Is Your Website Ready For BFCM Marketing?

Maximize Your Black Friday & Cyber Monday Sales with Shoppable Videos

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are just around the corner! Running from November 29th to December 2nd this year, BFCM is one of the most anticipated shopping events for e-commerce businesses. It's the perfect time to attract traffic to your website and drive sales.

But with the massive traffic surge comes the challenge of keeping your website fast, responsive, and optimized for conversions. A slow-loading or crashing website during peak shopping hours could result in significant lost sales. So how can you make the most of BFCM and turn that traffic into loyal customers? Here’s how to prepare your website for the big rush, and more importantly, how to convert that traffic into actual sales using tools like Whatmore.

1. Prepare for the Surge in Traffic: Optimizing Website Performance

Website performance is the foundation of your BFCM success. To handle the traffic spike, start by:

• Load Testing: Simulate high traffic scenarios to test how your website handles pressure. Load testing tools like JMeter, LoadRunner, and BlazeMeter can create scenarios to replicate visitor behavior—such as browsing, adding products to carts, and making purchases. This helps you identify bottlenecks such as slow database queries or limited server capacity.
• Mobile Optimization: A significant amount of your BFCM traffic will come from mobile devices. Ensure your website offers a seamless experience across all devices to reduce mobile user drop-off.
• Server & Hosting Upgrades: Depending on your traffic expectations, it may be necessary to upgrade your hosting plan to prevent crashes. Implement caching to store temporary data and reduce load on your servers.
• Content Delivery Networks (CDN): A CDN can help distribute your website's traffic across different servers, ensuring faster load times globally. This is critical if you're catering to a global audience.

2. Conducting Effective Load Testing

Load testing allows you to understand your website's capabilities under stress. Here’s how you can do it effectively:

• Set Clear Goals: Define specific goals for the test. For example, ensure your website can handle 10,000 concurrent users. Focus on important metrics like response time, throughput, error rate, and server resource utilization.
• Simulate User Actions: Use load testing tools to mimic real-world user behaviors like browsing, adding items to carts, and checking out.
• Gradual Increase in Load: Start with a lower number of virtual users, then gradually increase to test your website’s stability during peak periods.
• Isolate the Test Environment: Create a separate test environment that mirrors your live website. This ensures the load testing doesn’t disrupt your day-to-day operations.
• Pinpoint Bottlenecks: Use the results to identify and fix issues like slow database queries or insufficient server capacity. Re-run the test until your website can comfortably handle expected loads.

3. Enhance Website Infrastructure

Once you’ve identified weak points during load testing, you can take steps to enhance your website’s infrastructure:

• Optimize Your Codebase: Clean up any unnecessary plugins, scripts, or third-party integrations that might slow down your site. The leaner your code, the faster your website will load.
• Upgrade Hosting & Implement CDN: Boost your server capacity if needed, and make sure you're using a CDN to improve speed for global users.

4. Converting Traffic into Customers: Leverage Video Marketing

Now that your website can handle traffic, it’s time to focus on conversions. One of the most effective ways to increase engagement and sales is through shoppable videos. Here’s how to integrate video marketing into your BFCM strategy:

• Video Banners: Showcase your top deals and products with video banners on landing pages. Video banners are more engaging than static images and help direct users to product pages quickly. Using Whatmore’s tools, you can easily add video banners that won't impact page speed—an important factor for reducing drop-offs during peak traffic times.
• Shoppable Videos: With shoppable videos, you can embed add-to-cart buttons directly in your video content. This allows users to shop directly while watching a video, reducing friction and increasing the likelihood of conversions. Instead of searching for the product, users can simply click and purchase. This can be especially powerful during BFCM as you promote discounts and exclusive offers.

5. Zero Page Speed Impact with Whatmore

Shoppable videos are a game changer, but many businesses worry about their impact on page speed. Thankfully, Whatmore ensures that you can add shoppable videos without slowing down your website. This helps you keep bounce rates low and keep customers engaged.

Businesses using Whatmore’s shoppable videos have reported:

• A 250% increase in conversions.
• A 4x growth in time spent on the website.
• Up to 20x ROI during peak shopping periods like BFCM.

6. Boosting Video Content Creation with Whatmore Studio

If you don’t have the time or resources to create new video content for BFCM, Whatmore Studio can help. Using AI, Whatmore Studio can repurpose your existing videos and social media content, turning them into shoppable videos or fresh promotional material within minutes. This allows you to stay on top of trends and consistently provide engaging content throughout the shopping season.

7. Ready to Make This BFCM Your Best Yet?

By optimizing your website for the traffic surge and integrating shoppable videos through Whatmore, you can transform BFCM into a massive sales opportunity. Whatmore offers a cutting-edge way to engage visitors and drive conversions—all without compromising on website speed or performance.

This BFCM, don’t just survive the rush—thrive in it! Get your website ready, leverage Whatmore’s tools, and make this the most successful shopping season yet.

https://www.whatmore.ai/blog/is-your-website-ready-for-bfcm-marketing