The holiday shopping season is fast approaching, and with it comes the infamous Turkey 5: the five-day shopping extravaganza from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Sunday, and Cyber Monday present huge opportunities for brands to maximize holiday sales and customer engagement.
Brandography’s Founder and CEO, Jason Dailey, crafted the ultimate checklist to help your brand make the most of these key shopping days and ensure a smooth, successful, and profitable holiday season.
Your Turkey 5 Checklist
1. Check Your Fundamentals.
- Ensure Fast Load Times and Mobile Optimization. Slow load times and a poor mobile experience can kill a sale. Double-check that your site can handle a spike in traffic using a load test. Make sure your site is easy to navigate on mobile. Test the checkout process thoroughly to ensure it’s streamlined and user-friendly, and update plugins and modules.
- Conduct Inventory Checks & Stock Up on High-Demand Items. This is the time to have your inventory up to date! Ensure your bestsellers are well-stocked and have backup options for unexpected demand spikes. Out-of-stock items can result in lost sales, so prepare accordingly. Make a plan for sales when you run out or run into backorders. You could offer a credit, block the purchase, or offer another option.
- Confirm Shipping & Delivery Timelines. Communicate realistic shipping timelines to avoid disappointing customers with late arrivals. Let your buyers know when the order is guaranteed to arrive. Post it prominently on your site.
2. Prepare Your Holiday Promotions & Discounts
- Set Competitive and Strategic Discounts. Shoppers expect great deals over the Turkey 5, so plan your promotions well in advance.
- Post Different Deals. That being said, don’t let the deals conflict with one another or progressively get better, causing customers to cancel and repurchase.
- Watch Your Ad Strategy. Unless you need to liquidate products, reserve much of your programmatic ads spend-focused products with healthy margins. Use your deeply discounted deals and lost leaders to drive traffic through emails and social posts. The exception to this advice is if you have high upsell and cross-sell potential, such as when driving buyers to a physical store.
Pro-tip: Do not buy your branded key terms on Google Ads. This is the time to acquire more first-time buyers, so let’s put your budget to work on that.
3. Craft Targeted Marketing Campaigns
- Get Your Content Out There. Put content out 1-2 weeks before the big date.
- Develop Specific Campaigns for Each Day. The Turkey 5 is a great time to keep your brand top-of-mind through targeted email marketing and SMS campaigns.
- Set Up Retargeting Campaigns. With so many people browsing and comparing during these days, not everyone will buy on the first visit. Retargeting ads can bring back users who showed interest in specific products or added items to their cart.
4. Freeze Your Website.
Stop Making Website Changes. Don’t make risky website changes during the week leading up to the Turkey 5. For some businesses, this can be difficult to do, but it’s worth it. If you break your website or a feature, it could be catastrophic for your sales.
Websites can break for all kinds of reasons: too many people on the site at once, hacking is up during this time of year, and changes can interrupt your website. We want to mitigate these things. Do a code freeze a week in advance and continue to test it leading up to Black Friday and beyond.
Want more advice? 14 Key Planning Tips for Holiday 2024 eCommerce.
Here’s to a High AOV
The Turkey 5 timeframe is a whirlwind of opportunity that can significantly impact your year-end revenue, AOV, and customer acquisition. If you have digital marketing questions or need a partner, send us a message. We’d love to learn more about your brand and how we can help!
