It’s that time of the year when online sales go berserk fetching the largest possible revenue of the entire year! Yes, Cyber week is round the corner and retailers as well as customers are busy preparing for the most profitable sales week. For customers, getting the best deal is their ultimate goal. But as a marketplace owner, your priority should be to make the most of the Cyber Week’s craze and generate more purchases than others. Marketing your website and your deals in the right way will enable you to stand out from others and boost your sales. We’ve compiled 10 best marketing tips for you that will help you rocket up your sales this Cyber Week.
Bring out something exclusive
People expect something extra during the Cyber Week. Launch new and exclusive products during this time and witness a surge in your sales. In 2018, popular shoe brand Allbirds launched a limited edition sneakers on Cyber Monday. It took the sales by storm and sold out like hot cakes. Although they didn’t put any offer on the product at all, you can top a new release with exclusive offers like additional discounts to early birds or free gift only for the sale. This will ensure increased sale of the item.
Offer enticing discounts
This might be the most basic and easily the most obvious advice for Cyber Week, but no one can deny the lure of a great discount! People spend hours on discovering the greatest discounts online during this holiday sale. Definitely, they aren’t going to be wowed with a meagre off! For the Cyber Week, give away your greatest discount of the year. The goal is to add value to the customer’s purchase, so set up your discounts accordingly.
Moreover, it is noticed that customers are more eager to spend on shopping during the holidays, often buying stuff they don’t even require! What do you think allures them into buying such items? The label of a good discount can boost the sales of your lesser-sold items as well. Therefore, don’t forget to cash on the tendency of impulsive buying and set sweet discounts on those hardly noticed items of your inventory.
Provide free gifts
Who doesn’t like freebies? Customers’ year-long wait for the best deal must be rewarded with some free stuff. Your free gift doesn’t necessarily have to be of equal amount. The idea here is to improve customer experience by providing something that adds a value to the purchased item. If someone buys a television set, throw in a streaming gadget along with it. If someone buys a mobile phone, give a free mobile cover along with it. Holiday season means gifting each other and it’s the best time that you actually work on the emotion of gifting and improve customer retention. 90% of consumers say that free gifts increase brand loyalty. So, don’t underestimate the power of a small token of gratitude during this Cyber Week.
Create bundle products and promote up-selling
Consider selling your products in bundles. Bundling products gives an opportunity to increase the average order value (AOV). Offering a discount on a bundled product creates a sense of added value to a customer’s purchase and is, therefore, a great way to boost sales. According to an estimate by McKinsey, about 35% of Amazon’s purchases come from “recommendations” – typically bundling products- and that the success rates of such recommendations are almost 60%.
Especially beneficial for SaaS companies where they sell their services/products on subscription basis, offering a bundle would not only increase the sales but also make people try out the added service/product. If your product/service turns out to be great, you’re in for customer retention and comeback sale!
Up-selling is a marketing tactic used to encourage customers to spend more. It works like this: once a customer decides on buying a product, he/she will definitely spend that amount. Convincing them to upgrade with an addon then becomes easier than convincing them to to buy the product in the first place. Offering addons during the checkout process is the most common way of up-selling. Statistics reveal that upselling works 60-70% of times with 7 out of 10 people falling in the trap of adding more products while checking out. Throw in some enticing products during the checkout and see how your AOV soars!
Build urgency
Have you heard of FOMO? Yes, the fear of missing out on any deal might just drive people into buying more. Focus on creating “limited time” offers in order to build the sense of urgency. Use a countdown timer on your website displaying the remaining time to the end of your promo offer. In certain cases, this trick has proven to drive sales up by almost 332%!
Apart from time based urgency, add stock urgency to your website showing the remaining stock left before your service/product gets sold out. Booking.com shows many instances of stock urgency by suggesting that a certain hotel room would be sold out if not booked fast enough. Other methods like using the term “Claim NOW” on CTAs and using the colour red on strategic places creates a sense of panic among customers which compel them to not just buy the product but buy them immediately!
Set up offer pop ups for abandoned cart
Shopping cart abandonment is a huge issue across all industries. People often look through your website, add products to their cart but unfortunately leave your website right there without actually purchasing. Statistics say that almost 3/4th of customers leave websites with incomplete checkout.
