"Building Long-Term Consumer Connections Beyond Cyber Week"

The success of Black Friday, the annual, in-person shopping bonanza complete with overnight camping for deals, has launched an entire season of markdowns. Cyber Monday, Cyber Weekend, and now, Cyber Week, are each an undeniably massive revenue driver for American companies. This year alone, US shoppers broke records during Cyber Week, spending $70.8 billion, an increase of 5% in year-over-year growth.

Despite the impressive numbers, these stats don’t necessarily spell out long-term success. Relying too heavily on Cyber Week and expecting it to drive value is a mistake. Brands need to focus on understanding consumer behaviors to capture the audience’s attention year-round. They should de-emphasize one-off, interruptive marketing campaigns that could disrupt consistent shopping cycles and turn consumers away.

Interest in brick-and-mortar Black Friday remains strong, but the appeal of its online counterpart, Cyber Monday, has increased since the Pandemic hit in 2020. 82% of all website traffic during Cyber Week this year came from mobile devices, and 76% of holiday shoppers plan to buy at least half of their gifts online. Buyers aren’t only shopping for gifts either, as 64% of holiday shoppers plan to buy non-gift items for themselves or the household.

The problem is that Cyber Week marketing is largely interruptive. Brands deploy strategies that are primarily aimed at reaching a wide audience and selling any time and all the time. Disruptive strategies may appear to work during the holiday season because consumers are aware of Cyber Week, but what impact does a one-touch, pushy message have on long-term customer loyalty? How does it stand out from the sea of other marketing messages consumers see that week?

The alternative to this is reception marketing, which meets consumers where they are in the buyer’s journey. Rather than force them through a funnel, it provides them with the information they will find most valuable at that moment. Brands should be creating useful content for their audiences year-round to build trust ahead of the Cyber Week buying surge. Through optimized content (and the larger asset network), brands can connect with consumers on any channel, providing content that is more consistent and aligned with real consumer needs.

Brands should start by evaluating their tactics to prepare marketing campaigns to drive value for the entire next year. They should ask themselves how much trust do consumers have in them, how much could they have made this Cyber Week if they had gone in with more long-term trust and connection, and how much are their Cyber Week marketing tactics helping or hurting them in the long run? Reception marketing allows brands to deliver consistent messaging, content, and value across channels before consumers make a purchase decision, building trust and creating sustainable consumer connections.

Originally reported by Martech: https://martech.org/cyber-weeks-sales-success-depends-on-a-year-round-consumer-connection/
This article was written automatically by artificial intelligence. Please make us aware if you have any concerns about this automatically generated content.