Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) have come and gone, and now it’s time to reflect on the success of your marketing efforts.

Did you see an increase in sales? Did you reach your target audience? Did you effectively utilize digital advertising?

It’s always an exciting shopping period, but I was eager to see how impactful it was going to be this year given just some of the headwinds:

• The United States is currently over $1 trillion in credit card debt.

• Even though the annual inflation eased, consumers have become accustomed to tightening their belts.

• With a two-year slump in electronics sales, a weak holiday season was more or less expected.

Regardless, challenges are important and it felt great to be a digital marketer that prepared well for the season – aiming to exceed all projections!

Over the long weekend, here are a few observations I had from this year’s shopping frenzy.

High AOV Made the Difference

Brands that sold higher ticket items seemed to perform well, driven by folks holding out through sales periods in September and October to capitalize on BFCM.

Successful brands removed friction from the shoppers’ journey. Deal-seekers are looking for one thing, so brands with messaging and offers that were loud, clear, and direct, ultimately won.

Building on urgency was critical. Countdown timers, limited quantities, and flash sales – those are some of the tactics that deal-seekers responded to this year.

By emphasizing the limited time or availability of a deal, you can also create a sense of exclusivity that customers respond to very well.

Brand Awareness Mattered

If people already knew your name and wanted your product, you were set up for success for BCFM 2023. As soon as sales turned on for brands, consumers that had waitlisted or wishlisted products earlier were ready to pounce.

Throughout the year it’s easy to focus on low funnels tactics or the blocking and tackling of performance marketing to support your e-commerce strategy. However, building brand awareness pre-Holiday really helps you capitalize on that investment when BFCM arrives.

Many marketers and big brands fall into the trap of solely focusing on direct response KPIs. This myopic approach misses the bigger picture of the customer journey and fails to build organic buy-in. Without a strong top-of-funnel strategy, brands miss the opportunity to cultivate genuine interest and establish a connection with potential customers. Instead of merely selling a product, they should strive to be seen as cool, interesting, and integral to the target lifestyle.

For brands, this is also where consistent/unique content, brand or media collaborations, good customer experience, and positively reviewed products, make up the four key ingredients of building strong brand perception to be most relevant when it really matters.

If your brand isn’t easily associated with a product they want to buy, start early and ensure your pre-BFCM efforts solidify your brand's connection to the products customers crave.

Build on Anticipation

In the weeks or even months leading up to BCFM, building out a specific opt-in list could help unlock incremental sales for brands. So too can emails with a “Back in stock” message.

One idea to build on this list is to create a page to unsubscribers from your emails with an option that says, “Only send me Black Friday/holiday offers.” Again, it’s just another way to cater to the single-minded needs of deal-seekers.

Simplified Media Won

As already mentioned, deal-seekers are looking for one thing. As such, static ads with a clear message won this year.

Shoppers looking for the best deals want to see the product, the offer, and then decide whether they want to click.

UGC was another type of content that seemed to perform well, signaling why people should buy your product outside of an ad. This is also easily consumable while shoppers are at home, on their phones, while potentially polishing off Thanksgiving leftovers.

Offer More Than a Discount

Big brands weren’t necessarily relying on deep discounts this year.

Many brands might have dropped prices, but some offered a free gift with purchase instead to show greater value. For those brands, higher revenue was on the table, without serving up a discount.

Focus on Gifting

It’s easy to forget that this season is ultimately about gift-giving.

Segmenting your customers into gifters versus self-purchasers can be extremely beneficial.

At the very least, you’ll want to try blended messages in your marketing that appeals to both types of purchases.

BFCM really started much earlier

There’s a misconception that starting a sale too soon can cannibalize what you might see on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. That simply was not the case this year.

If you watched major retailers, sales started well ahead of the Black Friday. For example, Target’s BFCM marketing strategy focused on deals starting on October 29.

Many brands started early and amplified their holiday sales message over and over again. When tapping into existing customer lists, this proved to perform well.

Black Friday Has Given Way to “Cyber Weekend”

“Black Friday Sale” messaging is still impactful for truly limited time offers. But if your sales run through Cyber Monday, consider “Cyber Weekend” messaging instead.

This strategy lets you continue the sale throughout BFCM without any confusing messaging or mis-naming sales period. Also, keep in mind that Cyber Weekend is even starting to give way to Cyber Month.

Landing Pages Work

Custom BFCM website experiences continue to perform. Once again, deal-seekers are on a mission in this critical but narrow window of time. So, think of ways to showcase offers, value props/benefits, unique merchandising, and messaging, that directly resonates with these shoppers.

Landing pages dialed into the seasonality of this period will drive higher conversions than when using more evergreen customer journeys.

What Else Resonated this BFCM?

Send me an email with other realizations you had from this year’s BFCM.