the BFCM sale may be a fantastic way to increase the average order value.
But according to me, honestly, it doesn’t bring much value. Also, it doesn’t really work very well for all the brands or we can say it’s more like if you want to get rid of those extra lying stock.
Other than that this offer doesn’t encourage your customers to buy more as they are also getting one free on buying one.
For example
Free Shipping
Offering free shipping during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales can work for selected brands.
It can be a part of a bigger offer stack than a standalone offer.
For example
Free Gifts With Purchase
Providing free gifts with purchases during the BFCM can work for some brands. It all depends on the quality and usability of the free product.
Most free products are not that effective for everyone. It’s better to give a discount offer than free gift.
For example
Now that you know all the offers.
Let’s quickly jump to the brand’s essential promotional checklist.
Brand’s Essential Promotional Checklist
You’re probably wondering what the Band’s promotional checklist looks like.
Well, a brand promotional checklist includes essentials like:
- Name & Theme Of The Sale
To run the BFCM campaigns it is important to get the name and theme of your BFCM sale so that you can promote it accordingly. Along with the target audience of the sale.
For example, whether you’re going for a pre-black Friday sale or a black week to the sale all week or just the weekend sale.
- Offer & Coupon Code
Once you have selected your theme you need to finalise the offer along with the coupon code.
This may also include whether you plan to give one single offer or multiple offers.
Depending on the stock of your ecommerce store.
- Landing Page
Creating a dedicated landing page for the BFCM sale is always a smart choice as it’s one of the biggest sales for every ecommerce store.
Especially if you’re running multiple offers. It’s easy to display all the offers on that landing page. - The same Font & Colors On Every Channel
When running this huge BFCM sale or any specific day-related sale it’s important to have a set font & colors and run those same fonts & colors on every platform.
Also, it should align with your brand’s theme. Doing this will give your brand uniformity and also will help people to recognize your brand easily.
For example: seeing a blue arrow-shaped smile reminds us of Amazon Prime Video or the white and red colour reminds us of H&M.
Optimizing Flows For BFCM Promotions
Here, the idea is to include the BFCM sale promotion in the automation flows as well.
But I’ve seen quite a few brands running a separate flow for the BFCM offer.
However, I don’t agree with this idea as it unnecessarily makes it too complex and tedious.
So that’s why I mostly suggest my clients not to go overboard with multiple changes.
Instead, I ask them to add a BFCM banner in their existing flows preferably right at the top of the email to build up the opt-in audience.
By adding a small BFCM banner in your existing flows.
You will be creating a separate list of users to whom you can constantly send all the details & latest offers of the sale.
This includes a thank you email too when the BFCM sale is over.
Efficient Planning & Scheduling Your Entire BFCM Email Campaigns
Now here I’ll walk you through the entire process of scheduling BFCM campaigns,
We’ll be covering everything, right from launching your BFCM sale to concluding it.
So, let’s begin ….
#1 Run a sale teaser campaign!
Start by running a sale teaser 14 days before the black friday sale!
By doing so, you will be creating a buzz or announcing your offer prior to the actual sale and informing your customers that you will be making a big offer soon.
After all the goal of this campaign is to get your audience to opt in for the BFCM sale.
For example:
“Get ready for the biggest sale of the year
Sign in to get all the latest updates and offers”
For these campaigns, it’s best to target recently engaged customers who have been active in 180 days. Via email or SMS.
Also, would like to add that running this sale teaser campaign is totally optional.
#2 Run An Early Sale Campaign
Send an early access email 7-4 days before the black friday sale!
I recommend only sending these early access emails to your VIP audience or subscribers, as well as those who opted into those sale teaser campaigns.
Think of it as giving your inner circle early access to all the offers even before the sale starts.
This approach not only imparts a sense of exclusivity to your VIP audience but also jumpstarts your sale ahead of time, extending the duration of your promotional offer.
The ideal channel to communicate these early access campaigns would be emails & SMS.
For example
The Black Friday Sale (Sale Live)
Send these campaigns on the first day of the Black Friday Sale to all the subscribers and everyone you have on your list. Vis email or SMS.
Make it sound like a roar that the black Friday sale has begun.
Brands that want to go aggressive on sales can send 2 campaigns in a day and those who prefer to be conservative can stick to one campaign in a day.
It’s totally optional, in my experience both works depending on your list of subscribers.
But one thing I would recommend is that you finish the black friday sale by Sunday so that you can start the Cyber Monday sale the next day.
For example
The Cyber Monday Sale
Save the best for last!
That’s right, save your best deal for the grand finale, also known as the Cyber Monday sale.
Start this Sale on Monday morning and run the Cyber Monday sale for 24 hours only.
Doing this will create urgency that persuades your audience even more to take action.
I suggest running two campaigns in a day via both email & SMS in case you want to go aggressive on sales.
For example
Cyber Monday Sale Extended
Though such sales or offers are pretty rare to find.
But in my opinion, these extended sales by e-commerce brands are like a shopping paradise for the audience.
Offering you the luxury of time to grab those fantastic deals. At the same time, your audience for this campaign should be selective.
I recommend sending this sale extended campaign to all your active subscribers, VIP members, and all those users who had opted in for the BFCM sale.
Send these audiences both Email as well as SMS.
By extending the sale, you’re giving your customers another chance to snag those fantastic deals. It’s like getting an encore at a concert you thought was over.
This is a tried and tested strategy and extending the sale like a surprise to your customers always works!
If you wish to go more aggressive here then send two emails in a single day with a minimum gap of 5-6 hours.
For example
So this completes your entire BFCM plan!
But wait what about Post BFCM?
As I promised earlier I’ll be sharing 3 tips with you on post-BFCM promotional strategies that will work like a charm!
Yes, many ecommerce brands face the same challenge i.e. after running a huge discount in November then what about December?
Don’t worry i’ve got that covered too.
Tip #1- Running Gifting Guide Campaigns
Speaking of December it’s all about family & friends coming together in the holiday season but for all those ecommerce brands it’s an opportunity!
So, with the holiday vibes in full swing, it’s a splendid idea for almost all ecommerce brands to put on their Santa hats and spread some gift guide love!
You see the idea behind these gifting campaigns is that after all those mega deals and discounts, you don’t wanna overwhelm your customers with more of the same. Isn’t it?
So, I recommend that for the first week of December, roll out those gift guide campaigns.
Helping your audience pick out the perfect gifts through newsletters and nifty gifting guide campaigns.
Tip #2- Christmas Day Delivery Cut-off Sale
Don’t forget, the clock’s tickin’! You want to keep your customers in the loop on when they need to get their orders in for Christmas delivery.
I mostly recommend my clients to run those Christmas day delivery cut-off sale campaigns until December 15th.
Or maybe you can stretch it to the max till December 17th, just to be super considerate about delivery times.
Once Christmas wraps up, I suggest keeping the festive spirit rolling with some end-of-the-year deals.
Tip #3- End Of The Year Sale
Here I recommend you to kick off the end-of-year sale from December 26th and keep the sale rolling till December 31st.
This way, you can ensure that your December campaign calendar is filled with joy, gifting, and, of course, incredible deals!
Conclusion
And there you have it, folks! The ultimate secret recipe to build your BFCM campaign calendar for your ecommerce brand. 🎉
So, roll up your sleeves as you’re ready to set the e-commerce world on fire!
The fastest, easiest way to turn any sale into an EVENT is to hop on a call with us.
We will gameplan a sale strategy that works for you, and then we will IMPLEMENT it just like the brands above.
You can book a call with me here.
Also don’t forget to download the FREE BFCM campaign calendar 👉 here