Ensure a strong marketing strategy ahead of cyber weekend

With eCommerce sales continually increasing and the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend (27th – 30th November) on the horizon, now is the time for retailers to assess their upcoming marketing plans and ensure they employ the right tactics to stand out from the crowd. This is according to global eCommerce platform Kooomo, which outlines that retailers must define their rules of engagement and which channels to target in its Ultimate Black Friday 2020 playbook.

 Ciaran Bollard, CEO at Kooomo, commented: “The Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend has become a hugely important time for retailers over the past few years, but given the additional difficulties faced this year, we’re set to see the most challenging Black Friday ever. With this in mind, it’s essential that retailers have all the right tactics in play to ensure they use the weekend to their advantage, while also providing their customers with exceptional service.”

 Ciaran advises: “Before deciding on what to move forward with this year, retailers should first analyse last year’s performance and use this analysis to define the rules for engagement this year, which can be incredibly powerful. You might think you’ll deal with that dream scenario if it happens, but you can never be too prepared, and you never know what else will crop up on the day. You might be called into meetings which means your marketing team can’t reach you with the good news/approval on the plan of action in response. Defining in advance what responses will work has the potential to save you a huge headache and give you a better opportunity to get the most out of the sale weekend.”
 
Once the rules of engagement are defined, Ciaran provides the following tips and tricks for marketing strategies ahead of this year’s cyber weekend:
 
1.     Email marketing

It’s important to start with email marketing and communicating with your current newsletter subscribers first. Use this newsletter as a form of exclusivity on certain offers or even early access and you can segment your newsletter subscribers into user-groups to provide them with specific exclusive promotions. They were kind enough to give you their details, now it’s your turn to give them an ‘exclusive’ offer. It’s also a good way to drive traffic to your site ahead of time giving you workable data for retargeting when the time is right.

 We also recommend segmenting your subscribers further by any way you see fit, the idea is to send your promotions in segments so that they are less likely to end up in spam folders or fall under the promotions tab on Google's new Gmail view. So instead of a blanket send to 1,000 subscribers. Consider pools of 100 spread out over a few minutes.

 Making sure that you encourage your email list members to keep looking at their inbox is important too, enticing them by announcing that you will be giving away a discount code in your next series of emails — creating an ‘exclusive’ club for your listees and giving them a reason to look out for future emails. After you’ve sent your first, the news that your store will be offering discounts will hopefully travel through word of mouth or be shared in WhatsApp groups or on social media and potentially even get coverage from bloggers and seasonal discount posts by larger publications.

2.     Social media

Using social media platforms can be powerful when advertising B2C and it would be a mistake to ignore the huge opportunity that comes with a free social media platform that provides the potential to reach millions of people while also getting very granular with data and retargeting ad approaches to ensure the best return of investment.

 When it comes to advertising, start organically, and reach your current followers. As the date comes closer, start paid promotions to increase awareness for the deals that you have. You can keep things broad in terms of targeting at first with a lower budget, once you start gathering good data you can begin getting much more granular and targeted with your approach and start hitting the people who have already shown an interest. Facebooks’ “Audience Network” allows you to target people on all kinds of apps also. So people don’t even need to be using a social media platform for you to be targeting them. For example, if you are selling outdoor accessories, clothing, or footwear for example. Drive retargeting ads to weather apps to hit that audience.

 We advise that you prepare early so that you’re ready to go once the date gets closer. Once you start advertising, people will be able to become more familiar with your brand and start looking at reviews. So consider replying to reviews on social media and acknowledge the fact people took time to leave them. This makes your business much more personable and this can really appeal to a certain demographic.
 
3.     Google ads

Just like social media advertising, you can get rather granular on Google (arguably more so)  but the budget will need to be bigger. You will also have to have a consistently high spend of at least 50k to launch retargeting ads using the data at your disposal.

 However, that said it’s not all about big budgets. Keyword research, targeting and bidding on specific keywords relative to Black Friday, and your store is a great way to drive custom. What is this year's most sought after item? Bid on the keyword, grab their initial attention (data/visit to your website) and then hit the user with retargeting using the aforementioned social media platforms or audience network which doesn’t require a minimum monthly spend to retarget your audience. This is a great way to keep your budgets lower while also driving a pretty effective retargeting campaign.

 When considering what keywords to target, ensure you research them thoroughly and remember that once November hits, search volume is likely to increase substantially when compared to even the month previous.
 
Ciaran concludes: “It’s difficult to say how this year’s cyber weekend will fare but given the steep rise in online spending since the beginning of the pandemic and stricter measures coming into play all over the UK currently, we can assume that consumers will be turning to eCommerce more than ever before. Retailers need to ensure they have a strong strategy in place for coping with this year’s demands and have a comprehensive and flexible promotions engine via their eCommerce supplier.”

For further information on how to prepare for this year’s cyber-weekend, download Kooomo’s ultimate Black Friday 2020 playbook.

ENDS

About Kooomo:

Kooomo is Europe’s leading eCommerce platform delivering increased sales and efficiencies with one solution for all sales channels. Kooomo is disrupting the marketplace with its affordable setup, agility and speed to market. Recognised by Gartner in the Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce; Kooomo connects your products with your customers online, in-store and through marketplaces. The full stack of technology needed to deliver a 360-degree digital commerce solution which is integrated with an eco-system of over 200 partners to future proof your business.

Kooomo is trusted by international brands through to SMEs such as Morrisons, Umbro, SMEG, Heinz, Blauer USA, MotoGP, Avoca amongst many others. Kooomo understands the unique challenges of selling internationally by supporting multiple languages, currencies & VAT rates so there is no need to adopt multiple storefronts. For further information, visit: www.kooomo.com