My BFCM Regrets: Ecom Marketers Share Their Biggest Lessons
Could the BFCM season be any noisier for marketers? Here we are, scrambling to finalize our game plans, and blogs like this one are telling us what to do in the final hour—the gall. But here’s a refreshing thought: none of us will get it exactly right. Every brand will take slightly different swings and have different hits and misses. That’s show biz, baby! And it’s great because it gives us ample opportunity to learn from the experiences (good and bad) of others.
So, we’ve asked friends from trusted marketing agencies to speak to the ghosts of their BFCM past and share the biggest takeaways for this year and beyond. Enjoy this exclusive Q&A with our partners at sidekick, Chronos Agency, BAD Marketing, Homestead Studio, and MuteSix for insight into hundreds of e-commerce brands and stories (and a huge thank you to these agencies for participating!)
Q: Was there a year you felt like you left BFCM money on the table because of a late revelation?
A: As an agency with visibility into scores of brands, their strategies, and industry trends, my team at MuteSix knows that brands win BFCM through careful planning and filling and nurturing their funnel many Fridays before Black Friday. However, there have been times that the focus has been misplaced in early Q4, with some brands eager to drum up additional revenue during “quieter” periods like early to mid-October by having a sale and shouting about it to everyone. That said, a cadence that’s too promo-heavy leading up to The Big Show can make Black Friday feel less special for consumers and may give them no real reason to convert during Black Friday if they’ve been trained that another sale will be coming. Treating BFCM like the exclusive sale period it should be and being authentic in that messaging with your subscribers is the easiest way to rake in the dough. Otherwise, you’re leaving money on the table and are at the mercy of when your subscribers decide to convert versus when you give them the most compelling reason to.
- Jessica Levinson, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, MuteSix
A: In our first year working on BFCM, we concentrated all our efforts on the emails and texts to be sent during the four days of Black Friday through Cyber Monday. In doing so, we definitely missed out on some additional revenue by not reaching out to people sooner with offers like early access, as well as not extending the sale beyond Cyber Monday. In the years since, we’ve realized that while there is definitely a concentration of revenue on those four days, there is also a substantial amount of revenue to be made in the two weeks leading up to BFCM and the two weeks following it. And don’t forget to keep your popups on even if the sale is promoted on the homepage. By not matching the popups to the BFCM sale and turning them off instead, we definitely missed out on a bunch of new email and SMS sign-ups that year.
-Zac Cherin, Co-Founder & President, sidekick
A: For my first couple of BFCMs, I didn’t lean into increasing the volume of campaigns as a whole, and also missed out on offer-related messaging. Now, we advise our brands to send 2-3 campaigns on Black Friday in addition to 2-3 campaigns on Cyber Monday. If a brand launches early, we encourage them to consistently use offer reminders.
- Jacob Sappington, Director of Email Strategy, Homestead Studio
A: We learn something new every year! Our biggest focus since last year has been to collect as much data as possible so we can REALLY deepen segmentation and speak to people on a more personal level than ever before.
- Kelsey Carstens, Director of Email and SMS, BAD Marketing
Q: Have you ever had a big BFCM swing-and-a-miss?
A: Urgency and FOMO are known tactics that, when leveraged correctly, see great success on SMS, but giving your subscribers more time to shop is essential, especially knowing how many brands you’re competing with during BFCM—along with external factors well beyond your control (like folks being more mindful about connecting with their families over the holidays and even, *gasp* putting their phones on Do Not Disturb). Don’t be the brand that waits too long. Dig into the data and look at how long it takes your subscribers to make it from opt-in to conversion to their next purchase, and then plan accordingly.
