Black Friday and Cyber Monday are coming up. As a business, there’s every reason to be excited.
After all, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest shopping weekends of the year.
During this time, small businesses anticipate a +107% revenue boost over the retail holidays.
Sure, Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer an excellent opportunity to build brand awareness and scoop the all-important holiday sales.
The problem, however, is that you’re up against virtually every other competitor. As a result, it can be a challenge to make the most of the shopping season.
Still, you can leverage influencer marketing to ensure that your brand stands out. That way, you can increase your off and online sales while attracting brand loyalists and new customers.
In this post, we take an in-depth look at how to build a Black Friday and Cyber Monday influencer strategy that delivers results.
Let’s get cracking.
Why are Black Friday and Cyber Monday Important?
For starters, Black Friday is the Friday that follows Thanksgiving. It is considered to be a day when the holiday shopping season starts. On this day, brands worldwide offer discounts and savings.
Cyber Monday is the Monday after Black Friday. It is a twenty-four-hour online shopping fiesta created to persuade shoppers to buy online. Cyber Monday is now considered to be an extension of Black Friday Sales.
Here are some key Black Friday and Cyber Monday eCommerce insights:
- People are more likely to shop online on Black Friday than in-store, with most shopping happening via mobile devices.
- eCommerce retailers report between 240% and 380% increase in sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, respectively.
- Online traffic increases by a staggering 220% on Black Friday and 155% on Cyber Monday compared to typical sales day.
- All-day or longer sales sessions generate more revenue than flash sales.
- Nearly 70% of Black Friday desktop shoppers buy from retailers offering free shipping.
- The five-day shopping bonanza is the perfect time for online retailers to clear their stock.
Benefits of Working With Influencers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
There are many reasons you’d want to team up with an influencer for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing campaign. Let’s check out several of those reasons.
Influencers Create a Buzz for Your Store
An influencer-backed campaign in the lead-up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday can help you reach a wider audience without blowing your budget.
As a side-note, it is interesting to note that micro-influencers (those with 3 to 100K followers) often generate more engagement than celebrity influencers. So, instead of teaming up with one expensive celebrity, you may consider having dozens of micro-influencers generate content for your campaign.
Influencers Offer Stunning Visuals for Your Social Feed
Repeated studies show that user-generated content (UGC) drives 6.9 times higher engagement than brand-generated content. And when you think about it, it makes sense!
You’re more likely to achieve success advocates, and have loyal customers praise your brand than the other way round.
Working with influencers is an effective strategy to jazz up your brand’s social media feed by sharing your content.
Influencers do the Creative Testing on Your Behalf
Details of a study commissioned by GlobalWebIndex revealed that 53% of United States and 49% of United Kingdom customers are now converting via social media.
Given the user-generated content effectiveness, you can use your best-performing influencer to promote your paid social ads for maximum Black Friday and Cyber Monday impact.
The best practice is to run a traditional influencer marketing campaign and license the best-performing content for your social ads.
How to Prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday
You must be ready if you want to cash in on the biggest shopping weekend of the year. Here are some things you can do to prepare for the busiest shopping days of the year.
Get the Basics Rights as Early as Possible
If you haven’t, create an outline for your upcoming sales. Choose the products you want to promote. Schedule their start dates and sale prices.
The idea is to make sure that you’ll already have a plan in place when the sales start to roll around. That way, you’ll avoid making the last-minute rush.
Also, promote Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on your website.
Nearly 50% of shoppers plan their holiday shopping way before Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The point is, your customers need to know about your sale. Otherwise, you won’t generate the revenue you’re hoping to come on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Develop Contingency Plans
Things go wrong, and now is the time to think about the worst that could happen.
What if your shipping company is overwhelmed with holiday orders? How soon can you restock your inventory if your merchandise sells out earlier than you expected?
Sure, running a business is all about being optimistic, but at the same time, it makes sense to prepare for the worst, just in case.
Develop a contingency plan early to avoid dealing with unforeseen problems in the middle of the biggest shopping bonanza of the year.
Test Your Website for Traffic Surges
As stated, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are characterized by massive traffic surges.
Traffic spikes can weigh down and potentially crash your website – and that’s not good for business. Why? Well, because 46 percent of shoppers say they’d never return to a slow website.
You will want, therefore, to make sure that your website enables visitors to complete their shopping ASAP and scoop the best deals possible. You’ll struggle to generate sales if your site doesn’t offer a seamless shopping experience.
