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<aside> 🧠 Struggling with your Black Friday Cyber Monday strategy? You’re not the only one.
BFCM is crucial for businesses of all kinds, but it’s especially important for smaller brands looking to make an impact and take advantage of the Super Bowl of shopping. This is because BFCM presents a unique opportunity – not only are people shopping for themselves, but also, of course, for others. This is the weekend that you have the potential to build an entirely new cohort of brand enthusiasts who may not have been exposed to your product otherwise. And the stakes are especially high this year.
Though employment numbers continue to show an impressive rebound from 2020, inflation and continued economic uncertainty will most likely hamper the holiday shopping season this year. Over half of consumers say that their 2023 holiday budgets have been tightened because of the current economy. To save money, two-thirds of shoppers say they’ll buy holiday items on sale, meaning that there’s even more pressure on businesses to perform well this BFCM.
That being said, how’s your BFCM strategy looking? Don’t panic if it's in your head but not quite on paper yet. All you need is to do is see through the eyes of your customer.
At P+S, our phenomenal brand ethos often has us starting in a deceptively simple but surprisingly effective way: surveys. That’s right. Your run-of-the-mill customer survey is the key to BFCM success. Come find out how.
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At a recent BFCM seminar, experts from marketing automation platform Klaviyo shared that existing customers account for 45% of all BFCM sales, a number that has been steadily increasing since 2020. Further, according to McKinsey, it’s more expensive than ever to acquire new customers; acquisition costs rose 60% from 2017-2022.
Because these customers are crucial to your business year-round, being able to mold your BFCM strategy around their opinions through a short survey is invaluable. How are surveys and BFCM related though?
Well, we realized that one key way to retain and build on that all-important customer relationship is to just check in with them. What kinds of deals do they want to see? How early are they starting to shop this year? These are just two of the many data points you can glean from a quick survey. The insights you learn here will become the bedrock of your strategy.
We use surveys and interviews all the time at Part and Sum to help us get to the “ground level” of customer and stakeholder psyches. We catch problems that have slipped through the cracks, notice macro trends that inform strategy, and signal to pertinent parties that their opinions and thoughts are being heard and actioned upon. This helps us challenge our typical ways of thinking and helps us ensure we’re covering every angle with our (hopefully) smart questions.
Surveys are simple – just ask some questions and call it a day, right? Not so fast. We want you to be as strategic with this as possible. Here are a few tips and example questions to get you started:
Start by clarifying your goals, and then write your questions. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, you won’t know what to ask. Is it more important to properly order the inventory that’ll be in highest demand? Ask your customer if they will be shopping for anything in particular on Black Friday/Cyber Monday. This will also have the added bonus of helping you create smarter digital ads highlighting the products that your customers will be seeking out in earnest.
Are you looking to do a little competitive research, and understand where your customers’ attention will be on BFCM weekend? Include a question about where they plan on shopping, or where they usually shop during these sales. We’re not advocating for a copy and paste, but what are competitor brands doing well so far this year to prepare for BFCM? What have they done in the past? Seek out your differentiators and use them to your advantage in your messaging.
Maybe you’re struggling to narrow down a direction for your overall messaging for BFCM – are you trying to speak to people shopping for their grandmothers, or their partners, or themselves? Ask them who they plan on shopping for this holiday season, and then create specific email flows highlighting that relationship and gift-giving. Or, if you see a lot of people shopping for themselves this year, include a campaign centered around the concept of “self-care/treating yourself.”
Is your goal for BFCM to increase your AOV? Ask your customers a question about spending more to receive more; for example, would they spend more money to receive free shipping, or a free gift with purchase?
Don’t try to boil the ocean. You won’t be able to uncover every single answer about the meaning of life or the success of your business from this survey. Keep your goals in mind, and your questions simple enough for your customers to complete quickly.
Take your own survey first. Are you missing something? Is a question worded confusingly? Crowd-source other opinions to make sure you’re hitting all angles and that your verbiage is inclusive.
Offer an incentive. An incentivized survey has a 30% higher chance of being completed. Offering even a 10% discount code upon completion will drive responses.
Put the results to work. Once you receive a good number of responses, start analyzing your results for trends. Is there anything in the data that can help inform your BFCM strategy immediately? For example, if most respondents are looking to purchase a specific type of water bottle this holiday season, I would advise you to build out an exclusive offer for that water bottle. Double down wherever possible to emphasize this product that your core customer has told you that they’re interested in. If they indicated that they will be shopping for themselves as well as others on BFCM weekend, consider that when crafting your messaging. Don’t let this valuable data languish somewhere where it can’t help you.
<aside> ☕ So, sit down with your pumpkin latte (it’s also THAT time of year), get to work on your questions, and let us know how the answers help shape your BFCM strategy this year.
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Got an idea for the Part and Sum OS or want to chat? Contact us at [email protected]