Hello! I'm Luna, a marketer at Spray, bringing you various marketing insights.
In my previous article, I covered brand strategies to prepare for 'Black Friday,' the massive global discount event held at the end of November.
This time, I want to discuss brand response plans for welcoming 'Cyber Monday,' the year's final big promotion that continues that momentum.
How do Black Friday and Cyber Monday differ?
What preparations should brands make ahead of consecutive major promotional seasons?
How can we prevent the sales decline that comes after promotional seasons end?
'Cyber Monday' is a large-scale online shopping discount event held on the first Monday immediately following the US Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Cyber Monday, which started with the purpose of encouraging consumers returning to daily life after Thanksgiving weekend to continue spending, has now established itself as an essential shopping event in the global e-commerce market.
Particularly, US consumers spent an average of $406 online during the 5-day 'Cyber Week' from Black Friday through the weekend to Cyber Monday, based on 2024 data.
This period is when 20-30% of brands' annual sales are concentrated, essentially the last major sales opportunity of the year.
So how do Black Friday and Cyber Monday differ, and how should brands prepare?
While both Black Friday and Cyber Monday are core events of the year-end shopping season, they show slight differences from consumer behavior and marketing opportunity perspectives.
First, Black Friday is a traditional discount event that started in offline stores and has now expanded to online channels, evolving into a discount festival encompassing both online and offline.
In contrast, Cyber Monday started centered on online shopping and characteristically still concentrates extensive discounts and benefits mainly in online channels.
The two events also differ in consumer psychology.
Particularly, Cyber Monday strongly stimulates the psychology of 'don't miss the last chance'.
In fact, consumption patterns show consumers who kept items in their carts all weekend and postponed decisions hurriedly complete purchases on Monday.
Brands also actively leverage this psychology.
On Cyber Monday, they present limited additional discounts or special benefits to stimulate FOMO once again, leading hesitant consumers to final purchases.
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What is 'FOMO'?
An acronym for 'Fear Of Missing Out,' meaning the psychology of fearing missing something valuable others are experiencing and feeling excluded. Brands sometimes stimulate anxiety about 'missing maximum discounts' to induce consumption.
In summary, while Black Friday leads the early shopping season atmosphere and draws massive traffic, Cyber Monday is an event that explosively drives last-moment purchases.
Ultimately, the two events form a complementary structure, becoming an important opportunity for brands to continue a rising sales curve.
As mentioned earlier, the year-end shopping season from Black Friday to Cyber Monday is essentially the last opportunity of the year for brands to achieve major sales.
Therefore, thorough preparation is needed ahead of the upcoming major promotion.
The most effective strategy brands can take ahead of Cyber Monday is maximizing consumer purchase desire through long-term influencer collaboration.
Rather than viewing Cyber Monday only as a short-term event, it's better to approach it as a campaign that builds momentum in advance.
The most efficient method to realize this is influencer marketing.
Particularly during Cyber Monday season, strategies that build long-term relationships and continuously deliver messages are more effective than short-term collaborations.
For example, before major promotions begin, consistently expose products through influencers' daily vlogs to build awareness.
Then use unboxing review content to encourage consumers to add our brand's products to their carts.
Just before or on Cyber Monday, use real-time content like Instagram Stories or TikTok Live to convey messages like 'If you don't buy now, you'll miss out!' creating urgency and maximizing FOMO.
In other words, securing sufficient product-related content through influencers before events and building atmosphere with real-time content just before events is an effective strategy.
At this time, utilizing the collective ripple effect of micro-influencers is effective.
This strategy is also advantageous from a cost efficiency perspective.
Particularly during the BFCM (Black Friday-Cyber Monday) period when urgency is crucial, collaborating with influencers with high community cohesion and active follower engagement can significantly increase purchase conversion rates.
When conducting influencer marketing campaigns this way, the key is maintaining consistent brand messaging while continuously exposing the brand in consumers' view from pre-event through the day of.
Well-designed campaigns like this will enable consumers to complete purchases immediately when discounts start, already having made purchase decisions by Cyber Monday.
So how should brands operate after the Cyber Monday peak passes?
Sales decline after the major year-end shopping season ends is a natural flow.
However, depending on how this period is managed, sales decline can be reduced and stable flow maintained.
One core strategy is securing continuous sales channels through affiliate marketing.
Even after Cyber Monday, affiliates can operate as stable sales outlets.
Particularly if micro-influencers continue sharing product usage reviews and inducing purchases through affiliate links even after events, sharp sales declines can be effectively prevented.
Indent Corp.