Are you a business leader thinking “bummer, I wish I would have planned ahead to take advantage the Cyber Monday opportunity to increase sales”? Good news folks. It’s not too late! You don’t have to be a rocket scientist nor be a social media wizard to take advantage of Cyber Monday, even if you didn’t plan ahead. Check out these quick tips and ideas to get you in the Cyber fun come Monday! Since Cyber Monday is all about deals online, this means you need some type of presence online. However, even if you don’t yet have a truly functioning website, never fear. The fact that you found this article is a bonus and probably means you have some type of online presence or at minimum wish you did. Included in this article are tips for getting in the Cyber Monday game by leveraging social media and internet marketing for both online and offline traffic. Although this particular article was written for Cyber Monday, it really provides good best practices for any type of web campaign or marketing program! If you would like to learn more about social media and how to best integrate it into your real estate or other business, check out my upcoming social media and brand training launching December 7th! You can also download a free 7 Page whitepaper on how to Zoom Your Brand as well as subscribe to our newsletter and you'll see what zoomin' deals we offer on Cyber Monday! Get Your Cyber House in Order 1. Check Server Readiness: If your Cyber day is a success your web traffic could obviously be higher than normal. Therefore, ensure your server can handle the load. If you are not sure how to check this, call your hosting provider. Remove any extra files from your server that aren’t needed. Do your server house cleaning as appropriate. 2. Freshen Up Content: Cyber Monday is a great excuse to freshen and tighten up your content. Delete redundant content. Minimize and/or unpublish pages that aren’t adding value or driving conversions. Less is more when it comes to content. 3. Test All Key Functionality: If you haven’t tested your shopping cart in a month, now is the time! Do a quick test for all possible payment methods. 4. Optimize for Search Engines (SEO): If you haven’t checked out your Google Analytics report lately, then shame on you! It is loaded with useful data to help you make important decisions on content, keywords, as well as learn about your audiences and their behavior on your site. Use the data to determine what pages you should keep, enhance or delete. Also be sure to check out what keywords are driving organic traffic to your site as well as what words aren’t driving traffic that you should be. Priority is to optimize for keywords as well as analyze user behavior. 5. Setup Landing Pages: Don’t just send Cyber visitors to your home page for all communication. Setup a few landing pages to support specific content and deals. This will help you minimize confusion for your Cyber Monday website visitors as well as keep them focused on the specific call to action. 6. Call to Action & Conversion is #1 Priority: Remember, your Cyber Monday visitor is looking for deals. Don’t spam them with a page that has nothing to do with the offer. Make it easy for them to learn about the offer and purchase. 7. Seamless Brand Experience: If you have time take a stroll thru your website, blog, Facebook page, Twitter profile page, LinkedIn and any other social media profiles you have. Check for consistency in brand and content. Key priorities are of course the low hanging fruit such as logos, colors, key words, descriptions, headers etc. Even a few minutes spent on brand consistency can enhance your viewers first impression of you and your platform exponentially. Decide on a Cyber Offer
Cyber Monday… even the words sound like fun. However, many businesses miss out on a great day to increase sales and connect with their audience because they think it’s only for the big online retailers. Wrong! You don’t have to be Best Buy or Dell to take advantage of Cyber Monday.
Determine Communication & Announcement Strategy
Cyber Monday: 37 Tips to Leverage Social Media, Join the Fun & Zoom Your Brand & Sales
Example Cyber Offers
1. One Day Deals: This one is a no brainer. Select and launch an offer with an expiration at midnight. Don’t state it’s a one day deal and leave open for two days. You’ll appear as desperate. Instead, launch for one day and select a different offer for launch right after if necessary.
2. Social Media Platform Deals: This includes a deal per social media platform. For example you could have a different offer for Facebook fans, Twitter Followers, LinkedIn connections etc. Get creative with these and use them as a way to test different audiences. If you have a good following on each of the platforms you could even break some of the offers down by the hour to test user behavior per platform as well as time of day.
