Any retail owner or executive worth their salt will tell you that Black Friday and the surrounding holiday season is perhaps the most opportune time of the year to boost your sales.
A Drop of History
The biggest sales event of today was in reality back in 1869 a stock market conspiracy. Jay Gould and Jim Fisk worked together and bought as much as they could of the nation’s gold, in order to push the prices sky-high and then sell it for amazing profits. On that Friday in September the conspiracy was revealed, ending up in a collapse of the whole market.
After 1960 in Philadelphia store owners used the term Big Friday as a sales event cause Black Friday had both negative (Stock Market crash) and racist connotations.
Late 1980’s retailers found a way to turn in from something negative to the biggest sales event nationwide.
Black Friday is just after Thanksgiving, and it is considered to be the start of the unofficial Christmas sales. Cyber Monday immediately follows the Black Friday weekend. Nowadays, companies attract customers with discounts, gifts, bonuses and offers that are hard to ignore.
Statistics show that the amount of money spent on online shopping during this period has been increasing rapidly every year. In fact, in 2019, Black Friday online sales jumped to a record high, an increase of 19.6% compared to the same period in 2018.
If this is your first time planning a “Black Friday” event, the first step is to set goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).
Some companies use Black Friday and Cyber Monday to clear old inventory, while others use Black Friday to launch new products or promote holiday-centric product sales.
There are indeed unlimited possibilities here. However, the goals you set will determine the type of campaign you run and the metrics used to track success, so please be as specific as possible.
If this is not your first Black Friday campaign, please check last year’s campaign results first.
Did your 2019 Black Friday campaign succeed? Does it perform as you expect? What metrics or KPIs do you use to measure your success? Are they useful?
Looking back at your previous successes or failures is a great way to identify areas that can be improved, so please don’t skip this step.
As part of the campaign goal, it is also important to determine the target audience for the offer.
Depending on the goals of your campaign, your target audience may be very broad, including users who are not currently following you, or it may be just a small portion of your followers.
Regardless of the size, if you focus on your ideal customers and consider their demographic characteristics (age, gender, and location) and the attitudes and emotions (their interests and pain points) that determine their purchasing decisions, then your campaign will be more effective.
Don’t discount 40% uniformly. That’s lazy.
Segment your customers and offer discounts or offers that will appeal to your specific customer base.
Just because the product is cheap does not mean that your customers will buy it. It must be the product or offer they are interested in. We strongly recommend that you use email marketing automation tools, which will help you segment your customers and create opportunities to accurately send customer quotes based on their interests and past purchase history.
Speaking of “urgency”, try to create a sense of urgency for your amazing Black Friday deal. Start early and make sure your customers know that your ads are only available for a limited time, or until they are sold out.
You will also want to keep customers vigilant. Make them want to shop as soon as your offer is available, rather than a minute later. Let your followers spy on what is about to happen to stay excited.
Use email marketing, blog posts, and of course social media articles. Make it fun-including countdown or slowly revealing the deal through Instagram Stories to get creative.
There will always be some shoppers who are not so easily attracted and may return empty-handed. Withdrawal intent technology gives you the opportunity to use pop-up windows to win back their feelings before they walk away.
During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you will face two main challenges:
But, fortunately for merchants, pop-up windows can be used to help solve these two problems. By using pop-up windows (triggered when someone leaves your website) to make shoppers continue to checkout, provide them with sweet Black Friday specials, discounts, and even free gifts to make deals
Black Friday shoppers have a very short attention span and will compare transactions between multiple vendors and price comparison sites.
Just because someone leaves your site does not mean that your chance of attracting them has passed. Redirect via email, Facebook and display ads to give them enough opportunity to end the purchase.
But remember:
This is a one-day transaction, so please use the shortest possible time frame to adjust the retargeting period accordingly.
This may be contrary to your normal best practice of not bombing people, but this is Black Friday! Shoppers expect it to be chaotic and the competition is fierce-only bravery and boldness can win.
Take an abandoned shopping cart AD as an example. Usually you may have to wait a few hours or days to remind the owner of the abandoned shopping cart that they will buy items on Black Friday to reduce it to five minutes to avoid them from going to others local.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday and holiday shopping seasons are extremely important for any store, including e-commerce. This year is untested waters, and no one can be sure what Black Friday will be like.
Preparation will be the key to success, and the willingness and ability to try and try new strategies will also be the key to success. Constantly innovate and find new ways to connect with customers and build brand loyalty.Gain inspiration from the mentioned examples, save your time, and create digital campaigns with AS Digital!
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