In reviewing the results from Cyber Monday, it looks like half of the all the buyers were at work. Overall sales were up 15% and a lot of the retailers saw large traffic gains. You can view the release here from comScore. It drives the idea of how to target these customers while they are preparing to make purchases at work during a break or lunch.
When I worked at CNET, we had a large at-work audience and developed advertising programs around that audience. One concept that used was day-parting - displaying ads at select times. A good example was we were having difficulty breaking into consumer brands such as food and beverage for a tech audience but lured Anheuser Busch in for a happy hour flight from the hours of 3-6 on a Friday. The advertising worked because it was relevant and timely.
Same pricincipal applies to marketing to an at work audience for eCommerce. Your offer not only has to be relevanet to the consumer, but has to be delivered at the right time. I know many email marketing campaigns that have avoided the morning hours because of the idea you wanted to avoid the morning email sifting where the consumer was more focused on accomplishing work tasks. If the consumer is lining up their day of tasks and shopping online happens to be one of those tasks, it might be the right time to put and offer in front on them.
Another concept would be offering lunchtime deals that are only live during EST and PST hours of 11-2. Creating sales events during the day and for a limited time creates reasons for shoppers to shop your site and the motivation to buy. You can also create consumer habit if you schedule these sales on a weekly basis or once a month. Consumers will learn to go to your site to look for deals and you will increase traffic.
So get out and test new campaigns that target consumers in hours where they are getting ready to do some holiday shopping online at work. Try different days - the old reliable middle of the week rule might be out - Monday could be the best day to start to try out lunchtime offers following a big Cyber Monday.
