Though a major day for online retailers, Black Friday can pose significant challenges due to the high influx of customers. It can be tough to meet all their demands. Nonetheless, with a Black Friday eCommerce strategy, you can prepare in advance to ensure success.
Black Friday eCommerce Strategies
Black Friday, which falls on the day after Thanksgiving holiday in the US, is widely recognized as a major shopping event of the year. Shoppers anticipate special offers and discounts from their preferred stores, leading to increased spending. As evidenced by the figures of 2021, Americans spent a staggering $9.03 billion on this festive shopping extravaganza.
The inception of eCommerce introduced Cyber Monday as a continuation of Black Friday, where internet vendors offer their top deals. In the previous year, American consumers spent $10.90 billion on Cyber Monday, exceeding the amount spent on Black Friday.
Due to the high numbers, your online store can expect significant traffic. Hence, creating a reliable Black Friday eCommerce plan is imperative.
This entails developing a marketing strategy before Black Friday to attract customers and generate anticipation for your online sales. Furthermore, you must have a robust customer support plan in place to handle the surge in shopping cart orders and customer inquiries on the day.
Feeling anxious and sweaty? No need to fret! We’ve prepared a guide below on the essential eCommerce tools and tactics to incorporate into your Black Friday plan.
Black Friday eCommerce Tips
1. Optimize your website for SEO
Enhancing your search ranking can benefit any business, whether you sell cosmetics or watercraft. It can give you an edge over your rivals and lead to increased conversion rates. Begin by utilizing a SERP checker, which stands for “Search Engine Results Page,” to assess your ranking. If there’s room for growth, attempt these suggestions:
Improving your site’s loading speed is crucial as slow-loading landing pages can negatively impact search rankings. Luckily, Google offers a free tool to assess your site’s speed. Opting for image compression and upgrading your hosting service are two effective strategies to boost site speed.
By refining the names and descriptions of your products, you can enhance the searchability of your offerings and improve user experience. Google offers free tools that you can utilize to identify the optimal keywords for your product pages.
Our experiment from a few years ago revealed that maintaining an active and involved social media presence can have a positive impact on your search engine rankings by showcasing high-quality content.
2. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly
Shopify revealed in 2021 that the majority, i.e., 79%, of purchases made during the Black Friday Cyber Monday sale were from mobile devices. Since 2014, the number of mobile shoppers has been rising consistently, outnumbering desktop users. It is advisable to test your website and implement necessary modifications promptly to attract and retain mobile shoppers, lest you miss out on a significant chunk of potential customers.
Commence your campaign ahead of time.
It’s important to bear in mind that numerous other retailers will also be participating in a Black Friday initiative. To avoid procrastination, it’s recommended that you cultivate a relationship with your social media and email followers several months prior to the event. In doing so, once you launch your promotions, you’ll have a ready and involved audience. The following are some helpful suggestions:
Entice email subscribers with a special chance to access Black Friday deals ahead of the crowd. By promoting your email list, you can broaden the reach of your promotions, resulting in long-term benefits even after the conclusion of the Black Friday Cyber Monday sales event.
It is advisable to test your ads ahead of time as you wouldn’t wait until the day of the marathon to begin training. Conducting A/B tests on your campaigns and improving your creativity will help you determine what suits your audience best.
Create excitement by giving hints about your Black Friday offers ahead of time. Inform your clients that you will reveal all the details through email and social media. By doing so, you can increase your followers and show appreciation to those who are actively engaged, leading to an enhanced customer experience in the future.
4. Make sure all stock information is accurate
It is an opportune moment to replenish your bestselling merchandise and strategize promotions or discounts to sell items which have relatively lower demand.
Anticipate a surge of fresh shoppers during Black Friday. Consequently, it’s essential to ensure that the shopping process is straightforward and instinctive for them, to prevent any perplexity or uncertainty. Vital specifications, such as dimensions, mass, and composition, should be incorporated into the item pages.
Make sure to have top-notch photos and videos for each item and incorporate customer feedback on the webpage as even a single review could boost sales up to 10%.