In order to avoid abandoned carts, you have to hold your customers for a few more seconds and compel them to complete the purchase just when they’re about to click the ‘close’ button. Offer pop ups play an important role in making your customers feel more inclined towards actually buying the product. Offer a sweet and exclusive offer before they leave or a quick discount coupon on those abandoned cart messages. This will make your customers look back and complete the purchase.
Run Social Media campaigns
What’s Cyber Week without marketing? Letting your customers know of the offers that you’ll be putting up during the holiday sale should be one of your first priorities. Connect with your Facebook customer community with banners and posts related to the offers. Facebook and Instagram ads come a great way when a wider reach is required. If set up correctly, social media ad campaigns could be a convenient and pocket friendly option to reach out to more audiences. That’s the reason why marketers are increasing their Facebook and Instagram ad spends by 27% and 54% respectively, year after year, with increased impressions. Encourage your audience to use your brand hashtags or provide giveaways for more engagement. This will not only keep your existing customer base on the hook but also bring in new visitors.
Besides ad campaigns, Facebook retargeting is a must for online marketers. This paid advertising strategy shows your ads to those who have visited your site previously without any purchase. Facebook and it’s partner sites will show your ad to these potential leads, thereby increasing conversion. Retargeting ads is proven to give higher ROI than any other marketing strategy, with some marketers reporting almost 200% ROI from retargeting alone. The bottom line is to utilize your social media handles in a fun and engaging way to attract your customers to the sale.
Focus on email marketing
When email providers introduced the “Promotions” inbox where all marketing and promotional emails were automatically dumped into, people thought that email marketing has gone to its grave. But the truth is, email marketing is still very much alive and one of the most viable marketing options. DMA Insights has revealed that almost 99% of email recipients check their email inbox everyday. On an average, 24.88% of emails actually get opened. As of May 2020, the open rate of marketing emails of almost all industries is 16.22% while the click-through rate is 7.17%. This means that chances are pretty high for your promotional emails to be read by your customers. Besides, the ROI of email marketing can reach upto 122%. It would be foolish to ignore a good email campaign, especially for Cyber Week.
One of the biggest mistakes of email marketing during the cyber week is sending out the emails after the holidays. What’s the point of promoting your deals on Monday when the sale is almost towards the end? Start emailing before the onset of the holidays, better before Thanksgiving. While it’s important to engage your customers through mails almost throughout the week, set up reminder emails for bigger deals and for the more important days like the Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Perhaps a small thank you message for shopping during the sale or a token of gratitude with a small discount for future might take you a long way!
Run contests and consider gamification
Tag 10 friends on this post and a lucky winner gets a freebie! Invite 5 other friends and get $5 cashback on every purchase they make! Sounds familiar? Yes, running contests on your social media handles is an amazing way to engage your customers and increase your website’s traffic as well as generate leads. The psychology of victory and achievement leads many users to participate in such games and contests in return for some rewards. As a result, not only do your current customers constantly stay on the hook, but things like tagging others or making others subscribe to your services generate more leads.
Gamification strategies include challenging one’s intellect in a fun and engaging way. Quizzes, puzzles, riddles, spin-the-wheel, etc, are some of the fun gamification examples that you can apply to promote your brand and your deals during this Cyber Week. Focus on providing memorable experiences, rather than a simple run-of-the-mill game and your customers would love shopping from your website!
Spread the word through Affiliates
Affiliate marketing has turned out to be a pretty feasible method of marketing for the past few years. It is proven to be contributing to almost 30% of the total sales revenue. While about 84% of marketers provide leverage to Affiliate marketing, Cyber Week seems to be a good time for promoting your deals through your affiliates. Notify your affiliates beforehand through emails and provide them with details about your Cyber Week sale. Your affiliates will promote your website and deals to their followers, thereby providing more exposure during the sale. But make sure that you let your affiliates know of your Cyber Week plans way ahead of the sale dates so that they can plan their promotions accordingly and make your Cyber Week successful.
If you haven’t started chalking out your marketing strategies yet, then this is the right time. Follow these simple tips to ace your marketing game this Cyber Week and boost your sale like never before!
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