Don’t Forget Cyber Monday

In the “getting ready for the holiday selling season” madness, many small business owners concentrate on Black Friday as the big moneymaking day. However, while that day gets all the attention, there are several other days during that same weekend that can benefit your business, one of them being Cyber Monday

If you have a web presence for your store whatsoever you should be taking advantage of Cyber Monday. Ever since its official “inception” in 2005, the sales holiday has grown exponentially. Despite the economy, the last few years have seen sales skyrocket even more, with 2012’s numbers 30% higher than 2011’s. 2013 will likely prove to be another record breaker.

How can you take advantage of this ever-growing shopping bonanza and snag a ton of sales away from the competition? Here are a few pointers

Deals

Speaking of the competition…be prepared for a lot of it. Sellers all over the web know the power of Cyber Monday and are ready to be as cutthroat as possible. After all, there’s a ton of money to be made and they all want as big a slice of pie as they can get. If they have to undercut every other sale they see, so be it! Be prepared to see loss leaders enticing customers into your competitor’s stores.

That’s why you have to think carefully about the deals you’re offering. You can’t just throw out something and hope it sticks. Try to put yourself in your customers’ shoes – ; what would benefit them the most to where they basically have to buy your items?

Again remember the competition: just the idea your customers can go elsewhere for (possibly) a better deal is enticing. Take away that particular call of the siren by offering your own great deals and loss leaders, and you’ll surely see your sales take off

One tip, though, is to make sure you don’t go overboard. While seeing lots of shoppers through virtual doors is fun, don’t offer too many discounts you can’t afford. If offering free shipping to everyone means you lose money, there’s no reason to do it! Go for something else instead like pairing items or percentage off codes

Get Word Out Now

You can have the most amazing sale of the century, but if nobody shows up it all becomes pointless. You have to let people know somehow or you’ll end up twiddling your thumbs on Cyber Monday instead of happily supervising your team of elves packing up orders

What’s the best way to alert the public about your Cyber Monday sales? That’s really up to you – ; you know your business better than anyone else, and hopefully you know your customers just as well. How do they like being reached? How did you reach them in the first place – social media, maybe, or a clever marketing campaign? Whatever the case, be prepared to recreate it for the holidays

Accentuate the Sales

Even if you send out a thousand emails, some of your regular customers may totally miss the fact you’re having an epic Cyber Monday sale. If they go to your website that day and you haven’t pointed out all the great stuff you have on discount, they’re just going to assume everything is as normal and move on

The same goes double for any new customer you bring in – ; if they don’t see the great sales in 5 seconds they’re headed out to the next website. Reconfigure your website to point out all your exciting sales so nobody misses a thing.

For example, if you have a few items you really think will fly off the shelves, put them on their own special page. Now create a banner or some other huge graphic that screams at customers there are great deals behind this link. Don’t give them an opportunity to go anywhere else!