While not as big as Black Friday, Cyber Monday is still a massive opportunity to drive your pre-Christmas sales and move older stock. Research from Netstock shows that online spending jumped by 60% on Cyber Monday 2020 compared to 2019. Based on this, it’s a sure bet that online sales are going to drive Cyber Monday 2021. To tap into these sales and drive customer engagement, retailers are going to need a thorough Cyber Monday strategy to work from. Find out how you can maximise your Cyber Monday earnings by following our comprehensive strategy for success.
How to Create a Fail-Safe Cyber Monday Strategy
Start generating hype as early as possible
The sooner you get the word out that your store is offering Cyber Monday deals, the sooner you can start to cultivate hype for the big day. This is an essential step that you can’t skip, you need to get your customers feeling excited. Once you’ve established the hype, introduce a sense of urgency to drive and maximize your sales.
Start announcing your special offers on your website, social media channels, newsletters and mobile app. Don’t reveal them all at once though. Let customers know that even bigger discounts will be revealed on Cyber Monday to keep them in suspense!
Create a user-friendly online shopping experience
According to research from Smallbizgenuis, 88% of online shoppers say that they wouldn’t return to a website after having a bad user experience. Come Cyber Monday, customer expectations will be even higher than usual, so make sure the layout of your business website is extremely user-friendly and easy to navigate.
No one wants to waste time endlessly scrolling to find deals, so it’s a good idea to create a separate landing page for your Cyber Monday offers. You can increase traffic to this page by placing a banner for it on the home page of your website. The rule of thumb here is your customers shouldn’t be clicking more than two or three times to find the deals they’re looking for.
Make sure everyone is invited to the payment party
Running an online store and only offering one or two forms of payment processing is like throwing a party and only inviting two people. Extend the invitation to as many customers as possible by offering multiple payment options.
QR Code payments increased in volume by 178% in 2021, so offering this form of payment will draw in a large number of mobile shoppers. Other payment options include ApplePay or SamsingPay, instant EFT, credit and debit payments and buy now, pay later flexible payments.
Sweeten the deal with free shipping
A surefire way to close more deals is by offering free shipping. The key here is to make sure you’re still earning enough to cover your shipping costs. You can work around this by only offering free shipping on your more expensive items. Another way is to set a minimum spending amount customers have to pay to qualify. It doubles as a great opportunity to upsell and move more stock at the same time.
Communicate clearly with your customers
Shipping delays, interruptions to the supply chain and item shortages are issues giving everyone headaches during Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, due to the pandemic. Customer impatience tends to spike during the BFCM weekend, so make sure you liaise with all your suppliers and couriers. Get clarity on how long it will take items to arrive and be shipped, so you can communicate with customers.
The last thing you want to do is frustrate customers by promising unrealistic lead times for delivery. Rather be honest and give an accurate estimated window period. Your free shipping offer will help cushion the blow here. Customers will be more willing to wait the extra 2 or 3 weeks knowing that they’re getting free shipping.
Conclusion
Having a robut Cyber Monday strategy underpinning your operations can make all the difference to your sales and your customers’ satisfaction. Remember, the key is to make everything as seamless for the customer as possible. Communicate clearly, manage expectations, redirect and focus customer attention where it matters and make purchasing a simple, enjoyable process for customers. Good luck, it will be over before you know it!