- Jessica Levinson, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, MuteSix
A: Every brand is looking to stand out during BFCM. In the first year of working on BFCM, I think we tried to get too fancy with offers. Tiered discounts, shipping incentives, BOGO, etc. While I think a creative offer can be beneficial, for some brands, the tried and true flat % off sitewide just always performs better than anything else. For one brand in particular, we launched a free gift with purchase offer, but it required the customers to add the free gift product to the cart (it wasn’t as easy to make this automatic as it is now). This led to a CS-palooza and, ultimately, a lower conversion rate than we would’ve liked to see.
- Zac Cherin, Co-Founder & President, sidekick
A: Discounting too heavily. We now encourage brands to plan out BFCM offers with us sooner. This helps leave enough time to create offers that stand out from the rest and increase AOV, rather than settling on the typical % off like many brands do.
- Kelsey Carstens, Director of Email and SMS, BAD Marketing
Q: Is there a marketing technology you wish you had leveraged sooner for your business?
A: It’s easy to dismiss AI, especially after hearing about it roughly a million times this year, and I’ll admit, because of that, I was a bit hesitant to fold it into MuteSix’s technology suite. However, working with AI and training it to generate copy and content suggestions based on top-performing campaigns has been a great way to inspire creativity and allow our team to lean on data to inform and validate strategy in new ways this BFCM season.
- Jessica Levinson, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, MuteSix
A: Loyalty. If you truly care about retaining your customers, loyalty programs are one of the most valuable and underutilized technologies in ecommerce. I think a lot of brands “launch” loyalty programs, aka they turn the app on, and maybe there’s an email announcing it with a widget on the site – and then that’s it. Making the most of Loyalty is definitely something you need to put a lot of effort into as a brand. But if you are consistent and creative with getting your customers invested in the program, the results will speak for themselves.
- Zac Cherin, Co-Founder & President, sidekick
A: We’ve begun testing Amped across several clients and have been blown away by the results. List growth is the name of the game leading up to BFCM, and we’re all about list growth. Combining our frameworks with their tech has led to some eye-popping results.
- Jacob Sappington, Director of Email Strategy, Homestead Studio
A: We didn’t have any particular marketing tech in mind, but we do wish we had done more A/B testing on our offers. We’re all about A/B testing everything when it comes to branding and customer experience, but we used to assume that any type of offer would be a hit. Looking back, I really wish we had questioned that assumption sooner, but the learnings we get are what will really get us far when we play the long game.
- Joshua Foo, Senior Retention Marketing Manager, Chronos Agency
A: Cashback and loyalty rewards platforms. The level of value it adds for the customers without having to heavily discount the product itself is a win for everyone.
- Kelsey Carstens, Director of Email and SMS, BAD Marketing
Q: What are you doing differently or for the first time this BFCM?
A: We’ve got a lot of brands on board with leveraging more two-way messaging and more conversational automations this year, especially post-BFCM. One great use case for this is to ensure we’re not over-communicating with people who solely converted while gifting for others and tailoring our go-forward strategy to their needs. It’s important to deliver the right messaging at the right time, no matter how someone is engaging with your brand, and with SMS it’s easy to ask what they’d prefer.
- Jessica Levinson, Director of Lifecycle Marketing, MuteSix
A: Direct Mail! We’re taking a cohort of past purchasers who have since lapsed and sending them the BFCM offers we’re going to be running. We didn’t realize how cost-effective and easy a direct mail campaign can be to run, but now that we’re doing it, we definitely wish we had been utilizing it for our brands sooner.
- Zac Cherin, Co-Founder & President, sidekick
A: This year, we’re putting a lot of emphasis on making the customer’s journey even better. It’s that exciting time of year when everyone’s trying to come up with unique offers to grab attention. But, you know, after experimenting with various approaches over the years, we’ve found that keeping it straightforward is the way to go for BFCM. Customers have been counting down the days to this sale all year, so the quickest way to make a purchase is what really gets them excited.
- Joshua Foo, Senior Retention Marketing Manager, Chronos Agency
Thanks to all our partners for sharing their wins—and woes—in anticipation of BFCM. You can find out more about our partners program here. Happy BFCM!
