Your Ultimate Push Notification Guide to BFCM 2020

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There are few things that are certain these days, but one thing we can say with certainty is that this holiday shopping season is sure to be like no other! With more attention than ever focused on online shopping, this year’s Black Friday Cyber Monday shopping season is a major opportunity to acquire numerous new customers and make plenty of sales. But as BFCM draws closer, are you truly prepared to maximize your sales?

More and more brands are investing in holiday marketing and advertising, making it more of a challenge to stand out in the crowd. Would you rather sit back and hope that your most loyal shoppers will remember you during the busy shopping season, or do you want to be more proactive with your approach?

One of the best ways you can engage your audience during BFCM, as well as the rest of the holiday shopping season, is through the use of web push notifications. If you’ve set up your sales goals for the season and are determined to reach them, why not try using web push to help get you there?

While every brand will have a unique strategy based on their products, target demographic, and more, here is your ultimate web push guide to BFCM that everyone can follow.

Nail Your Opt-In Prompt

You are bound to get a lot of new shoppers at your site this time of year. Make sure you capture their interest and successfully get them to opt-in to your web push notifications! While the opt-in process is far easier than other avenues such as email or SMS (it just takes one click), that doesn’t mean you are guaranteed to convince every visitor at your site.

The good news? You have options! Not only can you customize the look of your opt-in prompt, but you can also determine when to show your prompt to your visitors. For example, you might create a unique prompt that displays on your sale page alerting visitors that your notifications will keep them up to date on all of your latest sales and deals.

Custom opt-in prompts give you the opportunity to explain to your audience what they can expect from your notifications. With this information, they are more likely to choose to opt-in. By updating your placement as well, you can also increase the relevancy of the prompt and likelihood that a user will be interested.

Getting this step in the process correct is crucial. Without users opting in, you won’t have anyone to send push notifications to. While you likely already have a good list of subscribers (and we’ll get to what to do with them later on), you should not miss out on the opportunity to grow your list significantly during this busy shopping season.

Advertise Sales

Of course! What would BFCM be without sales? You’ve worked hard to develop your sales strategy for this part of the year, and now is the time to ensure that you get the word out. Web push is one great way to alert users about all of your sales during this time.

Web push is especially great when it comes to flash sales. By shortening the length of a sale, you create a real sense of urgency amongst shoppers who don’t want to miss out on your best deals. Sounds great, right? And it is. But the risk of running a short-term sale is that your customers won’t become aware of it until it’s almost (or worse- completely) over.

In order to fully maximize the impact of your flash sales, utilize web push to send campaigns alerting your subscribers the instant your sale starts. Because your notifications deliver in real-time, you can be sure that your audience will see your message right away. Further optimize your campaign by setting a custom notification expiration time so that the message will automatically disappear once the sale is over. We also recommend adding in some action buttons to encourage users to head over to your site and shop right away.

Regardless of whether your sale is an hour long, or days long, using web push can also help improve customer satisfaction. Have you ever tried shopping a sale at the last minute only to find out that everything you want is sold out? Not fun. With web push, your subscribers get the alert right away and have the chance to shop right as your sale begins.

Plan Ahead

Speaking of timing- plan ahead! While always a good idea, it’s important this year because people are shopping earlier than ever. Don’t feel like you have to wait until Black Friday to have your first major sale. Retailers are starting earlier and choosing to spread their sales out over a longer period of time this year. Most are in agreement not only that sales will start earlier, but also that consumers are starting their research earlier.

When it comes to your web push strategy, make sure you alert your subscribers well in advance of your sales so that they can plan ahead. A push notification right when your sale is live is great, but be sure to plan a series of campaigns that keep your brand in their mind while they are in the important planning phase for their holiday shopping.

Creating content for this time is also important, and something to consider sharing via web push. This could be your shopping guide for this year, informational content on how to use a top product, or perhaps a roundup of top reviews for your products and brand. Promote this content everywhere, including via web push.

Personalize Your Campaigns

This is a big one! The stats don’t lie when it comes to personalization. Simply put, you get better results. In fact, over 90% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations. While you should absolutely extend personalization into your entire marketing and online experience (and check out our list of top personalization apps for help with that), that needs to include web push as well!

Similar to your opt-in prompts, you’ve got options when it comes to personalizing your web push notifications. The three main ways you make this happen? Segmentation, custom attributes, and triggered campaigns.

First up- segmentation! While broad messages can be effective, you’ve got a better chance at really connecting with your subscribers when you group them into segments based on things like their location, activity at your site, browser, and more. For example, why not target users who haven’t visited your sale page in over a week to alert them of the latest sale items they might be missing out on?

Custom attributes allow you to add personalized information into a push campaign, such as a subscriber’s first name. This is a great way to get a subscriber’s attention and makes your message feel incredibly personalized. Couple these details with great segmentation and you’ve got a recipe for success.

Triggered Campaigns

Triggered campaigns are the most personalized push notifications you can send because they are based on the specific behavior of your subscribers. This is done by tracking custom events that allow you to target users based on actions like abandoning their cart, watching a video, and more. If you run a Shopify store, some custom events are tracked automatically for you. Otherwise, you can set up a custom event to track just about anything you like.

For BFCM, consider targeting abandoned product pages. Like we mentioned earlier, before shopping, customers are researching. They may not add a product to their cart, but that doesn’t mean you can’t retarget them with a push notification! This is an important part of the buyer’s journey that you can capitalize on easily with an automated push notification that will bring an interested user back to your website.

Retarget Previous Customers and Abandoned Carts

Saving the best for last? Maybe. Retargeting is one of the best ways to utilize your web push notifications. And while it is true that many of your customers during this season are new, that doesn’t mean you should neglect existing customers of yours.

Make sure to use web push during the holiday season to re-engage your best customers. While they might shop with you again without you reminding them, you simply can’t afford to hope that they will. There is far too much competition these days.

We recommend creating a series of campaigns dedicated to bringing back your customers to shop with you during the busy BFCM season. Feature your best sales, exciting new products, rewards program perks, top holiday content, and more.

By re-engaging some of your best customers you are sure to see a nice boost in your sales- repeat customers tend to have a higher average order value (and if they stick around and shop with your business for 3 years they tend to spend 67% more than during their first year shopping with you). As an added benefit, these customers may also help promote your brand in the process, and we all know how powerful word-of-mouth marketing is.

As for abandoned carts- you have to retarget those. We touched on this briefly earlier when talking about personalization, but it bears repeating. One of the best ways to boost revenue during this time (and all year) is by retargeting abandoned carts. It’s easy to set up, automated, and a major driver of sales. You can read our abandoned cart documentation for help getting this notification set up, or read our full guide on the subject for tips on building the perfect abandoned cart strategy!

Wrapping Up

The holiday season is always a busy one, and while this year has brought around many changes, the end of the year still represents one of your best opportunities to drive major sales and acquire new customers.

By utilizing web push notifications as part of your BFCM strategy, you are setting yourself up for major success by connecting with your subscribers in real-time (including new ones you nab during this season!) to alert them of your best deals with personalized campaigns. By re-engaging old customers and retargeting abandoned carts, you will amplify your sales even more. And remember- start early! This year, think of BFCM as more of a shopping season, rather than a long weekend of deals.

We hope this web push guide to BFCM will help you develop your best strategy and log your best sales season yet. If you are new to web push, you can start today for free with Aimtell, or learn more by reading our guide on 5 ways to leverage web push notifications to increase sales during Black Friday & Cyber Monday –

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