BFCM 2023: Great Marketing Tips For The 7-Week Countdown

As a result of the epidemic, shoppers tightened their spending habits. Forecasts for this year’s growth reflect the normalization of conditions. If you want your store to be successful during BFCM, you need a well-planned marketing strategy.

Here at OneCommerce, we understand the significance of the BFCM buying season. So, to make your life easier this year, we’ve prepared a Countdown Calendar with pointers for each week before BFCM.

It’s about to go off, so brace yourself.

What is BFCM?

BFCM, or Black Friday Cyber Monday, is one of North America’s biggest selling seasons. It kicks off the Friday after American Thanksgiving every year and runs until the following Monday.

The BFCM is no longer limited to North America; the entire world is celebrating this season. Merchants use BFCM as an opportunity to roll out large-scale sales activities to create a buying frenzy. Consumers enjoy BFCM because it allows them to stock up on their favorite items at low prices.

No BFCM strategy is likely to be successful without first analyzing sales data. CNBC reports that in 2021, Black Friday sales were 28.3% lower than years before the epidemic.

According to Shopify’s report, despite difficulties on the path to economic recovery, BFCM 2021 was the most successful to date. Shopify store owners made up to $6.3 billion in sales. Shopify’s online sales had increased by 23% by 2020.

The BluePrint report adds to the story by stating that the potential for this year is enormous. 62% of consumers are excited for BFCM 2023, while 68% are waiting for BFCM to begin shopping.

If the trends we witnessed hold, online sales could skyrocket in this BFCM. We now have enough data to proceed with plan development without fear of making mistakes. Let’s get started!

#7 weeks before BFCM

1. Research Shopify Black Friday ideas

Most people think that discounts are an ideal program for BFCM since every customer likes to get a bargain. Is there any way, though, to make it more appealing than the discount program already is?

Here are 5 fantastic Shopify Black Friday ideas from which you can draw inspiration for your BFCM strategy.

Flash sales:

According to Blueprint, 54% of consumers predict that the BFCM discount in 2022 will not be as good as expected. It is evidence that bulk discounts are losing their charm with consumers.

Customers expect more than 15% off. It can take up to 50% off to motivate them to open a promotional email. Nevertheless, it can reduce your profit margin.

Categorize the products that can be discounted and create flash sales instead of offering bulk discounts. For instance, if there will be a 5-day duration for the BFCM sale, you can select between 1 or 2 times each day to offer flash sales on specific products.

H&M routinely offers flash sale promotions.

Keep your customers in the loop about upcoming flash sales so they can start excited.

You can reach different groups by breaking down products and delivering flash sales. Customers are also more engaged.

Leveraging OneUpSell is a terrific app for bringing in customers during a flash sale. It’s a collection of tools for building a stunning flash sale landing page. Additionally helpful for optimizing conversion rates.

Giveaway:

Giving away gifts to customers is a great BFCM idea for brands to keep their items’ value alive. Customers will feel like they have received a great deal if they get a gift that is worth the same as the item they are buying. Limited-edition giveaways are also a fancy way to entice customers to acquire in a hurry.

Product bundling: 

Product bundling by Lush

Offering product bundles is a simple way to increase your average order value in BFCM. You can provide discounts on mystery bundles that include some of your best products. Some of the products in the bundle can be kept hidden until the end of the sale.

Gamified promotions:

This BFCM is an ideal time to experiment with new ways to engage shoppers in your store by including game elements. Gamification can help increase BFCM campaign engagement.

Shopify apps make it easy to set up and test a few gamification techniques. The Lucky Spin Wheel is a fun way to add interactive content to your website or email.

Digital gift cards:

Digital gift cards are a smart way to enhance the consumer experience, particularly for Millennials. Customers can freely select the products they want using digital gift cards.

Digital gift cards can be used and saved on devices like smartphones, making them convenient for owners.

Amazon eGift card

The majority of customers rarely use the exact amount that is available on their cards. They frequently spend more than the amount on their credit card. And they are willing to pay a little more for what they want. Why? Behaviour is key. “Free money” makes them more impulsive.

