Thanksgiving opens the holiday shopping season, merging with Black Friday (the single biggest 24-hour shopping event of the year) that, without missing a beat, flies straight into Cyber Monday. While The latter is a themed channel for online communities buying through dedicated e-commercial sites, the dividing line is hazy. Why? Virtual retail activity also connects to Black Friday, energized by traditional retailers offering their customers sophisticated website stores with internet delivery options.
This article is for small business owners, marketing professionals, and customer experience managers looking to maximize their Thanksgiving marketing strategies, including Black Friday surveys and Cyber Monday feedback that set the stage for holiday success. The content provides process, timing, and software tips to help you get the expected results.
Why Black Friday and Cyber Monday feedback are essential for the holiday season
What are Black Friday and Cyber Monday Surveys?
Businesses want to understand customer trends, preferences, and perspectives before the year’s most market-shifting shopping days in late November – Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Streamlining one’s e-commerce survey strategy and other feedback initiatives in an intensely competitive holiday season is vital as e-commerce and traditional retailers fight tooth and nail for a piece of consumers’ buying power.
Who and what falls into the broad Black Friday/Cyber Monday category? E-commerce and brick-and-mortar retail entities, from gift-centric outlets to gaming apps, from toy distributors to apparel sellers. Sports specialists, autos, furniture, and electronics – indeed, every consumer vertical under the sun qualifies for bargain searches on these two days.
Black Friday surveys and Cyber Monday surveys function best when they generate:
- Accurate customer responses to straightforward “Yes” or “No” questions or ratings on scales (from one to ten)
- Feelings or thoughts around the shorter quantitative answers cited in (1) above
The more you know about how your audience intends to take advantage of these wildly popular shopping events, the better the chances you’ll connect to the customer experience (CX) with your brand as a winner.
Benefits of Collecting Customer Feedback Before Black Friday.
Black Friday shopping pain points are unique, requiring accurate assessment within a limited time window. It means resolving them conclusively before and during these twenty-four-hour scenarios.
Here are a few Black Friday and Cyber Monday pain point gaps you can close:
- Complicated online navigation to your best-discounted deals.
- Running out of stock before the day’s end.
- Traditional stores unable to cope with the rush.
- Inadequate pre-event promotions.
- Discounts that customers see as superficial.
- Messaging and media content that fails to highlight your bargain value.
- Slow shipping and delivery.
- Inflexible return policy surrounding Black Friday/Cyber Monday purchases.
- Low ranking for your category in budget priorities.
Pain points go hand in hand with stress, lifestyle disruption, inconvenience, and disconnection at various intensity levels, providing you with openings – discovered through superior survey insights and innovative solutions – to differentiate and emerge a holiday season winner.
Insights Derived from Reputable Black Friday Surveys and Cyber Monday feedback that can Help Shape your Marketing Strategy
According to Quirks Media, referring to surveys conducted by Numerator and Basis Technologies, 87% of American consumers are in the Thanksgiving spirit in 2024, with travel, eating out, takeouts, and family dinners at home all in the mix:
- 54% of holiday shoppers don’t see Black Friday and Cyber Monday as essential shopping occasions, which means that 46% do.
- Around 65% of all consumers intend to shop early (to avoid shipping delays)
- Millennials and Gen Z rely on social media and online advertising guidance more than any other age group (thirty-six and sixty-eight percent more).
- Drivers influencing shoppers’ decisions are:
- Gifts with a recipient in mind (52%)
- Friends and family recommendations (47%)
- Customer reviews (35%)
- Brand familiarity (28% – surprisingly low).
- Free shipping (53%)
- Promotional discounts (51%)
- More than 60% of shoppers favor supporting small businesses over Black Friday, with nearly 38% (of this category) willing to pay up to 10% more to do so.
- Around 65% of survey respondents agree that inflation impacted their shopping intentions for the 2024 holiday season.
- Online shoppers will outnumber traditional shoppers by 2.3 to 1, with those relying on both to buy gifts slightly less than pure e-commerce shoppers (39% versus 43%).
- Online shoppers will favor laptops (72%) to access apps (40% of the time) and social media (20%, with Gen Z shoppers more than double that).