5. Have customer support at the ready
Have you ever wandered around a department store, becoming increasingly desperate to find an employee to assist you? If so, you understand the frustration of having to wait for help. Additionally, if your customers become annoyed, they may leave.
Investing in a retail chatbot can help you manage the influx of shoppers on Black Friday. With a chatbot, such as Heyday, customers can receive immediate assistance for up to 80% of their inquiries. This allows your customer support team to focus on promptly addressing the remaining 20%.
It is particularly beneficial during Black Friday Cyber Monday as you will encounter new clientele who are not very well-acquainted with your store and products. As per the data provided by Bluecore, 2020 witnessed 59% of Black Friday sales coming from customers who shopped with you for the first time.
Your customers can use a chatbot to easily find the specific size, color, and style of product they desire. Additionally, the chatbot can suggest personalized recommendations as well as upsell and cross-sell, leading to increased sales, which is particularly relevant since impulse purchases constitute 60% of Black Friday transactions.
6. Work with influencers
Utilizing influencer marketing can be highly effective. A recent survey revealed that 8% of consumers made purchases within the past 6 months due to an influencer’s promotion, with the percentage rising to almost 15% for shoppers in the 18-24 age range. Partnering with an influencer for your Black Friday tactics can aid in attracting fresh clientele and enhancing your revenue.
In case you’re not familiar with it, we provide a guide to influencer marketing that can help you succeed. Keep in mind that choosing the right influencers is crucial. Instead of focusing solely on their number of followers, it’s essential to ensure your values and target audience are compatible.
7. Create BFCM promo codes
Providing promotional codes and discounts during Black Friday Cyber Monday instills a sense of urgency, motivating your customers to seize the opportunity and make use of the substantial price reductions you have on offer.
Ensuring that your customers can easily locate and use the promotional codes is crucial to prevent them from abandoning their shopping carts out of annoyance. Shopify provides excellent tips on how to make certain that your discount codes are conspicuous.
- Use a pop-up on your eCommerce site. This will announce the discount code, and give your customer a chance to apply it at check out with a single click.
- Ask customers to enter their email address to receive the promo code. This helps with your email marketing and remarketing efforts, too!
- Add a floating bar at the top of the page with the discount code. This makes it too obvious to miss.
- Apply the code automatically at checkout. This is the simplest solution for your customers. Sephora used it for their 2021 Black Friday sale.
8. Run deep Black Friday deals
According to Blenders Eyewear’s CEO and founder, Chase Fisher, simply offering discounts of 15% or 20% during Black Friday won’t bring success. Your offer is crucial, and this time of year allows you to lower your prices without damaging your brand’s reputation. Therefore, it’s essential to have a compelling offer no matter what.
Blenders is reputed for its lucrative Black Friday deals, where customers can avail a discount of 55% on all sunglass purchases. Similarly, during past Cyber Mondays, the online sales team has offered snow goggles at a discounted rate of 40%. As a result, the company has witnessed a remarkable surge in sales, with revenue reaching as high as ten times more than the previous year’s performance for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
According to Greg Zakowicz, who serves as Senior Commerce Expert at Omnisend, instead of applying a discount to the entire store, retailers could follow the example of Blenders Eyewear and provide sales that are specific to certain categories. Zakowicz notes that earlier sales create a situation where retailers feel obligated to provide traditional discounts that their customers are accustomed to receiving.
The utilization of sales that are specific to a certain category serves multiple purposes, such as:
- Generating incremental sales with higher margins
- Engaging email subscribers and visitors for longer
- Helping you better manage your inventory, ordering, and future promotions
9. Go all-in on VIP customers
Do not hesitate to provide your top customers with more significant discounts and promotions. During a Black Friday sales event, Baublebar beauty brand offered numerous promotions, including an email to their VIP customer email list allowing them to enjoy a 35% discount on every purchase made in-store.
Shopify Plus merchants received enormous spending from shoppers in 2022. Over the Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend, the merchants achieved sales worth $7.5B and experienced a 17.5% rise in customers compared to the previous year.
