With around 60 million online buyers, it seems like this next Black Friday will be setting a new record.
According to a study for Google and developed by Provokers, 99.5% of people know about Black Friday and only 9% of them said they won’t be buying anything during this year’s event.
(Source: Google Provokers – Black Friday July 2018)
These numbers are more than enough to encourage entrepreneurs to take advantage of this end of the year sales season to boost their digital presence, the place where consumers search the most.
According to a Labs website study in 2017, Black Friday made more than 3 thousand billion dollars in Latin America, with close to 400 million Latin Americans buying on this day. In total value of online sales, Brazil is leading the market, followed by Mexico and then Argentina.
But, what really is Black Friday about?
Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, which is a holiday celebrated on the last Friday of November and it’s the biggest day of retail sales in the United States. It also marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.
Along with this holiday, Cyber Monday became a tradition as well, which is the Monday following Black Friday and it’s an online shopping event that was created to encourage people to do their shopping online and is now seen as a sales extension to Black Friday.
Why is Black Friday so important to e-commerce?
Traditionally, stores would offer discounts at their physical locations.
But, in the last few years, the shopping trend has changed and in 2016 online shopping achieved its e-commerce record, and it had finally overcome shopping in physical stores.
This year, it’s more likely that users continue to buy more online than in the actual stores. And with more people using smart phones, the trend of using apps and websites during this day should also scale up.
Strategies for your e-commerce’s success during Black Friday
According to the eCommerce Brasil website, compared to a normal sales day, during Black Friday the online traffic increases 6 times, depending on the time of the day.
If you want to seize this information to the fullest, start preparing yourself immediately. At the end, the success of your online sales depends directly on the business strategy you’re using on this day.
Find out about strategies to boost your business and multiply your sales
1. Invest in your website
As time goes by, the search for online discounts grows more and more. Reason why investing in your business’ appearance and its stability is the first thing you should be verifying.
Online marketing is the best way to show your products and promotions. Invest in banners and pop ups to present the most important promos.
Make sure these promotions are positioned to catch the visitor’s attention as soon as they enter your website.
You can’t forget to guarantee your website’s stability. Can you imagine what would happen if a client goes to your website and they’re unable to complete the shopping process because the website’s down?
Counting on a virtual assistant to attend your clients, to help out with client support and to answer the main questions related to products and shopping will surely make the difference.
How about using the moment to hire a freelance designer to help you out with the strategy?
2. Offer incentives that will make your clients share your promotions
In order to have more sales, you need to get more traffic to your website quicker. That’s why using social media is a great marketing strategy to promote online traffic.
Encourage your clients to share promotions and to increase traffic to your website by offering discount coupons. The best places to put them are on your main page, the product’s page, the checkout page and the shopping confirmation page.
3. Create e-books with gift guides
Sales can be very overwhelming and this is one of the best ways to help your clients to find the most interesting and relevant offers.
Design e-books or gift guides targeting different market segments (gifts for him, gifts for her, gifts for couples, gifts for grandmas, etc.) and leave a digital bait on your main page (you can ask for their information as an exchange for the e-book).
Use that information in future email marketing actions.
You think it’s hard? It won’t be with the help of a freelancer specialized in e-book design for your business! So, we invite you to meet the professionals that can help you achieve this particular goal.
4. Extend your sales
A very effective marketing strategy for Black Friday, which became very common, is to extend sales. Black Friday used to be the main day for retail businesses to have their best sales. But, with the increase of electronic commerce, Cyber Monday was born, too. As a result, the majority of websites ended up extending their sales to four entire days (from Friday to Monday).
By extending your campaign, you’ll be able to attract more clients and have sales during the entire weekend. Some businesses also offer discounts in the week prior to Black Friday.
Since the searches for promotions on Black Friday tend to be the most popular, you have to focus your strategy on that first. When extending your promos, you can create themed promotions for Saturday and Sunday.
If you own a women’s fashion business, for example, you can offer special discounts for your clients to buy dresses. And on Sunday, you could offer different discounts for another type of product. On Monday you can have a special discount in winter shoes or sweaters, or maybe include free shipping, too.
5. Use email marketing
When it comes to email marketing, there are two ways of managing it. First, if you don’t have your own email list, contact all your previous clients and offer them a special discount code to buy at your store during the promotion. Use this tactic if they have already bought in your business and if they tend to return and buy again. Also add your clients from the last 30 days; your brand is still fresh in the minds of these particular clients.
If you don’t have an email list, try to post some advertisements to help you create it before Black Friday arrives. By doing so, you’ll have a way to contact these people for the promotion days.
When it comes to sending emails to potential clients, you must do it in a completely professional manner. Don’t forget to check the following:
- Correct links: Verify that your products are attached to the correct links in order to have people directed to your products’ web pages and start shopping.
- Highlight your discount: Remember to mention the big advantage of your discount in the email’s subject line to help encourage the clicks.
- Email subject: Write an appealing subject to gain clicks. For example: “50% off on all our dresses”.
6. Seize hashtags to the fullest
When doing marketing on Black Friday, you must take advantage of the Black Friday specific hashtags on Instagram and the rest of social media, besides the ones you may normally use. Some examples are: #blackfriday #blackfriday2018 #cybermonday #salesblackfriday #outletblackfriday.
This will allow you to reach all those clients seeking for discounts during that weekend.
7. Invest in Google Ads
During the Black Friday weekend, advertisers spend more than normal. As a consequence, the cost per click will also be bigger than usual.
If you’re thinking about creating campaigns in Google Ads or in Facebook Ads to guarantee that your message is effective ad that it reaches your target audience, you can’t ignore the assessment of a Google Adwords professional expert.
The Mundo do Marketing website provides us with some advice to get your advertisements ready for these days:
- Consider increasing your investment in advertising a few days before Black Friday. This will allow you to optimize your conversions and it’ll let you make the necessary adjustments before the big day.
- Since you’ll be spending more money than usual, you have bigger chances of being seen by your potential clients.
- Don’t stop mentioning your Black Friday promotions or to have appealing discounts in your copy of the ad to catch people’s attention. A good discount will help you get to clients with the correct price.
- Focus on your most sold products during Black Friday to launch the correct promo.
8. Landing Page
Having an entire page dedicated to special offers for these days is an excellent strategy.
Landing pages are perfect for leads. These pages stand out from the common pages because they’re much more directed. Their content is simpler and they have just a few links. At the end, their goal is just one: sales.
Make sure your promos communicate correctly and they’ll have your visitors interested in them.
A well made landing page, built by specialized professionals, will help you get many more leads and it will bring along many other benefits for your campaign.
When hiring an Online Marketing professional for your project, remember to ask for the following aspects:
- A contact form to collect data from your visitors.
- Segment the promos in order to increase the conversion rate.
- Don’t include many links.
- It’s crucial to use engaging language and copywriting techniques.
- And, last but not least, a Call to Action, the famous CTA.
It’s time to start putting to practice all these Black Friday ideas and to make sure that your business is ready to receive the most famous sales weekend of the year.
Do you have other marketing ideas for Black Friday that you’d like to share? Need help to prepare for Black Friday 2018?
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