Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) seem to continue to grow in popularity every single year, with the population forking out billions of dollars in just a few days. Is it because of how close it is to Christmas? Or is it just an incredibly effective marketing ploy? Who knows, but either way, if you’re taking advantage of it from an experiential marketing and brand activations side, you’re simply leaving money on the table.
Whilst the excitement buzzes around Australia and the world, it creates an exciting opportunity for brands to create incredible pop ups and in store activations to get even more tongues wagging.
Brand Positives
BFCM isn’t just about the massive discounts (even though this is a huge part of it), the discounts don’t come free, like anything in the retail space, a discount only comes when a significant benefit can be achieved by the brand. Retailers aren’t often in the industry of just cutting sales for the fun of it.
When done effectively and in conjunction with great interactive and immersive elements, and BFCM activation can;
- Boost Brand Loyalty – who doesn’t love hearing their favourite brand is on sale, and you’re being specifically rewarded for being a great custom with a further discount? Rodd and Gunn just did a great instore shopping popup a few weeks ago that I was invited to as a VIP member. Something incredibly simple as a few extra catering elements and some live music, made me feel like a real super star, and thus spent up big.
- Drive Sales – like the constant battle goes when you buy something on sale, do you focus on the amount you saved, or the amount you still spent? Getting more shoppers in the door with an activation, is going to get more eyeballs on your items, and combine this with great prices is a recipe for success.
- Expand your reach – instore pop ups and activations are great to get people into your store that may have never been in store. Offering them a little sweet treat, or a coffee will get them coming through the door, seeing a whole new side of your product range and brand they would have never seen from the window.
Instore Events: Our FAVE in Store Experience types
- Pop Up Stores – bringing your brand to a new location it normally isn’t amongst all this excitement and buzz off BFCM will get more eyeballs on your brand, leveraging this with an interactive tasting or testing experience will help to convert brand new eyeballs to product loving purchasers.
- Virtual Workshops or Demos – maybe your product as a standalone doesn’t do much (say it’s a chopping board or a knife), why not capitalise on the buzz of the season and the new attention span of shoppers in greater numbers to show them in person all the great benefits of your product. Maybe a cooking demonstration?
- Live DJ or entertainment – another easy and cost effective way is to do something different in store to attract an audience? Maybe a cool DJ or some live music that wouldn’t normally be on offer, to create a new and intriguing shopping experience for your customers.
Our Top Tips for a Successful BFCM
- Start Early – BFCM shoppers are often planning and researching how to make the best out of their 4 days of shopping chaos. Make sure you are counting down with your audience and giving them lots of details in advance of what to expect.
- Create a sense of urgency – thankfully the 4 days already helps with this, but make your guests feel a sense of FOMO if they don’t come along to your activation.
- Get on social media – like the saying goes, you can have the best product in the world, but if you don’t tell anyone about it, it’s useless – so get out there and yell it from the rooftops.
- Optimise for convenience – you want to make it as easy as possible for all the shoppers that walk through your door. Making them jump through too many hoops will ultimately just add extra pressure to an already pressure filled situation and make them walk.
- Stand out – over those 4 days, it’s an absolute sea of chaos, sales and marketing, if you’re going to do something, commit and make it stand out from the rest or risk just disappearing into the sea of BFCM content.
Measuring success
Just like any FAME Event, it’s important to have a look at the metrics of the event post BFCM and make sure the activation was a success. Some measures that we use are;
- Sales and Revenue – this one sort of speaks for itself, but what did you sell during the dates, and was this more than an ordinary weekend?
- Customer Engagement – did you see more foot traffic through the door?
- New Customer Acquisition – what were the new member sign ups like, did the database grow?
- Customer Feedback – what was the quantitative feedback like, did you have major fans or some cynics coming through the door.
If done right, a BFCM brand activation or pop up can take your 4 days from crazy busy to out of this world, and set you up for a great run of sales into Christmas.
If you’re thinking about creating a shopping extravaganza for your next event, be sure to reach out to us here to chat about how we can make it happen.
