Black Friday & Cyber Monday Marketing 2023: Week-by-Week Guide

Are you looking for the best and easy-to-follow Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing guide? Look no further!

For businesses, Black Friday and Cyber Monday represent more than just dates on a calendar; they’re golden opportunities to skyrocket sales, attract new customers, and solidify brand loyalty.

But with great opportunity comes great competition. Every brand, big or small, is gearing up to grab a slice of the BFCM pie. So, how do you ensure your business stands out in this bustling marketplace? 

I offer a marketing calendar specifically tailored for Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing. This to-do list ensures you remain on track at every step.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro looking for fresh Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing strategies or a newbie setting foot into the BFCM arena for the first time, this guide has got you covered.

With this calendar, you can plan ahead and avoid last-minute rushes.

• 1st and 2nd Week of October: Planning
• 3rd and 4th Week of October: Build Your Marketing Campaigns
• 1st Week of November: Optimize for Conversion
• 2nd Week of November: Start Marketing
• After the Holidays: Post-Holiday Retargeting

Note: Don’t forget to check out the ultimate holiday gift guide designed specifically for entrepreneurs and small business owners:

1st and 2nd Week of October: Planning

First, I will discuss what must happen soon, in the first couple weeks of October.

1. Plan Your Sales

Refrain from deciding on a whim what products you will put on sale on a given day. You’ll inevitably run into inventory issues or forget to turn the sale pricing off.

75%??? You’ll quickly eat into your margins by forgetting to turn that one off!

You’re setting yourself up for something to go wrong. It’s much better to plan out your sales in advance.

You can use something as basic as Google Sheets to make a tracking spreadsheet for your sales. Here’s the information you’ll want to track:

1. Product
2. Regular price
3. Sale price
4. Sale start date & end date
5. Type of sale (Flash, coupon, etc.)
6. Promotion channels (email, social media platforms, etc.)
7. Discount code, if any

You don’t need to list all your products in this spreadsheet; use it for special product sales. You don’t need to use it if you’re marking down sitewide.

If you use an ecommerce platform like BigCommerce, WooCommerce, or Shopify, be sure to check out what’s available in their app store. You’ll find an app you like to make scheduling sales easier if you’d rather not track it manually.

2. Test Your Tech

Want to know one of the worst feelings in the world?

You create a beautiful site, plan your on-site Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing strategy to the finest detail, your emails have been on point, and you’ve seen an uptick in your site traffic since 5 am on your sale.

Suddenly, it’s 8:30 am, and you have a significant influx of traffic from your latest email that you knew would be good.

And your site crashes?

Test. Your. Tech.

3rd and 4th Week of October: Build Your Marketing Campaigns

During the last two weeks of October, you’ll spend most of your time creating the images and copy to help you build excitement around your sales and get shoppers to your store.

3. Create Your Images and Themes

People expect the typical holiday imagery to go along with Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing.

We want the bright greens and reds of a standard commercial holiday, the beautiful blues and silvers of a winter wonderland, or another holiday-inspired scene to greet us from whatever advertising email we open from the beginning of October through the end of the year.

You don’t need to be a graphics design whiz to create beautiful images for your website or Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing campaigns. Check out these free visual content creation tools to make it easier for yourself.

Related Content: Looking for holiday marketing design ideas? Check out our list of 40 holiday marketing design examples sure to inspire you!

4. Start Writing Your Copy

There are several different types of holiday sales events and announcements, and not all have to include the words “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday” to attract the shoppers looking for those deals.

Here’s a list of several different types of Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing pieces you can create for your email, social media, and print campaigns:

• Doorbuster sale announcements: typical Black Friday fare offering steep discounts
• Exclusive sale announcements: these sales events are for loyal customers, online-only, mailing list only, Instagram only, etc
• Time limit sale (24-hours only!): these sales take advantage of psychological marketing triggers like scarcity and urgency
• Black Friday sale announcement
• Cyber Monday sale announcement
• Sale reminders
• Reminder sent before sale ends
• Sneak-peek of upcoming promotions
• Order deadline announcement
• Abandoned cart emails

There’s no shortage of content to produce, and this doesn’t even scratch the surface of everything you could choose to offer.