Consider implementing a countdown timer pop-up as a way of creating a sense of urgency on your website. Think of it as a strategy to force impulse purchases. Shoppers tend to buy if you remind them that the sale ends soon. You can also nudge the fact that the shopping holidays are only weeks away.
Work with Your Suppliers
Can you handle the surging demand? Are you dealing with a product manufacturer or supplier for your inventory? You’ll need to ensure that they’re prepared to take care of the expected Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
The last thing you want to do during this shopping season is sell out and not fulfill your customer orders.
Develop Your Marketing Strategy
Without a marketing strategy, you’ll struggle to close sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
So, you’ll need to formulate a marketing campaign to help draw customers to your store. One strategy is you can leverage influencer marketing.
For starters, influencer marketing involves working with influencers to promote your products or services.
The influencers help reach out and influence shoppers your brand wishes to establish a touch-point.
Influencer Marketing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday
According to HubSpot, over 70 percent of shoppers are more likely to buy when referred by social media more than other forms for marketing.
Besides encouraging your targeted audience to buy from your brand, influencers can help build brand awareness and online presence. Of course, the ripple effect is more sales.
Besides, influencers are more relatable to consumers. For potential shoppers, influencers are more authentic and trustworthy. If you choose the right content creator, you can be sure of a positive return on investment (ROI).
That said, here’s how you can use influencers for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing campaign.
Have the Influencer Review Your Product or Service
68% of shoppers say they’re more likely to buy from a business with positive reviews.
Combine that with the persuasive power of an influencer, and you’ve got what it takes to boost your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
You can use influencers for pre-promotional sponsored posts a couple of weeks to Black Friday and Cyber Monday advertising your discounts and sale offers.
By leveraging the voice of an influencer, you can encourage their loyal followers to check your products.
Also, be sure to ask the content creator to explain to their audience why they love your products or services in their promotional messaging.
Assign the Influencer Discount Codes
You can equip the influencer with discount codes to drive conversions.
The best practice is to supply the ambassador with commission-based links or codes to help drive the promotion.
The beauty of it is that you can easily track these codes, giving you measurable performance analytics. Black Friday and Cyber Monday discount codes can add value to your target audience.
Record the Influencer Unboxing your Products
Vertical videos are the thing these days, especially with IGTV and TikTok popularity.
You’ll want to leverage the shopper’s appetite for video content by asking an influencer to hop on the unboxing trend.
As the name suggests, unboxing videos involve the influencer opening the product and sharing a detailed experience with every aspect of your product’s branding and packaging.
Be sure to supply the content creator with your product early enough to enable them to create this kind of reveal or sneak peek to stir excitement among your target customers.
Tutorials
Shoppers tend to watch and read solution-based content on social media than most types of content. So, create valuable and informative content that solves your customer’s pain point and let the influencer promote it.
As a rule of thumb, make sure the content aligns with your business. You can, for instance, compile festive presents ideas, holiday recipes, top winter destinations, and seasonal decorations.
You can also create an educational, blog-style post containing several ads that’ll pop up over the shopping season.
Alternatively, you can have an influencer record a video explaining how your target customers find the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. Of course, the video will feature your online store.
In-App Shopping
Brands must take advantage of the many integrated shopping functionalities offered by the online platform.
It’s pretty easy to direct potential customers to your store from Instagram Stories to Swipe Ups and Pinterest Buy It Buttons. That way, you can facilitate the purchase and streamline research in a few clicks.
As stated, Black Friday and Cyber Monday traffic comes from mobile devices. It makes perfect sense, therefore, to use an influencer to establish a direct connection between their recommendations and your bottom line.
Advocacy
Leverage the influencer’s pre-existing brand affinity and genuine advocacy to optimize results.
Generally, influencer marketing works with content creators with genuine connections and passion for your brand.
You can use analytics platforms like Influencer Intelligence to search a specific influencer’s organic mentions to help you pick the best influencer for your marketing campaign.
Choose an influencer with a solid brand-promotion portfolio to help tell your story while guaranteeing positive resonance.
Your Black Friday and Cyber Monday influencer strategy is far more likely to succeed if entrusted to the right person in front of the right target audience.
The Bottom Line
Indeed, partnering with an influencer is an excellent way to increase your Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It also increases your brand awareness efforts and can help inspire purchasing decisions.
Influencers bring authenticity to your marketing strategy and can soften your approach.
So, instead of bombarding your target customers with offers, partner with a content creator to showcase your product.
Any influencer worth your attention should understand their followers. Most importantly, they should promote relevant content to their audience.
Do you need help crafting your Black Friday and Cyber Monday influencer marketing strategy?