The Procrastinator's Guide to Cyber Monday

It's only a few weeks to Cyber Monday, and I really hope you have your online promotions already planned. 

Target's dashboard helps shoppers find things quickly.

Why? According to ComScore, the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2010 was the highest spending day of the year - consumers spent more than $1 billion online, up 16% over the year before.

Even if you're the CEO of procrastination, it's time to stop living in denial and understand that you can't pass up this opportunity. Your customers are expecting deals and you need to provide them. Here's how to make the most of the biggest shopping day of the year:

1) Make your deals easy to understand  - is it $10 toys, 50 gifts under $50, 100 ten dollar ties? Whatever you can do to group products or make them easier to find gives you an edge. Make your pricing prominent- people do a LOT of comparison shopping on Cyber Monday, so your price is important. Don't be fooled into too much discounting, though - consumers don't always buy the cheapest thing.

2) SEO is key for Cyber Monday - make sure you're using the "Cyber Monday" keyword and you're using strong title tags and metadata. Time now on keyword research will drive great organic search results later. Think about how you would search if you were really in a hurry, validate those assumptions using the Google Adwords Keywords tool, and tag away.

3) Don't forget to advertise, but remember that all of your customers are expecting you to have a Cyber Monday sale. Ads are more expensive this time of year (and at this late date), but it can't hurt to check pricing on popular shopping sites like CyberMonday.com to see what you can do. That said, the best people to message are those that already like your brand - make sure your current email subscribers know that you're having a sale and do some deals just for them.

4) Don't ignore logistics. You can package 10 toys for $100, but it'll all blow up in your face if you don't have the stock to support a higher volume of orders than you're used to. Make sure your supply chain, your web server, and your shipping department are ready for an increase in sales. If there are products you don't have very many of that are difficult to re-stock, don't put them on sale. Promote items that are profitable, that you can turn around quickly, and for which you have adequate supplies.

Need help preparing for a big Cyber Monday? Let me know. I can help.