The latest issue of the CJ Quarterly, a newsletter for the advertisers or merchants in their network, featured advice on gearing up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
The holiday season is critical to the success of e-commerce sites and retail Web sites in particular, many of which generate 20 to 40 percent of their annual revenues and profits during the holiday season. Web sites that aren’t ready to meet the heavy increase in consumer demand may see traffic going elsewhere. Don’t let an unsatisfactory consumer experience lead to revenue loss. Kicking off the frenzy of holiday shopping are two of the biggest shopping days of the year:
- Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and one of the busiest offline shopping day of the year, and;
- Cyber Monday, following just three days after and one of the busiest online shopping day of the year.
In 2006, top online retailers boasted 2,145,558 visitors per minute on Cyber Monday, and sales were on average 218 percent higher than the previous Monday, with consumers spending a total of $608 million, up 26 percent versus the same day last year, according to comScore.
The CJ Quarterly also pointed out the following best practices (details in their newsletter):
- Plan Ahead
- Reflect on the Past
- Custom Creative
- Exclusive Offers
- Unique Promotional Opportunities
- Hot Items
- Colors Count
- Reach Out to Your Publisher Base
- Publisher Branded Coupons
- Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
- Highlight the Value of ‘Online’
There’s your clarion call, affiliate marketers, start gearing up to capitalize on these big shopping days.