How to Make the Most of Cyber Monday in your PR strategy

Cyber Monday is set to be huge this year. With over £700 million spent during last year’s event, businesses are rightly looking at how to get the most out of consumers and boost those sales.

Running a successful Cyber Monday event takes good planning and preparation. From your marketing channels and social campaigns to discount levels and customer profiles, there’s a lot to think about to get the most out of the event.

The main thing is to start planning early and have a clear strategy of what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it.

Here are some things to consider when planning your Cyber Monday event:

Customers will research in advance

Consumers will often research the deals they want to target before the day itself. Give them the information they're looking for and they’re more likely to come back during the event. You may want to keep your exact discounts or pricing secret until the day itself, but you can let consumers know the products, or type of products, that you will be discounting as well as when they will be available and if there is likely to be limited stock. 

Get your timing right

Take a look at what everyone else is doing. Do you want to start your event at the same time as Amazon or eBay? Work out where you main target audience is located and make sure your timing lines up with their timezone. You don’t want to end your event as your consumers across the pond are waking up.

Consider giving your existing customers priority access

Use your email marketing list to give early access, or special discounts, to existing customers. Making a customer feel special and giving them access to something others won’t immediately be able to get can lead to an increase in conversions.

Infrastructure

Can your website and infrastructure handle a sudden influx of visitors or orders? With an estimated 161 million visits to online retail sites during last year’s event, you have to plan for more than average number of visitors and orders. You may look into load balancing, offloading or increasing your hardware for the day to ensure that your website will be available. In the past both Argos and John Lewis websites have gone offline due to the volume of orders and during this time, AO.com bought pay-per-click advertising for both of their brand names to ensure that disappointed visitors were swiftly given an alternative option. Don’t let it happen to you.

Mobile, mobile, mobile

Mobile is quickly becoming the main way that many people get online. It is estimated that over a quarter of all visits to online retail during the 2020 event came from a mobile device. Make sure that your website can be accessed and used on mobile and that visitors can go all the way through to checkout without issues. 

For help with your PR strategy, contact the JournoLing Team at https://mailto:sales@journolink.com