Black Friday is huge for businesses with so many customers waiting to avail discounts and offers. The event is equally important for businesses as well as. Black Friday comes with the opportunity of acquiring customers that will return in the future. With that said the event has other benefits like- Increased traffic & sales, inventory overhaul and more customer acquisition.
Before forming strategies for this year, remember some key factors that will drive customers
- Customers use Black Friday event to bulk shop for Christmas. Many shoppers will use the day to buy gifts for their family members, that is, in huge quantities.
- It is important that you are available at all the marketing channels, all the time for conversion. According to CommerceHub, shoppers go between two or more marketing channels of your brand before making the purchase.
- Ensure that the purchase process is as easy as possible. This means that the final stage which is payment has multiple options available. Buy now, pay later is an emerging form of payment that over 360 million shoppers prefer using.
But the Black Friday event is not at all easy, it has its fair share of challenges. Challenges such as the pressure to give discounts, impact on margins and the competitive market. To minimize the effects of these challenges on your this years strategy, you can include the following:
Use hashtags for greater brand discoverability-
Hashtags are easy and have the ability to reach a wide range of shoppers on social media. You can put out hashtags like- #Blackfriday #BlackFridaySale #FridaySales etc.
This way you will reach the customers who are looking for deals and offers.
Create pre-sale hype around your brand-
Creating excitement about the deals and offers your brand is going to bring forth will simulate your customers. This creation of hype can act as a timer your customers will look forward to finishing.
It is a perfect way to generate more sales in a limited time. The timer would allow the shopper to overthink their decisions and abandon the cart.
Add a buffer period to your marketing strategies-
You do not have to share offers and deals only on seasonal days and festive days.
Give your strategies some buffer period keeping in mind the late-comers and early birds. This way your strategies will work for more shoppers and you will have more sales.
Surprise customers with offers every hour-
Surprise your customers with new and attractive offers every hour. This will make them revisit your website frequently and avail the offers.
You can promote these deals on your social media by using a scheduling app.
To reach more shoppers with these strategies you have to increase your brand visibility. Undertaking practices to improve your SEO is necessary for better brand visibility:
Landing pages for Black Friday-
You can use this landing page for the holiday every year. Shoppers often use keyword combinations to search for deals and discounts. It is always a better idea to start planning in advance for execution at the right time.
Then, for the time left deploy a 302 redirect. This will enable you to prepare pages and Google to examine the site.
A user friendly experience-
The main priority of holiday shoppers is to discover the best deals. Work on embedding tools and filters in your website that are capable of enhancing the user experience. Shoppers want to easily find products and know if any product is out-of-stock.
On Black Friday, shoppers have multiple options and where there are options there is competition. They are prone to switch to your competitors’ website if they find your website frustrating.
Use faceted navigation-
Faceted navigation enables your customers to find exact products by simply personalizing through filters. While implementing faceted navigation, you can face issues. To solve these issues you can look up a variety of solutions and pick one.
Shopping cart optimization-
If you don’t want shoppers to abandon the cart, shopping cart optimization is important:
- Give them various delivery options like- regular delivery, same-day delivery, local pickup etc.
- Multiple payment options ( discussed earlier in the article)
- Test your website on all devices
- Let shoppers create or sign-up accounts using social media
- Send out notifications for abandoned cart
With Black Friday approaching fast, the pressure of gaining visibility and acquiring huge sales is on. Your strategy may require a few changes so you need to have everything prepared in advance. But if you haven’t, the Internet is full of strategies you can still use. And lastly, try and deliver your best on this Black Friday and you will certainly succeed.
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