I want to share a strategy with you. See, even though this blog is about Halloween sales, it’s also about Black Friday. And the strategy I want to share with you is designed to boost your Black Friday performance as well as bring in revenue over the Halloween period.
Halloween and ecommerce stores
Halloween is a bit of a forgotten holiday for many ecommerce stores (unless you sell costumes, candy, or you’re a one stop online pumpkin shop!)
But it really shouldn’t be. Online Halloween sales are growing, and shoppers are now thinking more creatively about products and gifts for the Halloween holiday. This could be a tortilla press for cooking up a Mexican day-of-the-dead feast, some devilishly striking new boots for your Halloween party, or hydrating skin care to bring your face back to life after all that zombie make-up. When you start thinking creatively, there are loads of products suitable for promoting over Halloween.
This means that Halloween is a great time to run a sale, and not just for Halloween themed stuff.
So later on in this blog I’m going to share with you 3 Messenger bot flows you can use to help you sell big over Halloween. Just like with email marketing, the first flow is going to be focused on raising awareness of the upcoming deal. Then the second flow will be one to send on the day of the sale.
But there’s another flow I’m going to show you first, and it’s all because of the strategy I want to share with you.
A Halloween strategy that’s actually a Black Friday strategy
The first flow is a welcome flow for new users that opt-in to your Messenger bot. And this is going to be the most important flow we cover in today’s blog.
That’s because the strategy I want to share with you is all about using your Halloween sale to build up your Facebook Messenger list before the holiday sales season kicks in. In other words, with this strategy the main objective of your Halloween sale is marketing, not sales (of course, there’s no harm done if you sell lots too).
Here’s how the strategy works.
1. You set up and promote your Halloween Sale. Target both new and existing audiences for this sale.
2. During the sale you offer a generous incentive to shoppers if they opt-in to your Facebook Messenger bot. This could be an additional discount, a free gift, or free shipping. Use an opt-in button under your Add to Cart button, like this one.
(Source: Tobi)
3. Segment your Facebook Messenger list based on the purchases they make during your Halloween sale. You can do this by tagging answers they give to your bot and creating subgroups for each answer.
4. Create targeted Black Friday Messenger flows for your different segments based on your Black Friday promotions.
5. Launch these flows for the BFCM weekend. You can even use the results of your BFCM weekend to further segment your audience and continue to retarget during the run up to Christmas.
Here’s why this strategy makes sense:
Reason 1: Avoiding paid ads. Paid advertising gets very expensive before and during the Black Friday weekend. You’ll get much better ROI if you build lists beforehand and base your strategy on retargeting.
Reason 2: Inboxes are flooded over Black Friday. Customers receive so many emails over the Black Friday weekend it can be very tough to stand out. Even if you do, you still won’t get very high open rates – industry experts say a successful campaign can expect 20% open rates. This compares poorly to other channels, including …
Reason 3: Messenger bots perform really well. Successful Messenger bot campaigns can score 88% open rates and 56% clickthrough. That’s over 4 times more than email. Imagine getting these kinds of figures over the Black Friday weekend.
Reason 4: Black Friday shopping on mobile is growing. Last Black Friday, more than one third of all purchases online were made using a smartphone according to an Adobe report. Tablets accounted for another 10%. So using a mobile-friendly channel like push notifications or Facebook Messenger can help you connect with a huge Black Friday audience.
Reason 5: Halloween is perfect for getting pre-Black Friday subscribers. It’s just a month before Black Friday – this means users are more likely to remember their interaction with you. Plus online shoppers are very active over Halloween. In 2018, online sales over Halloween were $3 billion, and online is the most popular channel for finding Halloween products.
Hopefully, I’ve done enough to convince you that this strategy makes sense.
So let’s dive into a Messenger bot flow you can use for the new customers you acquire during your Halloween Sales.
Messenger Bot Flow 1: A Welcome Flow for your Halloween Sales
We have three main aims for our Welcome flow:
1. Give our customers what we have promised them, whether that’s a discount code or free shipping.
2. Segment our customers to understand what product areas they are generally interested in.
3. Build our brand so that customers like and remember us. They are much more likely to open messages from brands they have an affinity with.
Before you start, you will need to have set up Messenger opt-ins on your Shopify store – this is simple to do using a tool like Tobi. There are a few options as to where you put your opt-in, but for this strategy I recommend adding them under your “Add to Cart” button.
So, here’s a welcome flow template you can use for this campaign:
Download: Messenger Flow template pdf1
In terms of segmentation, you should tag the 2 product categories and create subgroups based on which is selected. You could go further and create sub-groups for the individual products each user selects.
This will then enable you to present tailored offers when you retarget these customers.
You probably noticed the written style of the Messenger flow as well. This is another great reason to choose Halloween as an opportunity to connect with new customers. This holiday gives you an opportunity to be playful and fun, qualities that will make your brand more memorable with your audience.
So, when you’re thinking about your Black Friday and Halloween sales, give this strategy a try and feel free to use the Messenger flow above, or tinker with it as you like.
Messenger Bot Flow 2: Pre-deal
Now here’s a flow for you to use in the run up to your Halloween sale.
Sales for Halloween typically peak around the 20thOctober – Amazon’s web traffic peaked on October 23rd in 2017. So target this period for your sale. Once you have organised the timing of your sale, you’ll want to let customers know in advance. Try this Messenger bot flow the day before your sale.
This flow has two main aims:
- To make your customers aware of the date and time of the sale, and incentivise them to engage early;
- To segment your audience so you can send relevant messages on the day.
For this flow, you’ll need to have prepared:
- One limited edition deal or offer – eg. Only available to the first 200 shoppers
- Two other deals you’ll be offering. These should be in different product areas to enable you to segment your audience.
Your pre-deal Messenger flow:
Download: Messenger Flow template pdf2
Messenger Bot Flow 3: The day of the deal
And here’s your Messenger flow to send out on the day of the sale itself:
And for customers you have already segmented, you can use this flow.
Download: Messenger Flow template pdf3 pdf4
Bonus resource: A Halloween word bank
As I mentioned before, Halloween is a great opportunity to show the fun and creative side of your brand. And spicing up the language in your Messenger bot is the perfect way to do this. Of course, you can use the flows above, which are full of Halloween puns. Or try making your own messages using the word bank below to help:
Some general expressions for your Halloween communications
- Trick o’ treat yourself
- Boo-tiful
- Spooktacular
- Fangtastic
- Wicked
- Give em’ pumpkin to talk about
- Creep it real
- Put it on your witch list
- Fa-boo-lous choice
- Beast sellers
Some Halloween expression that will be great for fashion stores
- If you’ve got it, haunt it
- Hello Gord-geous
- If the broom fits, fly it
Some food, drink and cookery related Halloween expressions
- Eat, drink and be scary
- Goblin (for eating fast)
- Ghostess with the mostess
Takeaways
My main aim for this blog is to convince you to see Halloween as a great opportunity to run a sale, and more importantly, to build the number of Messenger subscribers you have in preparation for Black Friday. It’s also the perfect opportunity to let loose and show the creative side of your brand, which can really boost customer loyalty.
And hopefully the copy and paste messenger flows I’ve shared can help you achieve all of this.
