Every Marketer’s Guide to the Perfect Cyber Monday Campaign

Some people call it Blue Monday, after blue hyperlinks. We think it’s ’cause this holiday can make marketers feel blue, especially if they’re not using the right planning tools. Don’t worry, our Cyber Monday kit was designed to help you come through this challenge with flying colors. 

From awesome Instagram story background designs to all the popular #hashtags you need, we got your back. This article contains all the resources we’ve gathered in our Cyber Monday Marketing Kit. Learn when, where, how, and what to post for the upcoming Cyber Monday to get those virtual carts filled up faster than you can say “discount”.

We’ll start with the basics: infographics with the best time to post, best channels & formats, ideal campaign start for each holiday, image sizes, and the most relevant topics. Let’s get started.

The basics. When, where, how, what to post

Best times and days to post on social media

These times are in Eastern Standard Time (EST). You’ll need to convert them to the timezone of your audience.

When to start talking about the upcoming holidays

While planning can start 3-6 months in advance, the moment you begin communicating with your audience is pretty standard.

Frequency of the holiday-related posts

Best social media channels by users

More than half the people on Earth use social media and that number is still growing daily. This means your audience is probably out there. All you have to do is publish your holiday campaigns, engage, and make that sale.

Image size guide for your social media posts

No need to remind you about the importance of visual assets in your campaign, right? Instead, here’s everything you need to know in terms of image sizes for all main social media platforms. This leaves you more time to focus on creating amazing Black Friday social media posts.

Best topics for your Cyber Monday campaign

If you’re in need of some inspiration for your Cyber Monday marketing campaigns, check out this collection of topics to get your creative juices flowing.

Merry tools for productive marketing teams

Next, you’ll find a list of hand-picked tools that will make marketers’ lives easier when planning the holiday campaigns. 

Best social media tools

Planable

Planable helps agencies & in-house marketing teams collaborate to create, approve, and publish social media content faster. With Planable, marketers have an all-in-one platform that streamlines content creation & approval. So no more misunderstandings or wasted time.

Pricing: starts at $33/month billed annually (free plan available)

Kicksta

Kicksta promises pure organic growth powered by a cutting edge Artificial Intelligence technology for your Instagram accounts. They also have a hashtag generator tool which is very simple and includes a search box where you can enter a keyword or topic. Then the tool will generate a list of hashtags related to that topic.

Pricing: starts at $49/user/month

Podium 

Podium is redefining the way customers interact with local businesses. From collecting reviews on the sites that matter most, textenabling your website with Webchat, collecting payment via text, gathering private feedback to managing all your customer messages from one central dashboard with Inbox, Podium is the answer.

Pricing: Available upon request

Buzzsumo

BuzzSumo analyzes hundreds of millions of pieces of content, making comprehensive and robust data accessible to businesses of all sizes. It provides insight into what content is working, why, and which influencers can amplify it.

Pricing: starts at $79/month billed annually 

Mention

Mention is a social media marketing suite that helps brands and agencies drive the conversation. Monitor what’s being said online about your brand or product, get analytics on your industry and measure the impact of your marketing & PR activities.

Pricing: starts at $25/month (free plan available) 

Place.Me

Place.Me puts brands and agencies directly in touch with communities of pre-qualified and engaged talent. They are your IR35 solution and pay their freelancers weekly. For more information contact them at [email protected]

Best design tools

Personizely

Personizely is a conversion marketing toolkit used to make the most of every website visitor. Create high-converting pop-ups, bars, and callouts. You can easily edit your website according to visitor’s activity history, source, geolocation, device, store activity, and many more, creating variations of your website.

Pricing: starts at $23/month billed annually

Venngage

Venngage empowers you to easily create infographics, presentations, social media posts, and other visual designs with thousands of customizable templates, charts, icons, and design elements.

Pricing: starts at $39/month billed yearly (free plan available)

Designmodo Postcards

Designmodo offers best-designed tools to create well-coded websites and beautiful email newsletters. Using this awesome tool, you can create different types of content: promotional, E-Commerce, news, transactional, and more.

Pricing: starts at $15/month billed annually (free plan available)

Canva

Canva empowers users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, and other visual content. Featuring a simple drag-and-drop user interface and a vast library of templates and design ingredients, anyone can take an idea and create something beautiful.

