Now Black Friday isn’t just a one day shopping event, it’s the full weekend ending with Cyber Monday. Therefore it is the ideal event to drive more traffic and boost sales on your website.
Black Friday is the perfect time for people to start Christmas shopping and they want to find the best Black Friday deals possible. This means it’s important to be prepared with your marketing, especially as results from an analysis on Google Trends data shows that search interest in Black Friday sales is starting earlier each year.
Email Marketing
During the Black Friday weekend, email marketing is a cost effective and quick way to expand your customer base whilst increasing your profit. A pre launch campaign and email list can transform your sales revenue.
Email marketing can also allow you to set up a cart abandonment email campaign to redirect your customers back to the products they were interested in buying. If sent within minutes, this can also stop your visitors going and buying from a competitor instead. You could even include discounts or rewards in your abandon cart emails to entice potential customers to make their purchase.
Make your subject line stand out. It is likely you’ll have your competitors targeting your mailing list too. So you need to be confident that you have a subject line and email content that is eye-catching. The subject line is the first thing people will see, so make it appealing!
Build up anticipation on Social Media
In the weeks and days leading up to Black Friday you should start your social media marketing campaigns to create anticipation and excitement about your brands deals.
As well as using your regular Instagram hashtags, use Black Friday hashtags like #blackfriday #cybermonday #blackfridaydeals #blackfridaysale. Then you are not only making your current followers aware you’re taking part in online Black Friday sales, but potential customers can discover you too. You can experiment with different Black Friday hashtags throughout the weekend. This allows you to see which ones get more likes and higher engagement.
You can use social media to give your followers sneak peeks of the products and discounts that will be involved in your Black Friday sales. You can get creative through gifs, videos or photos. This helps customers pre plan what they want to buy from you and helps those who have no idea what they are looking for. You can also attach direct links to your posts and stories to help streamline the buying process and the customer’s journey.
You can also offer social media channel specific deals such as ‘extra 10% off with this Instagram exclusive code’. This gives your followers extra incentives whilst still driving Black Friday traffic to your site and boosting your online shopping sales.
Increase your ad spend
Black Friday and Cyber Monday is a great time to increase your ad spend. If you plan to advertise on platforms such as Facebook, consider increasing your ad spend a few days before Black Friday. This gives your ad time to optimise for conversions and enables you to make any adjustments before the actual holiday shopping event. However, try and not make any important changes to your Facebook ads during Black Friday Cyber Monday. The Facebook algorithm will start over it’s learning phase about your ad which can take a while.
Inevitably, bidding on social media ads to aim at your target audience will become more expensive during this period. This is because there will be an increased number of advertisers trying to reach potential shoppers with Black Friday ads on Facebook and Instagram. That is why it’s important to bid before Black Friday and Cyber Monday when ads will be less expensive but will still get you in front of your intended audience. It is also a great time to invest in lookalike audiences so you can reach new customers that are very similar to your existing ones.
Optimise your website
Black Friday is most likely the time you’ll have the most traffic to your site. So you want to make sure it’s optimised to handle the amount of visitors and convert them to customers as last year 7 out 10 online sessions were on mobile.
Customers want to see exactly what they are buying so you need high quality images with a fast load time to really grab your potential customers’ attention. This is vital when it comes to viewing on mobile. Your site needs to be mobile friendly with a quick page speed, so your visitors can navigate your website easily.
One click buying is perfect for enabling your customers to check out quickly and for you to guarantee a sale on Black Friday. By having a secure mobile wallet with customer information instantly available such as Paypal, Google Pay or Apple Pay, you can allow for a checkout within seconds. Alternatively, guest checkouts are a great option. They allow for a quick checkout that won’t require a lot of effort, but you’ll still get the necessary customer information.
Your customers will be scanning your website and product descriptions to try and get as many of the best Black Friday deals as possible. This means you’ll want to update your product descriptions beforehand to make them detailed but straight to the point.
Create a gift guide
Black Friday can be the opportunity for people to buy from you for the first time, so it’s important to speak in a broader term about your brand and products/services. By creating a gift guide you will not only highlight your deals and products but it can give a sense of direction to new visitors to your site.
A gift guide is easy to navigate as it highlights a list of curated products for different occasions and products. You can choose to target a specific audience based on price, interest, gender and age etc. For example you can create category pages or landing pages to show visually different segments such as ‘for her’, ‘for him’, or ‘christmas gifts’. A gift guide can also be used to promote your Black Friday 2021 event through posting it on your social media platforms and including it in your email campaigns for a wider reach.
Black Friday sales are an ideal opportunity for you to build your traffic in the long term and increase your overall revenue. So, to get the most out of Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2021, simplify your checkout, start your marketing early and clearly advertise what you have on offer. Make sure to consider your customers at every step of the process and provide them with a memorable shopping experience.