Five on Friday: November 6th, 2015

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As the curator of the INSIDER Guide to New Product Development (NPD), I’m constantly keeping an eye out for bite-size information that will help you develop and scale better subscription products. Here’s my “Five on Friday” compilation for November 6th, featuring the five best trends, tips, quotes or stats from my reading this week.

This week, there is a special focus is on taking advantage of the holiday season to boost your subscription business. But before diving into that topic, I’d like to extend a hearty congratulations to our CEO Kathy Greenler-Sexton, Payment Processing guru Paul Larsen and the rest of the Subscription Insider team for their successful “Mastering Payment Processing for Recurring Revenue” seminar held in Boston on October 22^nd. Not able to be there for this data-rich session? Click here to get access to a recap, videos, attendee comments and much more!

1. Cyber Monday is the Sweet Spot for Subscription Businesses

Although the same could be said for everyone:

According to the National Retail Foundation, 45 million people went shopping on Thanksgiving last year, 92 million on Black Friday and yet another 131 million shopped on Cyber Monday.

2. Are You Ready for the Six Big Shopping Days of the Holidays?

Yes, according to Gannett, there are six big shopping days coming up before the end of the year, and B2C and subscription box businesses need to be ready to take advantage of them. In addition to Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, they include:

Thanksgiving Day = Gray Thursday

Thanksgiving is now a shopping day in its own right. While many prominent businesses will keep their doors closed on Thanksgiving (a policy I agree with); that doesn’t mean that Cousin Kanira or Uncle Declan won’t be surfing the web on their mobiles during dessert.

December 1^st = Giving Tuesday

This is when Americans are supposed to take a break from all that shopping for themselves, and give a little back.

December 14^th = Green Monday

The second Monday in December is historically the biggest shopping day of the month. Who knew?

3. How to Take Advantage of the Gray/Black/Small Business/Cyber/Giving and Green Days

So now that you know the big days, how do you take advantage of them?

Gray: Judge not.schedule posts with special offers to appear on your website and various social media pages on Thanksgiving Day.

Black: Start a teaser campaign for Cyber Monday.

Small Business: Is it too late to create an affiliate relationship with a complementary local business to offer a holiday package deal? Perhaps, but remember this for next year . . .

Cyber: Your day – get an email campaign out to your subscribers with a great deal on a gift subscription. Remind those who gifted last year to gift again!

Giving: A perfect time to share your social agenda, or offer discounts for those who give to a charity.

Green: Time your biggest discounts around this milestone.

4. **What About “Publish Monday?” That’s Next Monday . . .**

While it’s getting close, there’s still a little time, according to a post on BigCommerce, to improve your SEO in time for the big buying rush.

“According to the 45-Day rule, publishing your content a week before a major holiday will allow you to engage in 50% of the search engine traffic, while starting 45 days in advance will help you participate in over 90% of the search traffic.” BigCommerce

5. And Yet Another Good Reason to Upgrade Your Website to be Mobile-Friendly:

comScore found that 21% percent of Black Friday online sales and 17% Cyber Monday sales came directly from mobile devices.

And here’s a bonus link . . . have a happy and lucrative holiday season!

Happy 49^th birthday to my brother, Alan Harbaugh! Have a great weekend, everyone.

Diane

Diane Pierson has deep experience in product management and marketing, having delivered results to companies including Dun & Bradstreet, LexisNexis, American Lawyer Media and Copyright Clearance Center. She has built products & services that have delivered over $100 million in revenue and knows what works, and what doesn’t, when executing product plans and strategies. She is also a contributor to Subscription Insider. (Read Diane’s full Bio)