It is almost that time of year again for Cyber Monday when millions of online shoppers will be looking for the best deals on holiday gifts. With that being said, there is tons of competition and consumers will be bombarded with sales and offers.  If you have not started getting ready, now is the time to start planning your strategy.

Below are tips on how to optimize your strategy for Cyber Monday.

 

1. Start implementing your strategy today

Last year over half of online consumers began their holiday shopping in October or earlier.  In order to take advantage of the attention already generating online, you need to get things going asap. The early bird always gets the worm.

2. Enhance your website SEO

Google and Bing are the top search engines consumers are using when they are shopping online.  For that reason, SEO remains one of the top strategies for inbound marketing. Before the big day comes, be sure to optimize your website or certain pages for keywords related to Cyber Monday.

3. Request basic info to release offers

If you are currently running a larger inbound marketing campaign, you may want to think about tying in your Cyber Monday strategy to it.  You can do this by gating your offers and discounts behind a landing page. Have an easy sign up form that only requires a name and email address in order to get the offers or coupons. If you are presenting good offers you should experience a nice boost in leads which will in turn grow your email list as well.

4. Optimize for mobile

Over the last year there has been a great increase in the amount of purchases made from a mobile device.  For this reason it is imperative that your website is mobile responsive. Customers should be able to easily add items to their carts and checkout should be a breeze as well.  With platforms like Shopify, you can add a one-click checkout plugin. You don’t want to give your customers a reason to abandon their purchase.

5. Encourage sharing

During the holidays, it is key to encourage your customers to share about their experience shopping with your site. Whether they are talking about how great your customer service is or sharing that they received a great discount, any sharing about your site with others is a big win.  It is completely worth it to take a small hit and offer things like free shipping or a 10% discount on their entire order if that means you get higher conversions.

6. Get creative with your content

Hopefully you already have a blog going on your site.  If you do not, you should consider starting one. A great post to add during the holiday season is a shopping guide.  You can promote this on all your social media accounts and your site.  This is a great way to help you stand out and helpful content also promotes customer trust. The content can be a guide on choosing the perfect gift as well as gift ideas and can be in the form of video, infographics or articles.  Get creative.

7. Use shopping feeds and PPC advertising 

PPC advertising and shopping feeds from Google advertising can be great for your business.  They can help boost visibility and really grow your traffic.  They are simple and fast to set up and you can expect to see a boost in traffic relatively fast.  This will also help your website rank higher in search engine results.

8. Segment your email lists

Using your email lists is another great way to boost your marketing efforts for Cyber Monday.  As an example, you can email out a message beforehand letting your customers know you will notify them the moment your deals are available.  This will create a sort of “waiting line” that will help generate sign-ups while at the same time reward your current customers. You can also let them know you will be sending out an “early access” email that will contain deals only for them as a thanks for being your loyal customers.

9. Don’t forget to upsell

Cyber Monday is no doubt high traffic.  Leverage that traffic by offering additional options such as a “Similar Products” section to your product pages or adding a “You May Also Like” section at checkout.  There a lots of up sell apps to choose from if you do not already have one for your site. Studies show that you can boost your revenue up to 300%…as if that is not good enough reason.

10. Have a follow-up plan

After conversion, it is important to keep your efforts going especially if you gain new customers from a specific event like Cyber Monday.  You want to think about using nurturing emails to let these new customers know about your full line of products and services that were not listed in your offer. Even though the big day is over, you still have the holidays coming up and people will still be doing lots of shopping. As you continue to remain in contact with offers and follow-up emails, be sure to convey how you can help them complete their wishlist.