When we think of the biggest shopping day of the year, many of us think Black Friday. But when it comes to online shopping, Cyber Monday has taken the lead. Last year, digital spending on Cyber Monday topped $7.9 billion, making it the single largest online shopping day in U.S. history. Here are a few tips to help you get your business ready for the biggest online shopping day of the year.
Plan for Cyber Monday
Planning is key when it comes to any successful business strategy. Consider these steps to help ensure your business is ready for the holiday shopping season.
Get your website ready
It might be a little late for a complete website overhaul but do a quick survey of your site and make sure you don’t have any broken links or missing images. Make sure your shopping cart is working properly. You also want customers find the products they are searching for in just a few clicks. Consider adding shortcuts to some of your most popular products to the homepage to make it even easier for shoppers to find those hot button items.
Avoid Traffic Jams
Nothing will crash and burn your Cyber Monday sales like a slow site. To make sure your site is ready for increased traffic, consider temporarily increasing your bandwidth. This will increase site speed and enhance user experience by allowing a greater amount of data to flow between your website and your customers.
Make it Mobile-Friendly
Smartphone sales hit an all-time high of $2 billion last Cyber Monday. Make sure your website is ready for mobile traffic by running Google’s mobile-friendly test on your site. Even something as simple as putting your phone number at the top of your homepage can be helpful for mobile shoppers.
Deliver the Deals
Discounts, door-busters, BOGOs and other mega sales are what drive shoppers to action during these key shopping holidays. When it comes to Cyber Monday, don’t forget about shipping and returns. Free shipping, even with a minimum purchase amount, can get shoppers to jump on a good deal. And an easy, buyer-friendly return policy will help put them at ease by showing them that you stand behind your product, giving them the confidence they need to buy.
Get the Word Out
Utilize a combination of tactics like social media posts, email blasts, display ads, paid search and more to spread the word and maximize awareness of your Cyber Monday specials. Update your keywords or create new search engine optimized landing pages for products or category keywords that you expect to be hot sellers this year.
Retarget
Not all shoppers make a purchase during their first visit to a site. In fact, mobile cart abandonment on Cyber Monday was over 80% last year. Keep your brand top-of-mind with a retargeting or remarketing strategy. Using a cookie-based technology, you can “follow” visitors after they’ve left your website and place your banner ads on the other sites they visit. Consider setting up a simple email campaign reminding potential customers of the items they’ve left in their cart.
Be Prepared
Expect the best but be ready if things go wrong. Have numbers ready of your hosting and shopping cart providers. Staff extra customer service reps during key online shopping hours. Make sure you have the inventory and shipping capabilities.
You don’t have to tackle Cyber Monday alone. It may be too late to check off all of these before Cyber Monday, but even doing just a few will help your business be better prepared for this year’s holiday traffic. If you are not sure where to start or are feeling overwhelmed, you can always team up with a skilled marketing team. We work with small to large businesses, creating effective marketing strategies that generate more leads. If you’re interested, send us a message and we’d be happy to see what we can do to help.
