It’s crunch time for the retail industry, and that means creating personalized, omnichannel shopping experiences. For many businesses, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are the Olympics of retail. A lot of preparation (and let’s be honest, hope) goes into getting ready for this brief, but critical time of the year. If you have prepped like an Olympian (or even if you haven’t), now is the time to get in the game! Let’s get you hyped up and review a few Black Friday and Cyber Monday strategies to support a great performance. 

How To Have A Successful Black Friday Sale

1. Analyze Historical Data

Closely analyze historical sales data from previous years. Identify which products sold well, which promotions resonated with your customers, and where there might have been bottlenecks or challenges. This analysis helps in fine-tuning your inventory and marketing efforts to better match consumer demand.

We recommend doing some testing ahead of BFCM to ensure offers and bundles are optimized. Have a clear understanding of goals and where the best bets can be made (like highly converting audiences and top offers).

2. Define Your Audiences and Offers

Understanding your customer base is crucial. Start by segmenting your audience based on their past purchasing behavior, demographics, and preferences to tailor your offers. Next, determine which segments are most likely to respond to specific promotions and focus your marketing efforts on these groups to maximize impact.

Using a Customer Data Platform (CDP) can help integrate data from numerous sources (ex: web, mobile, Point of Sale data, etc.) to build highly customizable audiences. With real-time capabilities, optimizations can be done quickly to ensure the right offer is being delivered to the ideal group of buyers. A CDP can also help facilitate the collection of zero and first-party data (data provided directly from a buyer), which provides a more accurate picture of your customer – so teams can create campaigns that are relevant and support privacy preferences.

3. Leverage Real-Time and Historical Data for Messaging and Special Offers

Use a combination of real-time data and insights gleaned from historical trends to craft relevant and timely messages. This approach allows you to adjust your marketing messages dynamically to match the ongoing customer interactions and preferences throughout the sale period.

Many teams have valuable data stored in a Cloud Data Warehouse (for more, see our blog How To Leverage Your Cloud Data Warehouse with A Real-Time CDP) or Customer Resource Management (CRM). Pairing historical data (like data on purchase history, transactional details, etc.) with real-time data can help in three key aspects.

• Timely Activations: With near real-time access to customer data, businesses can trigger personalized experiences, offers, or campaigns at the most opportune moments, improving relevance and engagement.
• Accurate Personalization: By consolidating customer data from multiple sources, the integration allows for more accurate customer segmentation and tailored experiences, enhancing personalization and customer satisfaction.
• Consent Compliance: As mentioned earlier, the integration ensures that all activations are fully compliant with customer consent, building trust and maintaining regulatory compliance. We have more information on consent compliance in our blog, De-Mystifying Data Privacy: The Scoop on Data Privacy Regulations.

4. Engage Customers in Real-Time

Whenever possible, engage with your customers in real-time. Utilize live chat features, timely email updates, and push notifications to keep your customers informed about ongoing deals, stock updates, and last-minute offers. Real-time engagement can significantly enhance the customer experience and drive sales.

At this stage, you’ll want to make sure to use technology to your advantage! Solutions are available that can support powerful use cases.

• Rather than guessing what the customer is expecting, ask them using simple, in-context questions, during the interaction.
• Most personal preferences are not Personal Identifying Information (PII), unlocking organic in-the-moment experiences without needing sensitive data.
• Get a better understanding and richer cross-channel audiences by enriching profiles with the zero-party insights collected.

5. Be Prepared to Pivot

Flexibility during Black Friday and Cyber Monday is key. Monitor your campaign performance continuously throughout the event and be ready to make swift adjustments. Whether it’s ramping up a successful promotion, addressing a supply issue, or responding to a new consumer trend, quick thinking and responsiveness can make a huge difference.

We suggest you create detailed audience segments based on real-time data. This segmentation can be dynamically updated as new data comes in, ensuring that marketing efforts are always targeted at the most relevant audience. Additionally, integrate your CDP with analytics and marketing automation for the immediate activation of insights, to support swift adjustments based on how different segments are performing.

Black Friday Marketing Strategies 

We shared a few Black Friday and Cyber Monday strategies to support a great performance, but we also want to provide more resources to help you go in-depth. Here are a few more blogs (and an overview of each) to support a winning Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

1. The Importance of Real-Time Data for Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Ways to own the moment with customers, and how to deliver better Customer Experience (CX) in real-time.
2. How To Boost Sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday with Data-Backed Flexibility and Agility: Tools for flexibility, agility, real-time data insights, and personalization at scale.
3. Black Friday and Cyber Monday: What We Learned and What You Can Do: We cover BFCM trends, and recommendations to optimize for this year’s sales.

Key Takeaways For Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM)

The gold medalists of BFCM will be the companies that can deliver the “expected experience” in the least amount of time. This means, that the fewer clicks and steps, the more likely the conversion. It will be critical to make your customers’ journey streamlined, with easy-to-find products, and timely offers. 

By following the strategies mentioned above, you can ensure that your BFCM sales perform at their best. Remember, like any high-stakes event, the key to success lies in both preparation and the ability to adapt swiftly to new information and circumstances. With the right approach and the right technology, this season can set a positive tone for your business’s performance going into the new year.