Black Friday & Cyber Monday Mobile Marketing Tactics You Need to Know

December 4, 2019 - 12 minutes read

Boost your mobile marketing strategy for these two essential shopping days.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest shopping days of the year. Last year, over 174 million consumers in the US flocked to their local brick-and-mortar stores or went online to grab themselves a host of holiday deals. And 40% (54% on Cyber Monday) of sales over Black Friday alone—a day traditionally associated with in-store shopping—was generated from mobile devices.

We are living in a mobile world. In our hyper-connected digital age, people have the power to connect with their peers, conduct consumer research, and make purchases wherever they are in the world, at any time.

Mobile devices are changing the way we interact with the world, offering a wealth of opportunity to eCommerce businesses looking to develop their brand and connect with a wider, more engaged audience.

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday present profit-boosting for eCommerce business owners across sectors, pushing yourself ahead of the pack is essential if you want to enjoy real success.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are saturated with droves of businesses fighting to close more sales (while competing with Amazon!). With ample preparation and the right mindset, you will prevail.

This year, adopting a mobile-first mindset will help you connect with more consumers while boosting your profits. Here, we’re going to explore the mobile commerce trends and tactics that will help get you there.

Let’s get started.

Lean on loyalty

As mobile consumption rises around the world, customer loyalty schemes are entering a new phase.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday might be fast-paced, short-lived annual shopping days, but by leveraging the power of the mobile loyalty scheme, you stand to spark up long-term customer relationships rather than one-time purchases.

Sixty-nine percent of consumers pick brands based on whether they can earn customer loyalty or rewards program points. Moreover, 75% of shoppers would engage more with loyalty schemes that make rewards mobile-friendly.

To boost brand awareness and place your brand into the hands of mobile-hungry consumers, you should consider offering your audience a mobile loyalty rewards option on the lead-up to Black Friday or Cyber Monday to give you more time for development. You can also offer exclusive loyalty scheme signup deals post-purchase (an incentive to buy from you on one or both of the big shopping days).

Here are some practical tips to help you on your quest for mobile loyalty domination:

Create a simple application that facilitates a swift, simple registration process.
Offer a reward or incentive for joining the loyalty rewards program.
Produce exclusive articles, guides, and video content for loyalty customers.
Set up a mobile-only referral incentive, rewarding your customers for recommending family friends.
Deliver loyalty scheme-only deals and discounts, as well as early access to prospective and existing loyalty scheme customers.
Launch a dedicated mobile-optimized Black Friday or Cyber Monday-themed landing page that drives readers from your online store to your mobile loyalty scheme registration journey.

In-app shopping, offers & deals

Sixty-five percent of today’s smartphone users engage with apps via their device, and by 2020, experts project that the mobile app business will be worth $188.9 billion.

In-app shopping is on the rise, and if you’re looking to make your mark this Black Friday or Cyber Monday, launching a new application or leveraging your existing one will help you boost engagement and encourage more sales.

Ninety percent of consumer mobile browsing time is spent in applications. Deliver an engaging, frictionless in-app shopping experience, and you’re likely to generate a healthy profit this Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

If you want to cut through the noise this shopping season by increasing mobile consumer engagement, here are some in-app optimization efforts you should consider:

Test your new or existing mobile app, exploring every navigational function. If your app is slow loading or your checkout journey is too long-winded, take measures to iron out any issues that might hinder the user experience (UX).
Offer a mix of payment options to your in-app consumers, including PayPal, Apple Pay, Mobile point-of-sale (POS), debit or credit card choices, loyalty point redemption, and any other option you feel will benefit your customers.
Create in-app Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping pages that include exclusive bundles, deals, offers, or discounts.
Share Black Friday or Cyber Monday-themed in-app download incentives, including discount codes or free shipping upon registration.
Install or integrate a live messenger app to answer any consumer questions or queries in real-time during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping rush. By embracing chatbot technology, you’ll be able to provide a seamless level of customer experience, which will increase your conversion rates.
Leverage your consumer KPIs and data to understand their behavior on a deeper level, offering features and functionality that are likely to increase engagement during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period. Here are branded shopping apps you should try out ad explore for inspiration: Amazon (a ‘prime’ example of a superior multi-channel mobile app), Flipkart (a masterclass in product fulfillment and user experience), and Abof (for creative in-app engagement ideation).

Create omnichannel cohesion

Expanding on our previous point: if you want to squeeze every last drop of value from your mobile application, you should go omnichannel.

Sixty percent of millennials expect a cohesive brand experience across all consumer touchpoints, including in-store, online, and through mobile applications.

Omnichannel marketing is an approach that offers consumers a rich customer experience, breaking down the barriers between platforms and touchpoints. By placing mobile at the heart of your campaign, you can win big during Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Take the US retail colossus Target, for instance. A brand crowned 2013 Mobile Retailer of the Year due to its unwavering mCommerce innovation (something that has always helped the brand boost sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday), the retailer has continued to evolve its efforts in recent times. Target’s latest mobile offering includes tailored shopping list features, smart product recommendations, and exclusive branch- or location-based content.

With mCommerce functionality at the heart of its strategy, Target created a cohesive omnichannel experience that makes it easy for consumers to migrate from its app to its online store. Plus, its new mobile platform even delivers deals or offers from nearby stores based on their existing location, with easy access to in-store WiFi for increased in-person mobile engagement.

Whether you’re a mobile-only eCommerce store or a brand with a brick-and-mortar location, focusing on a mobile-centric omnichannel consumer experience will push you ahead of the pack this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

In this cohesive space, there is seemingly infinite scope to engage with mobile consumers, delivering engaging content while offering tailored deals that can drive your audience directly to the checkout page.

For inspiration and guidance, here are four inspiring omnichannel marketing campaigns that you can learn from.

Best mobile marketing practices for Black Friday & Cyber Monday

At this point, Black Friday and Cyber Monday mobile marketing holds an enormous amount of power and potential. To ensure that your mobile marketing experiences, apps, and strategies connect with your audience, yielding the results you deserve, here are some best practices you should consider.

Optimization

If your mobile site or shopping app doesn’t fit a mobile screen or is difficult to navigate in any way, your prospects will immediately head elsewhere. Start your mobile optimization efforts early, making sure that you test your mobile offerings and in-app shopping across a multitude of devices before launching your campaign offers, deals, and discounts. One false move, and you can kiss your profits goodbye.

Design

Make sure your branding is consistent across all of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday touchpoints. Avoid placing too many visuals on any page, ensuring your design is slick, minimal, and scannable. When searching for a quick deal on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, customers will want to access the important information (image, deal, specs, price, reviews, ‘shop now’ button) immediately, so don’t make it difficult for them to make a decision. Logical, minimal design will help your prospects navigate your mobile offerings with ease, boosting your conversion rates in the process.

Be personal

When crafting an in-app experience, you should develop messaging that speaks to your consumers on a personal level, offering a host of options to customize their mobile shopping journey. To create additional layers of personalization, you should use additional channels, including social media, blog articles, and email or SMS notifications to deliver relevant content directly to your customers’ (both prospective and existing) mobile devices and push them further down the Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales funnel.

Mobile is the future of eCommerce. As the landscape continues to evolve, more business-boosting opportunities will present themselves to businesses willing to grab them—businesses like yours.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner. Follow our mobile marketing advice, put your strategies into place as soon as possible, and you’ll reap great rewards when the big shopping weekend rolls around.

Best of luck, and for more mobile-based pearls of wisdom, check out these mobile apps that will help you to run your business more efficiently.