10. Create a master plan for Black November
To ensure effective promotion, it’s essential to spread out your offers during what is commonly known as “Black November,” a period when most merchants commence advertising their deals about a month before Black Friday. To optimize your advertising strategy, make sure to mark these important dates on your calendar.
- Singles’ Day (China’s biggest shopping day of the year): November 11
- Thanksgiving: November 28
- Black Friday: November 29
- Cyber Monday: December 2
The MVC category usually comprises subscribers, loyal/rewarded customers, brand advocates, high LTV customers, and possibly your initial 1,000 clients. With tools such as Postscript, Klaviyo, or Yotpo, you can easily add a personal touch to their emails without any extensive manual work from your side.
It is important to bear in mind the significance of those crucial dates if your customer base includes both North American and Chinese markets.
- Black Friday may be known as the biggest day for discounts, but you should begin your promotions much earlier because many retailers start “leaking deals” through advertising in late October and early November, then nurture through email and social media to drive sales
- Alibaba, China’s largest ecommerce retailer, generated $84.5 billion in sales on Singles’ Day alone. Remember to develop a separate strategy for that day too.
Your plan ought to incorporate comparable methods to the aforementioned strategy, notably:
- A Black Friday buzz-building campaign with a countdown, deals, and specials, using ads, email, and social media leading up to the event.
- Sneak peeks on door crashers and other amazing sales that will go live during the weeks leading up to and on Black Friday.
- A coordinated promotional strategy across all online channels—websites, emails, and social—to maximize impact on the day of your sales.
- An influencer and micro-influencer engagement strategy to boost word of mouth about special offers.
- Post–Cyber Monday deals (e.g., extended sale offers) for last-minute shoppers, emphasizing shipping dates and gift wrapping, throughout December.
11. Build anticipation through social media
To establish a connection with customers before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, utilize uplifting visuals and emphasize affirmative feedback on social media. As soon as Black Friday arrives, rely on email marketing to generate quick outcomes.
Blenders created hype around their upcoming Black Friday Sale, using the hashtag #blackfriday, by sharing an Instagram giveaway ten days prior. Two days before the giveaway, they emphasized that it would be the biggest Black Friday Sale ever.
Blenders used a multi-channel strategy to create excitement about their upcoming sale, simultaneously building buzz on Facebook and hinting at the incredible size of the event. This approach effectively reached out to both existing followers and potential customers, generating anticipation long before the sale date.
12. Segment your emails before and during Black Friday
According to Alicia Thomas from Klaviyo, using targeted and specific Black Friday emails can result in a higher revenue per recipient, proving that email remains an essential component of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Upon analyzing the campaign results, Thomas discovered that the open rates for the smaller, focused group of contacts (comprising 1% to 25% of the master list) stood at approximately 18.29%. Conversely, the open rate for the rest of the master list (constituting 75%) was lower at approximately 12.93%. Additionally, the focused group resulted in a higher revenue per recipient of 17¢, while the less targeted send yielded 11¢ per recipient.
Thomas provides a list of 10 email sections that can be utilized to enhance sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
- Seasonal shoppers
- Recent openers
- VIP customers
- Product browsers
- Product category buyers
- Hasn’t purchased (but is engaged)
- Email ignorers
- Almost purchasers
- Geographic targets
- Gift givers
It is essential to customize offers for those categorized as recent openers, browsers, ignorers, and those who haven’t made a purchase yet or almost did, to compel them to complete their checkout process or at least view your email. Specifically for the almost purchasers group, Ivory Ella only sent an email to those customers who received their morning email but did not open it or make any purchase on the same day.
To encourage those who neglect their emails, consider offering incentives such as free shipping or a bonus gift upon purchase. Ursa Major enticed subscribers who did not open their emails during the Black Friday sale by sending a promotion for “free shipping” and a “complimentary bar of soap” at 7 p.m. the following day.
The various email strategies aim to generate additional traffic and sales on Black Friday, raising an important query about the capability of your website to manage the surge.
