It's the most wonderful time of the year: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. For many shops, it's the biggest revenue-generating holiday of the year, which means it's more important than ever to set your shop up for success.
Set Your Shop Up For Success
- Proactively get your store ready for BFCM so you can enjoy the success of your campaigns and not stress your way through the weekend.
- Nearly 61% of consumers surveyed say they don't plan to stop in stores due to COVID safety concerns. That means they're gonna be online, hunting for great deals. Bring the deals to them.
- Use your campaigns to connect with your subscribers in a place that is intimate and personal to them: their text inbox. You're not just another sale—you're a friend clueing them into a great deal.
Get Your Customer Segments Ready
You've spent the last few weeks or months actively growing your subscriber list and now, as BFCM approaches, you're excited to reach out to everyone with your killer campaigns.
While Postscript absolutely encourages sending to your entire subscriber list, this can be done using very intentional customer segmentation.
- Create highly customized segments to target the full spectrum of subscriber types (e.g., brand enthusiasts, highly-engaged, unengaged, etc.)
- Personalize campaign messages for these different audiences to appeal to where they are in their journey.
- Offer varying discounts based on the segments intent to buy (i.e., brand enthusiasts are likely to buy, so you could offer a smaller discount than you might offer an unengaged subscriber you want to convert to a customer).
Let's look at some example segments you can create in Postscript:
An Engaged Subscriber segment should target the majority of your subscriber list by addressing recent activity (e.g., last order date, last click date, last subscriber date, etc.), their spend, and their order history.
Joining each of these filters with an OR statement allows you to cast a broader net, saying essentially, "Include any subscribers who fit into any of these categories."
- Since this segment will likely include the majority of your subscriber base, you can use this segment for your most general BFCM campaign.
- If you are considering tiered discounts (e.g., higher discount offered to unengaged, lower discount offered for highly engaged, etc.), you might offer this segment your intended BFCM discount deal.
An Unengaged segment identifies those subscribers who have rarely, if ever, interacted with your brand. This could include seldom or never clicking a link in a text or never creating an order (or having created their last order before a defined date), and the subscriber creation date.
Joining these filters with an AND statement allows you to really hone in on your unengaged customers, saying essentially, "Include subscribers who fit into every one of these categories." In the example below, that would look like, "Our unengaged subscribers are those who have never placed an order, never clicked a message link, and subscribed over 60 days ago."
- Since this segment targets unengaged subscribers, you could build upon your general BFCM campaign to really call out and identify with these users through your messaging.
- If you are considering tiered discounts, you might offer this segment a more attractive or compelling BFCM discount to convert these subscribers to customers.
A Brand Enthusiasts segment identifies those subscribers who are obsessed with your brand. These are your VIP customers, but you might qualify that differently: Are your VIP customers ones who order often? Are your VIP customers the ones who spend the most?
Joining each of these filters with an OR statement allows you to cast a broader net, saying essentially, "Include any subscribers who have placed more than X orders OR spent $XX or more in our store."
- Since this segment targets your most active customers, you can play up that elite status in your message copy. Calling these subscribers your VIPs, etc., can create instant rapport and establish a sense of exclusivity.
- Your brand enthusiast customers are likely to purchase from your brand no matter what, so if you are considering tiered discounts, you might offer this segment a lower BFCM discount.
- Keep in mind that the values you define for your brand enthusiast values (how often they order, last order date, etc.) will depend on the products your shop offers. Shops that sell apparel might have a longer time between orders than a shop that sells food or similar items.
A BFCM - Yet to Purchase segment identifies those subscribers who have yet to place an order with your shop during the BFCM holiday. It's the perfect segment for "last chance" campaigns and reminders about your sale.
You can create two of these segments, one specific for Black Friday and another for Cyber Monday. We do recommend that you keep the Last Order Date as 11/27/2021 for your Cyber Monday campaign.
Schedule Your BFCM Campaigns
When it comes to BFCM campaigns, you have so many options: early access, BOGO offers, flash sales, tiered discounts ($15 of $50, $20 of $100, etc.), 12 Days of Deals, and more. Once your team agrees on the promotions you want to run, you can schedule your campaigns for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
We've put together some suggested campaigns in the below timeline. Note that these times and suggestions are optional. You can choose which campaigns and timing resonate with your brand.
Get Your Subscribers Excited
- When: Tease your Black Friday early in the week (Nov. 22 - Nov. 24) or month (Nov. 1 - Nov. 21)
- Who: All Customers and Subscribers segment (or All US/CANADA Customers and Subscribers segment)
- What: Create intrigue with copy that teases your upcoming sale and piques interest. Personalize with message tags and include media (images or GIFs) and emojis that create an air of excitement.
Go Live With Your Black Friday Promotion
- When: Morning of Friday, Nov. 26
- Who: Your BFCM customer segments
- What: Create exciting copy that shouts out your Black Friday promotion and speaks to your various segments directly. Personalize with first name message tags, a link to your shop, and include relative promotion codes. Don't forget an exciting and festive custom GIF that showcases the various items customers will see in your shop (or featured in your sale).
Reach Out To Non-Purchasers
- When: Saturday, Nov. 27 or Sunday, Nov. 28
- Who: Your BFCM Yet to Purchase segment
- What: Follow up with those subscribers who've yet to take advantage of your Black Friday sale with a reminder or "last chance" offer. Use this campaign to create a sense of urgency (i.e., This is your last chance or Only 4 hours left!)
Go Live With Cyber Monday Promotion
- When: Morning of Monday, Nov. 29
- Who: Your BFCM customer segments
- What: Create exciting copy that shouts out your Cyber Monday promotion and speaks to your various segments directly. Personalize with first name message tags, a link to your shop, and include relative promotion codes. Don't forget an exciting and festive custom GIF that showcases the various items customers will see in your shop (or featured in your sale).
Send Last Chance Campaign
- When: Late Monday, Nov. 29
- Who: Your BFCM Yet to Purchase segment
- What: Reach out to subscribers who have yet to make an order. Let them know it's their last chance to take advantage of the sale, and maybe offer a stronger discount incentive to close any outstanding sales. Use this campaign to create a sense of urgency (i.e., This is your last chance or Only 4 hours left!)
Enable Your BFCM Automations
Automations perform some essential tasks in your subscribers' SMS journey: they welcome them in, provide important information, direct subscribers back to abandoned shopping carts, and provide shipping updates.
With BFCM, we recommend you create BFCM-specific versions of your welcome series and abandoned cart automations and enable them once your sale season is live.
- Copy existing automations and update messages to reflect the holiday season and BFCM information.
- Use welcome series to promote discounts and inform customers about shipping deadlines (i.e., Order by X date to get your items in time for gift wrapping!).
- Create multiple abandoned cart automations that target specific shopping cart totals.
- Use automations to remind subscribers about gift cards and other available digital purchases.
Get Support
Have questions? Please feel free to reach out to our wonderful Support team at support@postscript.io or via live chat. You can also submit a support request here!
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