The busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday, is just around the corner, and although it looks like we will all be locked indoors, we still expect spending to skyrocket. With Shopify declaring their merchants to have made almost $3 billion in 2019 over the entire weekend. This year will undoubtedly look a little different, but a lot of the same.
So, how do you prepare for the strangest Black Friday in history? Well, we are going to offer some chunks of advice which will hopefully help your business to achieve its goals. So join us as we help make 2020s ‘eCommerce Black Friday’ as smooth as possible.
WARNING! As almost all stores are set to have their physical location closed this Cyber Weekend, more are moving the entirety of their sales into the eCommerce world. So expect competition, expect fireworks and most of all expect virtual queuing, it’s a good job we’re British.
Put thought into your offers 🤔
Look, there’s no easy way to say this, but, come Black Friday your offers won’t stand out. What you are offering and how you offer it is essential! Offer your most popular products at a reduced rate, as these are the things that keep your regular clientele returning.
Delivery of your offers 🤩
The companies that historically stand-out on Black Friday have been those who have memorably delivered their offers. So, whether it’s the creation of ‘Black Thursday’ where you send your offers out early to make them stand out from the hoards who do it the following day. Or, you elect to vary your offers by gamification. for example, spin the wheel to see how much discount you can have.
Both are good ways of delivering offers that have the potential to be memorable. Black Friday is your chance to drive sales but that’s never going to happen if you don’t stand out from the crowd. Think outside the box and be intuitive, marketing is about having fun!
Build your mailing list ✉️
Your mailing list has an intrinsic amount of value which often can’t be quantified. If you have set up the capability to capture data then you should be using that data!
When it comes to the delivery of your offers, you should be marketing to those who have already shopped with you or who left their details. Either of those things is a statement of intent, they are obviously a fan of your product and your business. Don’t overlook your current clients because honestly, if something’s cheaper they will probably come and have another look.
Schedule and reschedule! 📅
Once the weekend of shopping madness hits, it’s going to be a storm of things to do. Planning is going to be what gives you the upper hand. Put your ads together as soon as possible, make the tag-lines and captions relevant and get prepared. If you advertise across social media(which we hope you do!) and popular search engines such as google ads (definitely do this too!). You need to bear in mind that ads sometimes take time to be verified, you don’t want that to be at the peak of sales. This could hamper you substantially.
Prepare your next offering ✨
Black Friday doesn’t start and end on one day. As the hoards of keen shoppers are flocking to your website and interacting with your business, Black Friday is also a great opportunity to promote your next product or offer. Many businesses immediately turn to their Cyber Monday offers, although the cyber seems a little missing this year as it’s going to be a cyber month of sales, with most physical shops being closed for lockdown.
You aren’t limited as a business to only promoting Cyber Monday. Think about it, you’ve got lots of traffic and lots of eyes are on your website and social media. You’ve also got that brand new product launching in December/January, connect the dots. Why not promote that product across your website to ready people for its arrival whilst there’s lots of traffic? Makes sense doesn’t it.
You could even cross-promote your Christmas sale with taglines like, ‘Black Friday prices, even cheaper than our Christmas Sale!’ You are telling people about your offers but subconsciously you’re also letting them know that there will be more sales to come. Intrigue and mystery are key, use them to your advantage.
We love the feeling Black Friday evokes in savvy shoppers. As potential shoppers ourselves, we want to get involved and as a marketing and branding agency, we appreciate the efforts of the businesses as they fight for our attention. Our expertise makes us the perfect agency to help you build your Black Friday campaigns, and any marketing or branding projects you may have in the future. Get in touch today, and we will do what we can to build you a busier business.
Take a look at some more of our blogs for helpful tips, tricks and advice:
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