9 Tips to Optimize Your Black Friday Campaign

What Is Black Friday?

In the US, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, and since 1932, it has been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Thus, most of the major retailers open very early, sometimes even overnight (at 4 am or 5 am, or even at midnight!), and offer promotional sales.

The use of the term ‘Black Friday’ can be traced back to the 1960s. Usually, it is being referred to pedestrian and vehicle traffic as seen from the air in large cities. But some say, it’s because stores make so much profit, that they are going from being “in the red” to being “in the black”.

News reports show that starting 2005; this has been the busiest shopping day of the year. The annual retail spending bonanza that is Black Friday falls on November 25th this year.

Black Friday Going Online

It’s common for devoted shoppers to camp outside of stores over the Thanksgiving holiday to secure the first place in line for Black Friday. But with Internet technologies developing, a large number of people who were trying to avoid Black Friday stampedes, but still wanted to save money, moved their shopping online. Comfortably shopping without having to leave the house became more and more attractive over the years.

Many entrepreneurs have already made the good income by selling their product online, and so can you! And this is where Qubit Labs come in to help you set up a powerful e-commerce website and/or application for your company. If you want to attract large numbers of customers, especially on occasions like Black Friday, you will need to keep your website fast, functional and operational, and our specialists will create one just like that for you.

Cyber Monday Changes E-commerce

Over the years, retailers started noticing that many consumers, who didn’t find what they needed or were too busy to shop over the Thanksgiving weekend, were shopping online from home or work on Monday immediately following Black Friday. So, in 2005 the neologism Cyber Monday was invented by the National Retail Federation’s division Shop.org. Ever since then, Cyber Monday has been the day on which online retailers have been offering e-commerce deals to consumers.

Cyber Monday 2017 was the biggest day in the history of US e-commerce. Online sales hit $5.03 billion point, and e-tailers are preparing to break this record in 2018.

Most Popular Tools Used By Online Stores

Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals made prominent. The customer should see them right away!

• Creating a sense of urgency by including a countdown timer.
• Building trust, or example with Trust seals, phone numbers customers can call if they have questions, and guarantees.
• Making value propositions and competitive differentiators clear. In other words, explaining what makes your store better than others.
• Personalizing offers and targeting messages based on a customer’s search history, for example.
• Encouraging customers to share promotions, which spreads the reach of the website.
• Reliable, quick and easy-to-use mobile version.

This year the 4-day period of huge discounts and gift buying starts on 23th November.

Only a few weeks left! And it’s a sin not to benefit from this great opportunity to double your revenue. How to do it? Read these simple tips!

1) Fuel interest

People start to look for presents and promotions in advance. They monitor special offers not to rush from shop to shop at the last minute.
Sellers have clued into this trend, and soon four days of BFCM will turn into a before-Christmas period lasting from the beginning of November to December 24. Advertise your discounts beforehand to create the feeling of anticipation.

2) Make it easy to buy from you

Modern customers are spoilt by choice. If your website doesn’t contain the needed information, they don’t wait – they simply buy from your competitor instead.
A properly working website is important, but there is one more aspect like informativeness. Indicate all prices, describe your product thoroughly, write detailed guides how to order goods and make payments. Also, make sure that your customers can get in touch with you – indicate your phone number, address, email and install a live chat.

3) Advertise your product in social media

You can have the best products and the biggest discounts, but what’s the point if nobody knows about your offer?
Launching advertising campaigns is among the first things you need to do. Use social media; these are the best channels to promote your goods. People like bright pictures and enjoy watching videos. Why don’t you give them what they like?

4) Prepare your website

Do you remember the tip about bright pictures? Use them not only on Facebook or Instagram but also on your website. Redesign it to show your customers what special offers you’re preparing for them. Use banners and pop-ups to advertise your discounts.

5) Traffic matters

Social media and Google ads will generate a heavy traffic (US websites experienced 115% traffic increase during BFCM 2016). It’d be a shame to have your website broken just because it is too weak to handle a big flow of visitors. Ask your web developers and admins to take care about your e-store, and prepare it for a bigger flow of visitors than you usually have.

6) Create urge

Thousands years of development haven’t influenced our reflexes responding to the limited amounts of food or clothes. We all know the trick with countdowns on the website or “limited edition” marks, but surprisingly it still works. Why don’t you take advantage of this psychological reaction? Seeing countdowns people hurry up with making a decision and they buy even more than they need.

7) Exploit all types of promotion

Here the idea is not “the more, the better”, it’s about efficiency. Learn more about your target audience – how to find it, where to reach it out, etc.
Communicating with your potential customers via various channels increases your chance to be noticed. Facebook shows your posts to only 2% of your subscribers, but you can keep in touch with the rest of your audience by emails or mobile.
Some marketing experts suggest making different content for different sources, the others think that there is no need to bother with preparing unique content for each channel, but in any case, all resources should be united by the same idea.

8) Mobile first, mobile friendly

We rely on the data collected the previous year – it says that the level of purchases made from mobile devices is going up, and even surpasses desktop sales.
What does it mean for you? Make your website responsive – it must appear on the screen of a mobile user with all design elements, menus, and options.
What is more, Google is testing its mobile-first strategy, so mobile-friendly websites will take higher positions. Thus, you can kill two birds with one stone, sell more and help your website rank better.

9) Think ahead about loyalty

When the BFCM fuss is over, it’s time to think how to turn your one-time clients into loyal customers. What can you do?
Track the data during your campaigns to understand which strategies help you sell more. When you know what and how you customers buy it’s easier to create personalized offers.  Be generous and offer discounts or free shipping to your first-time clients after BFCM period to make regulal shopping in your e-store more attractive.

As you see, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two excellent occasions for you as a seller to revamp your website or to have a new one developed according to latest trends. And maybe you’d like to try outsourcing website stuff to a vendor to get more time for dealing with your core responsibilities during your high season.

To sum up, these are some of the most popular tools used by online stores nowadays. Good luck!