Pricing: starts at $9.95/month billed yearly (free plan available)

Lucidpress

Lucidpress is a design & brand templating platform that empowers non-designers in your company to create and distribute marketing collateral all on their own (without going off-brand). Lockable templates protect your brand while allowing colleagues to make small design tweaks and customizations, easing the workload off your creative team.

Pricing: starts at $10/user/month (free plan available)

Best task management tools

Paymo

Paymo is a work management tool that connects teams looking to manage tasks, schedule team workloads, track worked hours, and bill clients from a single platform. Keep your team aligned and engaged.

Pricing: starts at $8.95/user/month

Todoist

Todoist is a to-do list app that can help anyone get organized, no matter where they are or what device they use. From planning large scale projects to simply remembering to pay the rent, Todoist can be really helpful.

Pricing: starts at $3/month billed annually (free plan available)

Asana

Asana helps teams orchestrate their work, from daily tasks to strategic initiatives. With Asana, teams are more confident, move faster, and accomplish more with less, no matter where they are located. Teams do great things when everyone has clarity and is empowered to do their part. 

Pricing: starts at €10.99/user/month billed annually (free plan available)

Trello

Description: Trello helps teams work more collaboratively and get more done. Trello’s boards, lists, and cards enable teams to organize and prioritize projects in a fun and flexible way. Whether it’s for work, a side project or even your next family  vacation, Trello helps you stay organized.

Pricing: starts at $9.99/user/month billed annually (free plan available)

Notion

Notion is the all-in-one workspace for notes, project management, documents, and collaboration. Tens of thousands of teams and companies around the world use it to keep their employees informed and working together in one place.

Pricing: starts at $4/month billed annually (free plan available)

Best analytics tools

Socialinsider

Socialinsider is a social media competitive benchmarking, analytics, and reporting tool. They support all major social media networks: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, and TikTok. With Socialinsider you can impress clients with data they haven’t seen before by comparing their efforts with the efforts of their competitors.

Pricing: starts at $83/month billed annually

Brand24

Brand24 is a simple yet reliable social media monitoring solution. Brand24 empowers its users to stay updated on what’s being said about their businesses online, get customer insights, engage communities, identify sales leads, improve social customer service, reach out to influencers, and monitor their competition.

Pricing: starts at $49/month billed annually (free plan available)

Awario

Awario is a social media & web monitoring tool that will help you track brand mentions, monitor competitors, find sales opportunities and influencers, and engage with your audience online.

Pricing: starts at $24/month billed annually 

Cyfe

Cyfe is all about data. This social media management app helps you keep and analyze all of your business data in one single place. From social media to finance and SEO, all your data will find meaning with Cyfe. 

Pricing: starts at $26.06/month billed annually (free plan available)

Social Blade

Social Blade tracks user statistics for YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter. Social Blade gives all users access to their public database which, using advanced technology, is able to provide you with global analytics for any content creator, live streamer, or brand.

Pricing: starts at $3.34/month billed annually

Bonus! Tools that offer a Black Friday discount

Wishup

At Wishup we have well trained and skilled virtual assistants, social media managers and digital marketing managers for entrepreneurs, small business owners and organisations. Hire a virtual assistant and get your work done remotely.

Wishup provides highly skilled Remote Workers at an affordable price point which is fulfilled through a tech enabled marketplace. Our monthly plans start from $ 899 for 4 hours/day.

BFCM Deal
7.5% Discount on 3 months plan
10% Discount on 6 months plan

The Offer is valid till 30th November, 2020

HelpCrunch 

HelpCrunch is an all-in-one customer communication tool offering a comprehensive set of features for customer support, marketing, and sales. If you need a live chat and knowledge base solution, it’s one of the most affordable options available. Set up proactive chat messages, send manual chat campaigns, and engage with customers and visitors at every step of their journey.

Additionally, you can choose the ‘Live chat + Emails’ subscription plan and use HelpCrunch for email marketing automation. Your team will be able to follow up on important leads and warm up your user base without switching between hundreds of disconnected tools. The popup builder is included in all subscription plans so it’s easier than ever to get in touch with more website visitors proactively. Provide top-notch support, increase your customer engagement, retain loyal clients, and drive sales with only one powerful yet affordable tool. But HelpCrunch is, of course, not the only option out there. If you want to compare, check out further solutions like Messagely.