By giving customers gift cards during BFCM, brands can increase their conversion rates, bring in new customers, and get a better handle on their customer base.

If your plan is on the right track, you will reap the benefits of this program every holiday season.

2. Take a look at your competitors

Many store owners either don’t care about competition or have no idea who their competitors are. That mistake kept them from achieving a sales explosion.

By studying the strategies used by your competitors and identifying their advantages and limitations, you can improve your own. Then, you can put your unique plan into action to increase brand awareness and customer traffic.

• Inspect the web and social media presence of your competitors. Observe their campaigns and customer interactions.
• Use Similarweb to spy on your competitors’ multi-channel marketing and customer acquisition efforts.
• Find other products like yours by using a search engine. Analyze the keyword strategies of your competitors.

There is no doubt that your competitors could teach you something.

#6 weeks before BFCM

3. Begin planning in advance

After researching potential Shopify BFCM ideas, the next step is to begin sketching. If you’re still struggling to come up with a new BFCM marketing plan, consider any of these 9+ successful Black Friday campaigns.

The sooner you start planning your implementation, the more time you’ll have to address problems and communicate better with customers.

Begin by outlining your ideas and how you intend to implement them. A checklist can help your progress monitoring easier.

• Make a list of discounted items and check stock. 
• Organize a framework for the program 
• Determine the most effective channels for spreading information. 
• Prepare content for your BFCM program and name it.

4. Prepare a backup plan

Having a backup plan means planning for the worst. There is always the risk that something will go wrong, such as a holdup in shipping, a shortage of products to sell, or lacking gifts to deliver.

Try to foresee potential problems and offer workable answers. Don’t ever disappoint your customers.

#5 weeks before BFCM

5. Set up your Black Friday campaigns

When you create a BFCM marketing activity in Shopify, you should save it as a draft and publish it when it’s ready. Moreover, you can group your promotional activities to achieve a common objective.

Setting up the marketing app for your Shopify store is essential to create marketing campaigns. Make sure you pick the proper app and can handle the needs of your BFCM plan.

Step 1: In Shopify, navigate to Marketing. 

Step 2: To check out the available marketing automation and activity options:

• Go to Automations to create an automation and click Create automation. 
• Go to Campaigns to create a marketing activity, and click Create campaign. 

Step 3: Choose an activity or automation. 

Step 4: Give it a name. 

Step 5: Fill in the blanks with the necessary information. Before saving or publishing, you can preview marketing actions and automation. 

Step 6: Save a draft or publish your work: 

• Click Finish later to save a draft. 
• Click Publish to publish an activity or automation.

To add a marketing activity to an existing campaign, follow these steps.

6. Build trust 

One of the crucial tasks in getting ready for a BFCM sales surge is boosting customer trust. There are psychological barriers to buying online, so reviews from previous customers play a vital role in decision-making. The 5-star ratings and images have a significant influence.

Customer reviews play a vital role in the decision-making process.

You can use Klaviyo to build effective email marketing campaigns. Then optimize them with customer reviews by using Ali Reviews. Ali Reviews is a review app integrated with Klaviyo.

Customers are drawn in by discounts, but they are ultimately encouraged to purchase after reading reviews from other customers.

#3 weeks before BFCM

7. Optimize your pay-per-click campaigns

BFCM is the busiest day of the year for pay-per-click (PPC) ads. We all have time to improve PPC when launching campaigns on other days of the year. 

Optimize your pay-per-click campaigns.

However, BFCM only gives you two days to maximize conversions. Our 9-week hard work can go to waste if you make a mistake with the settings, the ad choice, or the bid.

Don’t limit your advertising to Black Friday and Cyber Monday; promote your campaigns for a week.

Check out the tips below to use PPC to its maximum potential this Black Friday: 

• Before running your ads, define clear goals for your campaign’s budget and KPIs.
• Research and choose the keywords that work best for BFCM online shopping days. 
• Examine existing customers and select the products for which they want to run advertisements.
• Segment your audience to deliver the right message. 
• Avoid the advertising phrase “Black Friday” and instead promote “Black Friday + your product’s keyword.”
• Use Target ROAS and seasonal adjustments for smart bidding on BFCM.