3. Host contest on Facebook: This is a great way to engage your current Facebook fans as well as possibly obtain new fans. Be sure to check out the Facebook terms and conditions first though to ensure you aren’t breaking any rules. Remember, the big brands who spend more money with Facebook for advertising get more leniency than the common fan page biz owner does. Just because Coke or Best Buy is doing a specific type of promotion on Facebook, doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to do the same.
4. Twitter: This one is quite easy. The obvious opportunity is if you have a cyber deal, then tweet about it. Make sure you use the hashtag #cybermonday. You can also setup a Twitter specific campaign only for your Twitter followers. Use a coupon code, secret word or push them to a scavenger hunt as described below. Many people will be searching Twitter for Cyber Monday deals so if you don’t already have a Twitter account, this might be a good excuse to get one!
5. Scavenger hunt: I LOVE scavenger hunts when they are developed and executed effectively. Create a fun scavenger hunt for your audience that inspires, educates and entertains your audience. Use it as an opportunity to educate them on your services as well as engage them with your brand. Don’t make it too difficult though as you’ll either get no participants or you’ll lose them part way thru. Make it easy and select a few secret words they have to find across several of your platforms. Don’t forget to test it from start to finish to make sure you have no cyber holes. Best bet is to engage a friend or colleague and have them walk thru the contest and offer real-time feedback of their experience.
6. Word of the day: This one is easy. Select a word of the day and either share it for them to use as a coupon. A second option might be to ask them to share the word. Ask them to post it on your fanpage, tweet it to you. If you have the supporting personnel resources you could then have someone ready to respond to tweets.
7. Shipping Deals: This one is a no-brainer. Offer shipping discounts for purchase. Could include free or discounted shipping with a certain purchase amount or across the board free shipping. Whatever it is, make it clear. Support costs can be high for a cyber shipping discount promotion gone bad.
8. Foursquare check-ins: I love this option. Even if you haven’t engaged your business on FourSquare yet, this is a great day to do such! Offer discounts for the Mayor or simply free products or discounts for check-in. Be sure to train your staff who will be on site. The last thing you want is for a new customer to visit your store or place of business with their iPhone in hand, smile on face only to show it to your employee who has no clue what the offer is about. This would be what we call in social media a big fat #fail and will probably end up the topic of someone’s blog post the next day, guaranteed.
9. Extra Affiliate Bonuses: If you have an affiliate program, this is a great day to offer an extra incentive to your affiliates. It’s a great opportunity to not only share with them and remind them of your products and services and how they can make money but also remind them that they too can make money by partnering with you. Offer extra affiliate payout percentages or even free or discounted products when their efforts help sell a certain amount of your product or services.
10. Blog Comments: Ask website visitors to comment on a specific blog post or two. Inform them that if they comment and leave a Twitter user name or email that you will follow up with them with specifics on how to get the deal or coupon code. This is a great way to do market research, get feedback on a specific campaign, creative element or obtain other data needed.
11. eMail Subscriber Deals: Offer an exclusive email or newsletter subscriber deal. If you have time inform your audiences via Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms that you’ll be launching a Cyber Monday deal for subscribers. If executed efficiently this could help boost your number of subscribers substantially if the offer is worth noting.
12. YouTube: Record a quick or professional YouTube video to share your offer. I plan to take advantage of this platform on Cyber Monday to offer a one day discount on our upcoming social media and brand training programs launching December 7th! One idea it to include a coupon code that is only offered at the end of video. This is a great way to engage your audience with you and your brand. Remember don’t make the video too long or you’ll lose your audience before they get to hear the offer!
Overall Success Tips
If you would like to learn more about social media and how to best integrate it into your real estate or other business, check out my upcoming social media and brand training launching December 7th! You can also download a free 7 Page whitepaper on how to Zoom Your Brand as well as subscribe to our newsletter and you'll see what zoomin' deals we offer on Cyber Monday!
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