HelpCrunch’s Black Friday & Cyber Monday deal: Get 25% off your first month or 45% off the first year with the promo code BFCM2020. 

If you sign up for 12 months right off, the Black Friday promo code adds up to the usual 20% annual discount. This way, you’ll be getting up to 45% off the entire year.

SendX

SendXis an Intuitive, affordable & feature-rich Email Marketing Software for marketers & business owners. SendX prides itself on enabling marketers with one of the simplest UIs in the industry. SendX provides unlimited email sends with every plan, powerful automation capabilities, 24×7 live support, best of breed email deliverability. 3000+ companies worldwide trust SendX for their Email Marketing. **Start with 14 days free trial (no credit card required). **Pricing starts at $7.49/month.

Deal: 40% Off On All Annual Plans of SendX

Validity: 30th November

Social media activation ideas 

Now let’s take a look at some fresh social media ideas to drive engagement and make new users fall in love with your brand. 

Friday or Monday – what’s better?

Sales, sales everywhere. But which day offers better sales? Let’s ask your audience. Using Instagram’s POLL feature, ask them this simple question.

It may sound redundant, but think about it: what better way to find out what your audience’s expectations are in terms of sales than asking directly? With all the data you collect, you can plan your next year’s campaigns accordingly.

Big discount in mobile app

Do you know how to differentiate Cyber Monday from Black Friday? Here’s an activation idea.

Make it all about tech. If the discounts for Black Friday are for everything and everywhere, the ones for Cyber Monday should double in your mobile app.

If you don’t have a mobile app, don’t worry. You can offer the same big discount for people who make a purchase from their mobile device.

Who did you forget about?

OK, community managers, hear me out. This one’s for you. What if this year you base your Cyber Monday campaign on authenticity? It happens to everybody. You plan for Christmas presents on Black Friday, but you forget about your cousin. Or the aunt you’ve already unfollowed on Facebook. We’re only human.

So this year, ask your audience who did they forget about and suggest some discounted presents when they answer.

That means you have to prepare in advance and make some lists to help you answer quickly.

First item ever bought on CM?

Going down the memory lane is always a good idea. If you don’t plan to push your sales directly, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to trigger your customers on Cyber Monday.

Ask them to tell you more about the first item they ever bought on Cyber Monday. Do they still have it? Does it still work? (Do they plan to replace it with a new one soon?)

Subscribe to be the first one to know about the deals

Even though you start your campaign on social media, who says you can’t take it further on email? Sweet discounts always make people more prone to sign up for newsletters. Cyber Monday can be a great moment to collect some new leads. Create a social media campaign where you tell people you’ll announce your CM deals to subscribers first, and then watch your numbers go up.

Extra points: people who follow this type of deals are the ones who appreciate technology. Often, they’re the early adopters your business needs. Nurture these leads accordingly.

Examples of successful social media campaigns

We’ve also curated a collection of great Cyber Monday advertising campaigns from various brands to draw last-minute inspiration from. Cyber Monday advertisements can be a great way to make consumers think of your brand next time they’re out shopping, so let’s make sure they’re memorable. 

Shopify. All paws on deck

Who doesn’t love dogs? Also, who doesn’t know that Cyber Monday can be a very busy day for those working in customer support? Combine these two and you get a cute way of showing your customers that everything’s going to be ok.

Shopify reassured clients that their support team is all “paws on deck” to help them shop on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We know dogos can be trusted.

Nokia. Raising awareness

Humorous campaigns are great. Cute dogs are awesome. But sometimes it’s also perfectly fine to go with simply raising awareness about a problem that your product solves.

Nokia offered a good example of how to create a Cyber Monday campaign without promoting jaw-dropping deals. You can simply post information that customers will find useful — e.g. security, especially in the context of heavy online shopping.

Ryanair. Cyber week

For some brands, simply offering discounts is the best approach. For example, people can’t get enough of great travel deals, so Ryanair offered their customers an entire week of deals, not just two or three days. They called it Cyber Week. Although thinking about flying only triggers nostalgia right now, it’s still an example of a successful marketing campaign for Cyber Monday.