- Of the social media shoppers, Instagram and Facebook are the most favored (56 and 57 percent).
- Order confirmations are crucial, whether by email, SMS, or both.
- 94% of consumers expect to see them.
- 50% anticipate instantaneous responses.
- Nearly 60% of consumers will be active on Cyber Monday across most income levels, with $100,000 income (72% topping the list) followed by $80,000 to $99,999 (62%).
Critical Types of Black Friday Surveys and Cyber Monday Surveys for Businesses
Pre-Event Surveys (including your e-commerce survey strategy):
Understanding Customer Expectations
As the name implies, these surveys emerge before Thanksgiving to create insights into your customers’ intended shopping habits from Black Friday, merging into Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. As indicated by the survey data above, it aims at giving marketers a leg up on the competition by swimming with the tide versus strategies that have little connection to customers’ emotions and thoughts. In short, surveys in this category allow one to proficiently organize teams and sales strategies to maximize the buying attention this four-day shopping bonanza attracts.
Typical questions in the Black Friday surveys and Cyber Monday feedback:
- When do you expect to start preparing your Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping lists?
- What’s your budget for:
- Gifts for friends $_____
- Gifts for family $______
- Self-gifting items $_______
- Festivities on Thanksgiving $_______
- Not sure, but my total budget is $________
- Which days are you going to shop?
- Black Friday ____%
- The day after Black Friday ____%
- Sunday _____%
- Cyber Monday _____%
- Bargain days after Cyber Monday
- Overall, are you going to shop:
- Only Online.
- Only Traditionally in-store.
- Both
- Where are you looking for Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions:
- On your favorite brand sites.
- Loyalty program emails.
- Social media advertising.
- App searches
- Other (please describe)
- Which e-commerce, traditional, or hybrid retailers are you expecting to buy from on these designated shopping days?
- __________________
- __________________
- __________________
- __________________
- __________________
- What gift categories will you consider on these designated shopping days?
- Toys and games
- Hardware
- Home Decor
- Auto
- Apparel
- Footwear
- Jewelry
- Electronics
- Other (explain) ____________________________________
- Which three brands in this (name the category) are you sure to review before making your decision?
- ____________
- ____________
- ____________
- What discount level is a turnoff for you?
- What discount level generally grabs your interest?
Business Benefits:
When you enter Thanksgiving with pre-seasonal survey insights, the benefits range from data-centric inventory planning to retail placement, leveraging every viable distribution channel, constructing resonating messages, and more. The “more” includes:
- Knowing your customer’s feelings and thinking.
- Upgrading loyalty programs with meaningful incentives.
- Professionally structured pricing policies to maximize revenues with deep discounts in the formula.
Black Friday Surveys and Cyber Monday Surveys – On-The-Day: Real-Time Insights on Customer Experience
The accent of these surveys is brand agility and reaction speed within a twelve-hour window or as a barometer of things to come in the few days ahead. Adaptation to unexpected buying behavior, starting on Black Friday and ending on Cyber Monday in real-time, may be an opportunity too late for many (making the pre-Thanksgiving surveys crucial to one’s success).
For those enterprises with the resources to conduct real-time shopping event surveys during those days, with much narrower, brand-focused questions play a primary role. For example:
- Loyalty program customers respond to specific brand questions connected to discounts and other incentives in place.
- Prospect research is more challenging, given marketers are unsure of their brand thinking.
Typical questions in the real-time shopping event surveys:
TO PROSPECTS
- Are you meeting your Black Friday and Cyber Monday budgets for:
- Self-gifting $_____ YES NO
- Gifts for friends $_____ YES NO
- Gifts for family $_____ YES NO
- Festivities $_____ YES NO
- Where are you spending most of it:
- Online ____%
- Which platforms?
___________________________
- Which platforms?
- Traditional store shopping _____%
- Which stores?
___________________________
- Which stores?
- Online ____%
- Which promotions are grabbing your attention?
_________
_________
_________
TO ESTABLISHED CUSTOMERS
- Are you buying (brand name or product category) today?
- If not, why not ______________
- If so, where are you buying it_____________
- How much are (brand name) discounts supporting your budget today?
- Rate it from 0 to 5, where 0 is “not at all supportive.”
