Use Cases
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Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) emails are about to flood every email inbox in the entire universe. And yes, you should be part of the flood. But to cut through the clutter, you need to make sure your BFCM promotions creative and competitive.
And if you think a 10% off promotion is going to do the trick, you should probably keep thinking. To get your creative juices flowing, here are some promotional ideas to try in your digital store this season.
1. Bundles
Bundling is the perfect way to give customers the added value they want. It’s also a great way to get dusty products off your digital shelves. The trick with bundling is to find the right combination of products. Here are some options:
- Bundle similar products – You already know your customers like a certain type of product, so why not give them more of it? For example, if your shop sells digital artwork, you could bundle two or three pieces by the same artist at a discounted price.
- Bundle complementary products – If you sell digital software, you can combine it with training, eBooks, or other digital courses to help your customers get the most out of your product. Or, if you sell something like WordPress themes, you could bundle a theme with additional plugins or design assets to improve the functionality of their site.
- Themed bundles – Create packages that appeal to different use cases or experience levels. For example, if you offer graphic design courses, you could create a “starter kit” that includes all basic courses for Illustrator, InDesign, or Photoshop.
2. One-Day Sales
Despite how things used to be, Black Friday is no longer a one-day sale. Sometimes sales start on Thanksgiving and go all the way through Cyber Monday. And sometimes, the savings last for the entire week of Thanksgiving. Which means you don’t have to limit your BFCM sale to those two days.
If you decide to extend your promotions over several days, try offering specific deals on only certain days. For example, on Black Friday, you could offer an exclusive deal on your best-selling product. On Small Business Saturday, you could try a product bundle. On Cyber Monday, you could offer 50% off your entire product line. And on Giving Tuesday, you could donate a percentage of your profits to a charity.
By breaking up the weekend—or week—into different promotions, you keep your customers’ interest by keeping their email inbox full of amazing deals all week, and you give your audience different options to save during the biggest sales event of the year.
3. Donations
Sometimes customers want to be part of something meaningful, especially during the holiday season. Even though we mostly focus on providing extra value to our customers, it may be worth a try to have your customers’ purchases provide value for someone else.
To help minimize the frenzy of the BFCM weekend, consider donating all, or a percentage of, your proceeds to charity. Find a charity that is either related to your product or industry or one that has a general draw.
If you want to offer traditional deals during the BFCM weekend, try participating in #GivingTuesday as a way to help your customers give back.
4. Free Gifts
If there’s one thing I know for certain in this world, it’s that everyone likes free stuff. And as a digital store, you don’t have to limit your free gift to digital products—you can step out of the box and use good-old-fashioned mail to send your customers a special gift.
One year, as a MailChimp customer, I got an email that asked, “Can we send you a present in the mail?” with a button that said, “Send me a present!” Of course, I clicked the button immediately, and a few days later, I got funny little chimp socks in the mail. Even though the socks had nothing to do with their products, it was a memorable gift that I continue to wear on occasion.
While MailChimp’s free-gift offer came in response to using one of their features, you can use the same idea for your holiday promotions. You can either reveal the special gift to sweeten the deal or keep the details of the gift a secret to make things interesting.
5. Percentage Off
This is probably the most common type of promotion used on BFCM. While it’s not super exciting, it is effective. Just remember that customers expect more than a 15% discount. You have to make the deal worth their time if you want to cut through the noise of BFCM. If you can offer at least a 50% discount, do it.
6. Gift Purchases
BFCM doesn’t have to be about getting deals only for the buyer. Think about those thoughtful souls who are actually shopping for other people. Give your customers the option to purchase products on behalf of someone else.
If you want a good template to copy, FastSpring offers gift purchases all year. The customer makes the payment for the product, and then it’s fulfilled to the gift recipient. Pretty simple, right?
7. Gamification
While creating a game for your customers isn’t necessarily a promotion by itself, it’s a great way to incorporate a lot of different promotions into your BFCM marketing. Adding gamification to your emails is one of the most popular ways to pique your customers’ interest and increase conversions.
For example, you could send an email that says, “Spin to wheel to get your discount!” The discount options could be any of the promotions listed above. Or your email could have a virtual scratch card that gives customers a personalized offer. This is a great way to test the effectiveness of different types of offers, which may help you narrow down your promotions for next year.
Take advantage of one of the biggest consumer spending weekends of the year by creating special promotions that appeal to your audience. And if you’re not sure what promotions will work best, try them all! Happy Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday!