Forever 21. So much internet to do

But really… cheers to poking a little fun at those facing the struggles of every Cyber Monday shopper! We don’t have to take ourselves too seriously. Sometimes it’s ok to share what everyone else is thinking about. Even if it’s just “So much internet to do”.

Forever21 shared a link to their deals and added a little twist to it. Easy and on brand. Did you take notes? Good. Let’s head to the last one.

Dollar Shave Club. Burn one calorie

Email campaigns can be impactful as well. Dollar Shave Club showed everyone that their brand is playful and funny by introducing this amazing combo on Cyber Monday: save 30% AND also burn 1 calorie by tapping to buy the products. You better start doing some clicking if you want it to count as a full body workout.

 

Instagram story background designs

So you know when to post, you have the tools, you’ve chosen your favorite Cyber Monday ad and got inspired. Now it’s time for some holiday-themed backgrounds for Instagram stories that any marketer can personalize. Enjoy!

 

Visuals to the rescue

You also need high quality images to impress users. That’s why we prepared a curated Unsplash collection containing 30 drop-dead gorgeous images that go well with any Cyber Monday marketing slogans you can imagine.

Post templates

Cyber Monday posts should be planned ahead of time. No doubt about that. Get into the holiday spirit by customizing your own posts using Planable. 

#Hashtags

Have you tried adding #tbt or #picoftheday to your posts but the only engagement you got was the awkward sound of crickets chirping? Don’t worry. We’ve all been there. 

Hashtags are still a great way to connect your social media content to a specific conversation topic. Since Chris Messina first came up with the idea back in 2007, the popularity of hashtags has skyrocketed. Whether you’re considering adding them to a simple Tweet or incorporate them in a Cyber Monday advertisement, all you need to do is use them the right way and find the best Cyber Monday hashtags for your brand.

Hashtag basics

# Yes, they start with # but please, please don’t use spaces, punctuation or symbols between the words and still hope for the best. Keep the words #together and you’ll see results.

# Although it’s tempting, make sure not to string too many words together. #otherwiseyoullendupwithsomethinglikethis. Short & simple, folks! 

# Are your accounts public? If not, this may be the darn reason no one discovers your awesome content. So make that account public and give a warm welcome to those new followers!

# You may feel like #Christmas or #BlackFriday are too broad but #krampusnight2020 or other obscure hashtags won’t do you a favour either. So maybe save the half-goat, half-demon Krampus stories for the description. If your team approves the post.

# Less is more. Using ALL the hashtags you can think of just looks spammy. Choose a few and save the rest for later posts.

Why use hashtags?

#visibility #engagement #support just to name a few.

Most popular & relevant Twitter hashtags related to Cyber Monday

 

Most popular & relevant Instagram hashtags related to Cyber Monday

 

 

Dos and don’ts

‘Tis the season to be creative and give your audience a reason to talk about your brand. Here are some dos and don’ts to keep in mind when you start working on those amazing Cyber Monday marketing ideas. 

Things you should do

Be mindful of your audience’s preferences

Do you worry about the backlash that a holiday-specific phrase can bring? Are you having nightmares about that joke you scheduled for Cyber Monday? Stop right there. Take a closer look at your audience. Where are your customers from? What kind of content do they share? How about their age? Role? Pain points? No more guessing. Do your research and give your audience what they want, not what you think they might like. Data never lies.

Remember that many social media users like to have a website they can visit when they like what a brand is giving them. Ensure that you’re optimizing your website so it performs fast and well to give your visitors a good experience.

Engage, engage, engage

The holidays are all about sharing. Sharing presents, meals, special moments, and sometimes sharing too much information at family gatherings. This is a huge opportunity for you to engage with your audience. Ask them to tag a friend, share their photo using your hashtag, or share your content with their friends and family. Ask them questions, create polls, initiate conversations, do AMAs. Sky’s the limit. 

Say “Thank you!”

