Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have been inking new records every year.
In 2020, we saw an overwhelming move towards ecommerce. And as a result, businesses witnessed a 32% increase in holiday season sales over 2019. What’s crucial to understand is that 2021 ecommerce has inherited a significant flywheel effect from 2020m and now records sales at a higher pace than the previous year, with a projected increase of 11.3%.
Even with code freezes in place, there is still time to consider some last-minute tactics to drive additional hype around your promotional efforts. These seven simple tricks for using influencer marketing can work even if your influencer strategy is brand new – and can help boost your influencer marketing efforts beyond the hottest shopping days of the year.
1. Tap Micro-Influencers to Tease Sales
Customers curiously await Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales every year — it’s the time when they wish to grab the most-awaited deals and the best bargains.
That said, you can use micro-influencers to promote your brand and its upcoming sales. Social media influencers do not need to have a huge follower base to be effective. With niche audiences and higher engagement rates, micro-influencers can boost excitement and awareness for your brand among customers even before sales drop.
In addition to having higher engagement rates, micro-influencers are great for boosting conversion rates and authentically tapping your target audience. If their followers are your target audience, they are more likely to engage with your brand and be on the lookout for upcoming sales.
Milani Cosmetics uses Pixlee to find up-and-coming influencers to partner with their brand and build lasting relationships to boost conversions and other core metrics, rather than solely focusing on larger celebrity influencers. So far, they have seen an increase in average order value of over 17% and a 2x increase in conversions.
You can ask influencers to employ the in-app shopping features of social media apps, including the “Swipe Up” feature and product tags on Instagram. Moreover, influencers can also post Instagram Shoppable Posts.
These features will increase click-throughs to your site and make the purchase journey shorter. Thus, you can expect increased sales via social channels.
2. Employ Influencer-Led Content
When you hire influencers as your brand advocates, you actually hire the best in the business. These people have built an entire career out of influencing the online audience. They know what type of content their audience prefers and what could be off-putting. A majority of followers completely trust their favorite influencers with purchase decisions.
70% of people say they are likely to purchase a product recommended by an influencer. The survey also revealed that social media influencers have the highest reach and impact.
When you partner with the right influencer, you can maintain your brand’s values while also giving influencers the creative freedom to tailor the campaign to their style and to best connect with their audience.
They might consider making an honest product review video for a relevant audience. Or they might promote your Black Friday sale offer subtly by unveiling their wishlist.
They might promote your ecommerce site by talking about a recent shopping experience, or offer tips regarding the application of a product purchased from your site.
Influencer-led content has a better trust value and draws higher engagement. It helps consumers to draw a more substantial value, which converts into higher sales.
3. Use an Influencer CRM Platform to Discover the Right Influencers
Now that you have ideas about what to include in your influencer campaigns, using a Customer Relationship Management platform can help you find the right one for your brand.
Manually searching for the right influencer can be difficult and time consuming. Luckily, Pixlee’s CRM platform makes influencer discovery easier and more effective with search filters for location, followers, engagement, and interests.
This will help you find influencers that meet your brand’s needs, align with your brand values, and who’s following reflects your target audience to best capitalize on your efforts. With Pixlee’s social CRM, you can also easily manage relationships and measure campaign impacts all in one place.
Revel Nail manages content, permission, and contact information with their influencer community using Pixlee’s smart CRM, resulting in a 2% decrease in cart abandonment rate and significant savings in monthly revenue.
4. Pick up Pace with the Product Unboxing Trend
The online audience today has a huge appetite for video content. So, one of the best ways to promote Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales is via influencer-led video content.
One of the most profitable trends is unboxing videos where customers share a detailed account of their unboxing experience: the packaging, branding, and look & feel of a product. Typically, they also test the product and give a review for their audience.
You can create buzz for your product and promote Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales by sending your product to influencers and asking them to make an unboxing video. These videos are capable of driving huge engagement and sales that your brand should take full advantage of.
5. Include influencers in Your Black Friday Ads
While a lot of influencer marketing is designed to seem organic, you can also work with influencers to enhance branded ads for your Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals.
This is an efficient solution when it comes to maintaining brand style and voice in your content, and can prove to be a very effective Black Friday and Cyber Monday strategy. People who see your ads might recognize some influencers that they love — this can help encourage more sales.
6. Give Influencers Unique Discount Codes
It can be an effective strategy to offer influencers and brand ambassadors personalized discount codes for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It will help encourage more people to make a purchase — plus, it makes it easier for you to track the success of an influencer’s specific promotion.
To drive more conversion, you can also give your influencers commission for the sales generated through their specific discount code. This type of ecommerce referral program is called affiliate marketing, and works well as a marketing tactic because of its roots in word-of-mouth marketing. Affiliate marketing accounts for over 16% of all ecommerce orders in the USA and Canada, and is projected to grow by over 10% in the next couple of years.
Once you partner up with influencers, make them specialized codes — consider using phrases that include their names to make them easy to remember and track. Tell your influencers to share them in their posts with your products, and you should get an increase in traffic and sales!
Kiragrace gives its yoga influencers and ambassadors unique discount codes for fans to get 15% off their order.
7. Tease Upcoming Sales on Popular Products
In the weeks leading up to Black Friday, you’ll be planning out which products you’re going to offer price reductions on. This presents an opportunity to use influencer marketing as a way to get customers excited about upcoming deals and discounts on products they may already have their eye on.
In addition to resharing user-generated content from customers who already love your products, consider partnering with influencers in advance of the holidays to have them promote certain products that you’re reducing for Black Friday. Doing this will help to stir up some extra excitement around these products leading up to your sale.
Ready to reap the rewards of influencer marketing for your BFCM sales season? With these tips in your tool kit, you’re set to start designing a strategy that benefits your brand, your influencers, and your audience.
Joseph Schneider is the Marketing Director at Haitna Digital. With high-quality content and targeted content marketing campaigns, he has helped hundreds of SMEs to increase their inbound leads organically.
Aaron Haynes is the CEO of Loganix, an SEO fulfillment partner that supports marketing agencies and professionals. The company specializes in helping businesses to improve their online visibility and ultimately make more sales. The Loganix blog has a lot more information and advice, so make sure you check it out if you found this article helpful.