We’ve got you covered if you’re looking for ways to step up your email content game. Check out these 19 tips for writing better emails.

Interested in creating better content overall? Have a look at our beginner’s guide to content marketing.

5. Create Content for Early Shoppers

According to a 2018 survey by RetailMeNot, a staggering 60% of consumers plan to start shopping for holiday gifts before Black Friday. ?

It’s important to create content for those early shoppers before it’s too late and they’ve already done their holiday shopping.

Best Buy and other retailers start their Black Friday sales early.

Another great way to engage with early shoppers is by creating gift guides.

These can be added to your website, printed on glossy paper for your brick-and-mortar store, and shared on social media:

These are just a couple of ways to engage with early shoppers.

You can also use popups to encourage shoppers to follow you on social or by signing up for your email list to be the first to know when sales happen.

6. Run a Contest

Online contests are a great way to grow your email list, boost social media followers, increase website traffic, and generate targeted leads. 

You can create, manage, and run an online contest quickly and easily with RafflePress.

RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market. It has a drag-and-drop builder that makes it ridiculously easy to build a stunning contest landing page or giveaway widget in no time.

With its awesome list of features, you can easily drive website traffic, increase social media follows, and grow your email list. 

And a free RafflePress Lite plugin is available in the WordPress plugin repository!

Bonus Content: RafflePress Review: Is This Giveaway Plugin Any Good?

7. Use Social Proof

Nearly 70 percent of online shoppers check out product reviews before purchasing. Why? Because they want to know that other folks are happy about doing business with your company.

Adding TrustPulse is one of the best ways to add social proof to your site (and get an instant lift in conversions of up to 15%).

TrustPulse lets you show off your most recent site activity in a small, eye-catching popup.

You can show purchases, registrations, signups, any verified site activity, and use a cool “on fire” notification when you have a really popular product. These notifications work really well for leveraging FOMO on landing pages and checkouts.

Plus, TrustPulse only takes about 3 minutes to set up, from signup to running on your site.

Click here to get started with TrustPulse for free.

1st Week of November: Optimize for Conversion

Before your Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing is ready to go public, there are a couple of things that you need to do on your site’s category and product pages to make sure that you’re primed for conversions.

8. Optimize Your Content

Go through your category and product pages to make sure that your descriptions contain useful keywords and information to help shoppers find your products.

Best Made Co. goes all out on their product descriptions and tells the story of their product.

We have a fantastic blog post about creating high-converting product pages that you should check out for excellent guidance here.

9. Optimize Your Checkout Process

There are quite a few things you can do to streamline your checkout process and make it delightfully easy for shoppers to complete their purchases. Here’s a small sampling:

• Create a popup that appears as shoppers try to exit your site from the checkout page
• Create a sale countdown timer to create a sense of urgency or FOMO (fear of missing out)
• Show shipping costs upfront
• Include multiple payment options
• Offer guest checkout

For more ideas, check out this detailed list of the 22 best ways to optimize your checkout page.

10. Optimize for Mobile

In 2021, sales from retail m-commerce amounted to $359.32 billion, showing a rise of 15.2% compared to 2020. Moreover, mobile purchases increase by 12% during Black Friday Cyber Monday overall.

It seems mobile is finally gaining ground which means you need to make sure that your store looks good on a smartphone.

Go through the entire purchasing process yourself, from browsing through checkout, so you know where it will break down for the customer.

How many fields does your checkout process require the shopper to fill out? If it’s too many, they may bounce.

Check with your eCommerce platform to see what payment options you can offer and find one like Google Pay that lets shoppers autofill saved information to reduce keystrokes.

11. Highlight Your Policies

Don’t keep your policies hidden from customers. Your site should proudly display shipping, returns, and refund policies in simple, accessible language. You can even show them directly on each product page.