Now that we talked about asking for things, let’s take a moment to express gratitude. Thank your customers, your followers, and your team. It can be anything from a simple “Thank you!” to a more creative way of showing how much you appreciate them. For instance, Avon created a customer appreciation week, offering its clients a new deal every day of that week. It doesn’t have to be around Thanksgiving. Think about it. People are going to receive tons of special offers & coupons that day. Surprise your customers. Pick a random day. Make them feel special. After all, your brand is alive and kicking thanks to everyone supporting it. 

Use multiple channels in a consistent way

Get in front of as many eyes as possible. Not everyone’s on Instagram. Some prefer Youtube. Or good old email. Make sure your holiday marketing plan isn’t limited to one channel. Also keep in mind that your message should be consistent across each channel and be true to your brand. Your Black Friday campaign doesn’t have to focus on discounts or sound salesy. It can be quirky and funny if your brand’s that way. Think about Cards Against Humanity and its long history of pulling Black Friday stunts. In 2013, it actually raised the price of its game and people still bought it like crazy. 

Set smart goals and track ROI

This is something we should all do. At all times. We know it. You know it. Everybody knows it. And yet… a friendly reminder is a friend indeed. Or something along those lines. Here’s the deal. It’s easy to get lost in execution and lose sight of the bigger picture. So before you go into overdrive, set SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. It will make your life easier and your manager happier. Don’t forget to track the return on investment and adjust along the way if needed. 

Things you should avoid

Don’t change your branding

Now that we covered what you should do, it’s time to meet the don’ts. You’re probably considering one of them for your campaign and don’t even know it. Like maybe change your logo’s colors to something more holiday specific? Or perhaps the typography, packaging, and messaging? After all, it’s that special time of the year, right? Don’t get us wrong. We love it when brands add a twist to their marketing campaigns. And we trust that you’ll find clever ways to incorporate holiday specific elements without actually changing your brand. People are confused enough after having a bit too much to drink at family dinners. At least make it easier for them to recognize your brand.

 Don’t go crazy with holiday promotions

 There’s nothing wrong with rolling out some special offers to drive in customers. In fact, you should do it. The overdoing part is what we’re referring to here. People love discounts, sure, but they also appreciate good entertainment, engagement, and education. So if your only plan is to make it rain with discounts, we’re sorry to let you know that this falls under the umbrella of don’ts. Mix those special offers with some friendly content. The internet will be flooded with discounts and aggressive marketing. Stand out.  

Don’t forget to schedule social media posts 

So you went over the top to create this amazing, out of this world content. Graphic designers and videographers were involved. The legal team approved it. And now it’s going to become viral. Except you forget to schedule it. And you’re forced to say “Hey, guys, Black Friday should be celebrated everyday!”. Riiight. Here’s a different scenario. With Planable, you can strategically plan and schedule your content by drag and dropping posts in your predefined time slots. It takes seconds. You can then enjoy a cup of hot cocoa while seeing everything at a glance across all your pages. 

Don’t overlook collaboration and approval

We all need some sort of approval process. Even when we say we don’t because “we trust each other”. As a general rule, our industry has to internalize that review and approval are important. They are not about control. Nor are they about a lack of trust. They’re simply there because more brains add up to better results, more pairs of eyes add up to flawless content, and more types of expertise add up to progress. Sure, forgiveness during the holiday season can be one of the best gifts you give to yourself. But we’re pretty sure your audience isn’t going to overlook that typo. Shockingly (not), we recommend trying out Planable. It’s not an add-on, it’s not a feature, it’s an entire tool built for the sole sake of making social media collaboration seamless.

Don’t use a one-size-fits-all approach

Not all people are the same. Not all channels bring the same results. Then why use a one-size-fits-all approach? Your goal is not only to reach as many people as possible but also to provide them with content they’ll love, in a format they’ll enjoy. Divide your audience into smaller groups such as existing customers, warm leads, people you want to reach, and so on. Stalk them a little. Where do they hang out? What are they sharing? What’s their mother’s maiden name? Scratch that. This will help you narrow down your channels of distribution and content formats. More time for creativity. Yay!

That’s all, folks! 

P.S. If you want super helpful resources for the other upcoming holidays too, download our Holiday Kit 2020 that contains everything you need to create perfect campaigns for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas & New Year’s Eve. Bonus: the kits include exclusive discounts for some of the tools we mentioned.

Now go make magic happen!