Get your online store ready, Black Friday is coming!
Black Friday, the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in U.S. and the biggest shopping day of the year. Nowadays it’s not only about Friday but much more about the whole week. Most retailers open very early and offer promotional sales. And more importantly, shoppers opted to buy online rather than left their homes and fight the crowds in the stores. According to Practical Ecommerce report, compared to 2014, there was a 10% decrease in sales in brick-and-mortar-stores in 2015 but online sales were up by double digits! The sooner you start thinking about Black Friday, the better you can prepare not to be overwhelmed by the rush of customers.
2015 Black Friday Trends:
- People are doing more shopping online
- Shoppers are using mobile devices (34% of online sales in 2015, sales done on smartphones increased 70% compared to 2014)
- Most online stores are offering free shiping
- Customers are expecting free shipping
1. Create your marketing strategy
First, it is of great importance to determine which ad channels you want to focus on. According to Custora E-Commerce Pulse, in 2015 email marketing was the biggest marketing channel on Black Friday, driving a quarter of all transactions. Another 21.1% of sales originated through free search, and 16.3% through paid search. Social media (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest) drove only 1.7% of sales. These are the trends but when you really want to have successful strategy you have to look back at last year’s data. Where were your visitors coming from, what was their behaviour, what led to conversion, what was working, what not, why? Analyzing your data is the key to success.
2. Focus on email marketing
Email marketing is one of the leading channels in Black Friday campaigns. It is important to think of it in advance to prepare amazing content and not to miss this fabulous opportunity. Subscribers won’t engage if your emails are boring, annoying, or irrelevant. You need to attract them with a catchy title in the subject line. Here are a few tips from Shopify for creating successful Black Friday emails:
- Keep things simple — when your offer is clear with a focused call-to-action it increases your chances to success
- Be different — what about animated GIFs? Or something funny? But remember to be tasteful and focused on your offer
- Don’t forget to highlight important information such as discounts, free shipping and the day the sale begins and ends
- Offer a free gift or special discount for your subscribers
- Send unexpected emails with last-second extensions of offers/deals
3. Be mobile friendly
More and more consumers are shopping using their smartphones. That’s why you need to optimize your website to be mobile friendly. Mobile users will appreciate:
- when the site loads quickly — so they can easily find what they are looking for
- less videos and animation — not only because of faster load times but also because it uses up less mobile data, important for those who have limited mobile internet access
- Your site is big enough to be readable — shoppers don’t want to have to zoom in to read text
- Your buttons are clickable — this is quite important, you probably know the feeling when you want to click and open something you are interested in and instead you open something completely different. Would you try clicking again? More often than not, users become frustrated and leave your website.
4. Boost your customer service
Your customers will have a lot questions and you have to be ready to help them through phone, email or live chat (which has become very popular recently). Here are a few tips on how to win points with great customer service:
- Ask your customers how you can help them, but don’t be annoying
- Make it easy for your customers to ask for help
- Do not exaggerate your offer by using lot of superlatives
- Answer all questions as soon as possible
- Give your employees training on customer service best practices
- Be human, not a machine
5. Consider free shipping and an effortless return policy
Many online shoppers now expect free shipping as a critical element to their eCommerce experience. They claim that this factor over all others compels them to order. When we talk about Black Friday this statement is more true than ever. Customers expect free shipping and most online stores provide it. If you do not, you should reconsider in order to remain competitive. Online stores will also offer extended liberal return policies so you should think of that too. Ordering online can make people a little bit nervous, but having a simple and no-hassle return policy will help you convince them to buy. However, don’t forget about what effect these changes will have on your established processes. Ensure that your business is able to handle free shipping and the increased returns that may come with a no-hassle returns policy.
6. Offer special product bundle
A product bundle is a group of products you offer to your customers for special price. It is a great way to increase the order value and encourage shoppers to get additional things that they need in their purchases. By creating special “Black Friday bundles” you can increase your sales and make your customers happy. Simply combine several related items and promote them as a special bundle or gift set.
7. Don’t forget to retarget
Retargeting is an effective sales recovery tactic helping to reach shoppers who put items in their online shopping carts, but then left before completing the purchase. You have to understand that customers often abandon their carts without meaning to do so, for example because the website crashed, because the process was complicated, or because the site timed out.
- Prepare retargeting campaigns on Facebook — it serves as a friendly reminder for products your customers like but weren’t quite ready to buy. You can choose your audience list based on several criteria
- Create abandonment cart emails — they are easy to create, and are very helpful to bring back reluctant customers. Every abandoned cart email needs an easy way to get back to the cart, or at least display the items that were abandoned. With cart abandonment emails, you will be able to capture the details of those who have abandoned and follow up with them to try and recover the sale. Soundest, for example, is a great tool for creating cart abandonment emails
Two last pieces of advice before the shopping spree begins. First, check that everything on your website is well prepared. Review all the steps of your buying process and make sure everything is working properly. When the show begins there is no time for adjustments. Second, watching your competition can help you to stay ahead, get great ideas to improve your strategy and make your Black Friday offer unique. It’s not about copying your competitors. It’s more about getting inspiration and avoiding mistakes. As Austin Kleon says — steal like an artist.