- Can you tell us why you rated (brand name) as you did?
- How uniquely does (brand name) meet your needs today?
- Rate it from 0 to 5, where 0 is “no differentiation of note.”
- Can you tell us why you rated (brand name) the way you did?
Survey processes in this phase rely on omnichannel adaptation with mobiles as a centerpiece. Why? Shoppers who follow traditional routes respond while navigating store traffic, with typical adjustment possibilities revolving around last-minute pricing, messaging, inventory mobility, and media switches.
Much depends on customers and prospects participating in the surveys (trying to bypass potential obstructions). Like what?
- They may find questionnaires interfering with busy shopping sprees irritating.
- If they do respond, answers under pressure may contain misleading biases.
Also, online traffic during Thanksgiving shopping puts a brake on response rates. So, our best tips are:
- Partner with professional survey specialists like Sogolytics to help your team collect real-time data with proven analytical capabilities to avoid “garbage in, garbage out” scenarios when the survey results emerge.
- Keep your questions short and focused on generating the insights you’re seeking.
- Maintain a steady stream of survey reminders through mobile push notifications and incentives (small gifts) offered to survey respondents as a way to encourage survey participation during heightened shopping events.
Post Sale Surveys After Big Shopping Events: Collecting Data for Improvement in Future Years.
The following questions contained in post-sale surveys will help you plan better next year and for the upcoming Christmas holidays:
- How was our delivery speed in your recent Black Friday or Cyber Monday purchases?
- Rate it from 0 to 10, where 10 is extremely impressive.
- Can you tell us why you rated our brand services the way you did?
- How was our customer support in recent Black Friday or Cyber Monday purchases?
- Rate it 0 to 10 where 10 is exceptional.
- Can you tell us why you rated us the way you did?
- How well did (brand name) compete as a recent Black Friday or Cyber Monday purchase versus the following brands (rate it 1 to 10 where 10 is “highly competitive):
- Brand A
- Brand B
- Brand C
Tell us more about why you ranked us as you did.
Black Friday Top Questions for Focused Surveys and Cyber Monday Feedback
Being Black Friday and Cyber Monday-specific is challenging, considering that so many festivities and holiday events merge. There’s no cookie-cutter question list. Why? Much depends on timing, the customer categories you want insights into (prospects or loyalists), and your resources.
Small Business Success with Surveys and Holiday Marketing Ideas
Developing a Black Friday and Cyber Monday feedback strategy that has a fighting chance of success depends on conforming to best practices and leveraging cutting-edge technology software to create acceptable speed, adaptability, segmentation, and connection. Survey data insights underline your efforts to establish a competitive edge. It’ll make a difference to your marketing strategies and promotional messaging at vital times.
The Sogolytics team’s experience and team talents will take your recent Black Friday or Cyber Monday feedback programs to the next level, with survey software for Thanksgiving shopping events being exceptional. We cover every data analytics aspect, from A to Z. Contact us today to learn more.
Examples of Black Friday Top Questions and Cyber Monday FAQs
Q1: What are Black Friday and Cyber Monday surveys?
A: Surveys that help businesses measure customer trends, preferences, and perspectives before, during, and after Black Friday and Cyber Monday to optimize their marketing strategies in an intensely competitive shopping event marketplace.
Q2: Why should businesses conduct Black Friday and Cyber Monday surveys?
A: For deeper insights into customers’ buying behavior during these pivotal consumer behavior days.
Q3: What types of questions should be included in a Black Friday and Cyber Monday survey?
A: Questions that go to the heart of discounts, gift preferences, self-indulgence, shopping habits, promotions, service satisfaction, and future Intentions. There’s no cookie-cutter question list. Why? Much depends on timing, the customer categories you want insights into (prospects or loyalists), and your resources.
Q4: How can small businesses use holiday promotion surveys effectively?
A: Contract the help of dedicated companies like Sogolytics to help with your programs from end to end. It’s less costly in the long run with fewer trial and error actions.
Q5: What is the best timing for sending out Black Friday and Cyber Monday surveys to maximize engagement?
A: Pre-event, during-event, and post-event surveys have a vital function and purpose. They differ in insights and reactions to insights. See more on this in the article above.
