Key Ways to Communicate Black Friday Cyber Monday Sales

This content was contributed by Bold Commerce

Black Friday Cyber Monday(BFCM) is typically the busiest shopping weekend of the year—and as more brands have developed an online presence, the image of busy mall shoppers has transitioned to eager sale-lovers in front of their computers at home. This is especially true this year with inflation concerns reshaping how and when merchants shop. While last year was all about finding the wish list items, supply chain disruptions are leveling out and now consumers are more focused on finding the best deals. Just like the signage, flyers, and intercom announcements in-store, your online shoppers should be aware of your best deals and the clear paths to get to them as they navigate your site. 

This year especially, in the post-covid acceleration of ecommerce and with the rise of omnichannel shopping, shoppers are expecting a seamless experience with sales being clearly communicated, fun, and most importantly, fast. Let’s dive into some key areas of the customer journey you should be using to highlight sales and important tactics to enable each of them. 

Home page

First up is the landing page where users will first experience your brand’s promotional advertising on your website. Think of your home page as a map to the rest of your site. Some users will want to browse through your whole site and use your navigation bar to explore different products, while others will know exactly what they want and require a clear path to get there.

Yes, ideally all shoppers will spend some time browsing your site (and adding more to cart) but for the folks in a hurry who know what they want, we have some tips further down to excite them on some new deals they hadn’t considered, right in the checkout. 

If you’re offering multiple types of deals, one of the best ways to display them is with your hero image. Here, you can visually display the types of deals, examples of products on sale, and how to get the discount. Making the deals on your hero image clickable removes any friction between the shopper and their sale. 

In recent years, the number of mobile online shoppers has increased significantly with 2020 data indicating that mobile retail revenues hit 339 billion US dollars, up from 207 billion US dollars in 2018.

So, when you’re setting up your home page, make sure your discounts and hero image align on mobile browsers.

If you’re offering one discount or a more simple set of discounts, use a motivator bar at the top of the screen to alert customers about the discount and provide a link to take them straight to the deals. With simple discounts, you can use the hero image to display examples of the products you’re discounting, encourage shoppers to use a coupon code, welcome new shoppers, and encourage them to join your mailing list or celebrate the season with some branded BFCM messaging.

Whatever deals you’re providing, be sure to use clear communication so shoppers know where to go to receive the deals, how to receive the deals, and what discounts you’re offering this BFCM.

Product pages

Product pages are not only a great place for shoppers to learn more details about your products, they’re also a key area to highlight savings this BFCM. To start, we’ll utilize the value of the discount by highlighting the deal with “compare at” prices. A lot of brands make the mistake of only showing the discounted price. But if you line up the prices side by side, the original price and the sale price, users will be able to actually see the value they’re saving from purchasing the item on sale. By updating the pricing on the product page, not just at the checkout, shoppers will be more inclined to add-to-cart. 

One of the best retail tricks for impulse buyers is harnessing the power of FOMO, or the fear of missing out. Displaying messaging such as “final sale” or “one day only” really makes customers think about purchasing now rather than later so they don’t have to purchase at full price. You can also display a countdown timer on the homepage, collection page, or on the product page to invoke a sense of urgency.

Finally, make your sales stand out with custom sales icons on product images. By using colorful icons, you can draw even more attention to your products on sale, making it extremely clear to your shoppers that they are saving.

Checkout

Since checkout is the last step of the customer journey, it’s often depicted as the most important step as well. Your checkout experience should be consistent with the rest of your site, be easy to navigate, and be extremely clear to lessen the chance of abandoned carts. Today’s cart abandonment can be as high as 78%, which results in $6.5 trillion worth of merchandise abandoned annually.

So, to combat cart abandonment and reduce friction for your customers, your sales again should be highlighted next to the original price or show a total savings amount to make the discount stand out.

Checkout also provides one last opportunity to provide even more value to your customers using upsells and cross-sells of other items on sale or items that would pair well with the item in the cart. An upsell is an upgrade to a larger or better version of the current item, like a larger-sized TV that would replace the smaller TV in the cart. A cross-sell on the other hand, is a relevant add-on to the current item in the cart. Going back to our TV example, a cross-sell to a TV might be a remote, batteries for the remote, or a warranty that would be added to the cart in addition to the TV. 

By listing other relevant items, you’re providing more value to the customer, while increasing their cart size. If those items are also on sale (and marked as such), shoppers will be much more inclined to add to their order. 

Schedule your sales in advance

We know BFCM weekend is a handful for brands of all sizes. The easiest way to combat last-minute stress and be available to assist your customers on the weekend is to automate your sales ahead of time. Use advanced scheduling to begin and end your sales to ensure your deals are clearly marked and communicated throughout the entire customer journey, and prevent any slipups from BFCM fatigue.

Communicate Deals via Emails

Marketing emails are a great way to notify existing customers of sales. After all, this holiday season is going to focus more on finding the best prices than last year. Using email marketing platforms like Klaviyo and MailChimp allow you to take your customer correspondence and email marketing to the next level. 

If you have created a good delivery experience, your customers are more likely to be buying from you again—especially during the holiday season when deadlines are tighter and stress is high!