2nd Week of November: Start Marketing

2nd week of November should ideally see your holiday marketing in full swing.

It’s time to start your holiday email marketing campaigns and get your social media followers thinking about sugar plum fairies and eggnog.

12. Schedule Your Email and Social Media Marketing

Kick off your Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing with a sneak peek of upcoming sales and promotions. 

You may not be offering discounts yet, but you’re definitely getting your customers into a festive mood with emails and social media posts about the upcoming holiday season.

Related Content: How to Create a Social Media Holiday Strategy in 5 Easy Steps

Will you be open on Thanksgiving? Let them know. Are you planning any customer appreciation events? Post about those.

Also, be absolutely sure to schedule emails and posts to remind customers of order deadlines for their orders to arrive by a specific date. Sock It To Me used this awesome calendar:

For sale events, schedule and send a series of emails and social media posts:

1. One Day Before a Big Sale Event

Send an email announcing the big sale and post about it on social media.

2. The Day of the Event

Send a reminder email just before the event begins and post again on social media.

3. A Few Hours Before the Event Ends

Send a final reminder that the sale is ending and post once more on social media.

What is the best time to send marketing emails?

Generally, the best day to send marketing emails is Tuesday or Thursday. As for time, if you stick with traditional business hours, you’ll be fine; peak open rates happen at 3 p.m.

Check out the best time to post on social media for peak engagement.

Throughout the Holidays: Track and Analyze

It’s important to follow your progress for each sale and marketing campaign. The best way to do that is by using Google Analytics.

WordPress Users: By far, the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress is MonsterInsights. Get started with MonsterInsights today!

13. Track and Monitor 

Track your site and campaign performance on analytics.

To get the most out of Google Analytics, follow our step-by-step guide to Google Analytics to get started.

After the Holidays: Post-Holiday Retargeting

Now that the holidays are over, it’s time to stay connected with holiday shoppers to turn them into year-round shoppers.

14. Stay Connected After the Holidays

Stay connected with holiday shoppers by being active on social media and continuing to send email newsletters to your subscribers.

How To Boost Your Black Friday Cyber Monday Marketing Campaigns

You’ve now armed yourself with the strategies and insights needed to conquer the Black Friday Cyber Monday sales frenzy. But what if I told you there’s a tool that can amplify your results even further?

Meet OptinMonster.

Why should OptinMonster be your secret weapon this sales season?

1. High-Converting Popups: Craft eye-catching popups that grab your visitors’ attention, ensuring they check out your BFCM deals.
2. Advanced Targeting: Deliver personalized offers based on user behavior, location, and more. The right message at the right time can make all the difference!
3. Seamless Integrations: OptinMonster plays well with your favorite email marketing platforms, CRMs, and more, ensuring a smooth data flow.
4. Exit-Intent Technology: Catch potential customers right before they leave with irresistible offers, turning potential exits into conversions.
5. A/B Testing: Not sure which offer will resonate more? Test, refine, and deploy the most effective campaigns with ease.

Just take a look at how these OptinMonster customers made out:

• How Podcast Insights Grew Conversions 1099% with Onsite Retargeting
• Win In Health increased revenue by 300%
• Woodside Communities made $294,435 in less than 2 months
• ClickBank University double sales

In the world of e-commerce, every click, every visitor, and every cart matters.

Don’t let potential sales slip through the cracks. Supercharge your Black Friday Cyber Monday marketing efforts with OptinMonster and watch your conversion rates soar!

Ready to elevate your BFCM game? Get started with OptinMonster today!

More on Black Friday Cyber Monday Marketing:

• Black Friday Marketing Ideas
• Black Friday Email Examples and Templates
• Optimize Your Site For The Holiday Season
• Best Black Friday Marketing Tools

Published by Farjad Taheer

Hello, I'm your guide to the lead generation universe. With a knack for SEO and a mastery of content marketing, I'm on a mission to educate you on how-to generate lead and monetize your web traffic.