8. Shopify BFCM holiday apps

Advertising, influencers, and social media: 

Are you looking for new customers? They’re looking for unique gift ideas. We’ve got the proper apps to get your business in front of customers:

• Archive by Archive Technologies – Auto-save 100% of UGC: Instagram stories, reels & feed posts.
• Affiliate & Influencer by impact.com – Manage affiliates & influencers to acquire new customers.

Discounts, flash sales, and limited‑time offers:

Provide the undecided buyer with the motivation to complete their BFCM holiday shopping:

• OneUpSell by OneCommerce – Frequently bought together, quantity breaks, gift & discount.
• Octane AI by Octane AI –Launch stunning product quizzes. Works with all email & SMS apps.

Email & SMS marketing:

Sometimes all consumers need is a reminder of their abandoned carts.

• Klaviyo by Klaviyo – Email, SMS, and more – a unified customer platform. 
• Flowio by Flowio – SMS-Email Marketing, Pop up, Live chat. 

Product Reviews:

Earning their trust is the key to unleashing your customers’ purchasing potential.

• Ali Reviews by FireApps – Review app to collect reviews by Email/SMS & reviews importer.
• Loox by Loox – Beautiful product reviews, photo & video reviews, and referrals.

#2 weeks before BFCM

9. Test your Shopify store for traffic spikes

Regular load testing is required for website optimization for peak shopping days such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Optimizing photos to reduce file size and using Google PageSpeed to check how quickly pages load are also must-dos. 

Whether your Shopify business features eye-catching banners or gorgeous landing pages for flash deals, customers will be disappointed if it collapses.

Swift is a time and cost-effective solution that ensures excellent outcomes. The app assists in optimizing the Google Core Web Vitals Lighthouse score to the greatest extent feasible. 

The BFCM may be a stressful period for your business, but if you can get into trouble with page speed, Swift can help you out.

10. Plan ahead for email marketing 

Implementing email marketing can help you boost ROI in time for BFCM. According to Litmus, email has the highest ROI of any channel at $36 for every dollar spent.

Set up your email marketing campaign.

You can start by reviewing and gathering data on your current customers. Furthermore, you should encourage new customers to sign up for your newsletter to be notified about your upcoming big promotions. It’s a great time to get more email subscribers.

We’ve found that keeping your promotional emails out of the spam folder is as important as making them engaging to read. For that reason, here are some tips to avoid having your emails marked as spam:

• Add an unsubscribe link to emails
• Keep your topic lines from being all capitals or lots of exclamation points.
• Sidestep spammy language in the subject line, such as 100% Free, Free, FLA$H SALE IS ON NOW!!!
• Check the spelling of your messages before sending them.
• Increase reputation by authenticating with Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM).
• Improve email delivery and open rates by using a spam checker like GlockApps.

Last weeks before BFCM

11. Check your checkout experience

After a poor checkout experience, 80% of US shoppers abandon their carts. Review your checkout procedure personally and ask friends to double-check it. Improve your checkout process to reduce cart abandonment and boost conversion rates.

12. Get your data tracking system set up

Data is king. Understanding how your BFCM performs, profit or loss, is critical. It will serve as a springboard for your earnings to skyrocket shortly.

Google Analytics:

Enabling Google Analytics several times may impact data accuracy. Therefore, if you are uncertain as to whether Google Analytics is enabled or not, you can use these steps to check.

Read this article for instructions on how to set up Google Analytics and enable e-commerce tracking.

Shopify analytics:

The statistics and reports provided by Shopify provide a comprehensive and detailed picture of your store’s performance.

Shopify Analytics page provides vital business data to every merchant. For your convenience, Shopify’s reports are broken down into several distinct groups:

• Acquisition report
• Behavior report
• Customers report
• Finances report
• Inventory report
• Marketing report
• Orders report
• Profit report
• Retail sales report
• Sales report
• Custom report
• Product analytics

Here’s to making it to BFCM in just 9 weeks. BFCM is undoubtedly a busy and stressful time for you. However, you may lighten your load by following our preparation instructions.

We hope that your BFCM campaigns help you keep your new customers happy and win over their hearts.

All the best for the peak season!