Every year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday attract millions of shoppers who are looking to spend their hard-earned money on discounted products and services. Want to buy shoes or clothes while others invest in Black Friday web hosting deals, WordPress plugins, and other software. Many businesses prepare for the shopping craze months before it begins.
However, what to do if you think your store might just not be ready for those two crazy days? The good news is, there is still a way to avoid losing the opportunity. Here are 10 tips that’ll help boost your store’s sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
1. Check If Your Infrastructure Is Ready
Can you think of anything worse for an online store than no visitors? While it may sound like the worst thing of all, if your store crashes when actual people are people browsing it, it’s way worse than having no visitors at all. The reason is simple.
You’ve already spent money and time driving the traffic. And now, visitors to your site can’t even buy anything from you – even if they wanted. Plus, it’s unlikely they will forget the terrible experience anytime soon and most likely won’t come back to your store. Simply speaking, if your hosting sucks, you lose twice.
The good news is, Black Friday and Cyber Monday period is the best time to upgrade your hosting and make your e-commerce store blazing fast. All that thanks to amazing Black Friday web hosting deals. It’s not unusual to grab hosting discounted by up to 90%.
And the best is, some companies start offering their hosting even before the last Friday of the month. This means that you can bullet-proof your infrastructure and still offer your users amazing user experience – see more information here to learn about one of such deals.
2. Create a Compelling Last-Minute Offer
Black Friday is right around the corner, and you probably have no time to create any comprehensive strategy for this sales period. But, while it may be impossible for you to go over all of your products, you should still be able to choose at least one that will be your doorbuster.
Often, all it takes is one, heavily discounted but popular product to attract customers who will spend a lot more money than you would expect. If you have no idea what to choose, review your product analytics and see which products were the most sought after. Of course, you still have to attract customers to the offer. Thankfully, it’s never too late for that!
3. Leverage Your Marketing Channels and Existing Audience
Once you have the offer ready, it’s time to let the world know. Use all your existing communication channels to reach out to your existing audience. Emails, social media – attracting returning visitors is a great first step towards building awareness of your Black Friday sales.
One thing that you should consider when promoting to your existing customers is offering them an even bigger discount. That way, you will strengthen your relationship, increase the chance that they will go back to your store even after the sale, and encourage them to share info about your business with their friends and family.
4. Increase Your Advertising Budget
Existing audience is one thing – but you want to grow your business, right? Make sure that you increase your marketing expenses, especially on things like Facebook and Google ads.
Because there is no time for building a relationship with your audience here (and, besides, people are after discounts anyway), you need to link straight to your products. You don’t want to frustrate them by forcing them to look for the product they have just read about in your ad.
Naturally, you’re not the only one who will be doing that during Black Friday. This means that advertising costs will get higher. And, you still have no guarantee that people will actually make a purchase. Don’t forget to re-target those who visited your site but, for some reason, didn’t end up buying anything. Keep in mind though, that it’s not the only way in which you can increase your chance of sealing the deal.
5. Make It Clear That You’re Running a Black Friday Sale
The first thing people should see when they visit your store is information about the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Ask a designer to put together a couple of banners and make the discount clearly visible. Don’t forget to link them to your top Black Friday deal!
6. Offer Bundles
Many people will probably visit your store only to look at your most advertised product. Whether they come from your emails, Facebook ads, or search results, what you emphasize the most will probably be the product that will generate the highest revenue.
Naturally, you can’t advertise every single product. But you can still encourage your visitors to purchase more by bundling products together. Offer them extra discounts if they buy more than one product. This will work even better if you match products that people often buy together.
7. Create a Sense of Urgency
Black Friday is only once in a year. And, every year, it seems to end just as soon it starts. You know it, and your visitors know it too. Because of that, you need to urge them to spend their money this very moment.
Use time counters, one-time offers, or limit the number of available deals to awake their fear of missing out. Which, by the way, is a very strong phenomenon that can easily skyrocket your sales.
Research shows that up to 60% of people make purchases because of the fear of missing out. Usually, during the first 24 hours. Just make sure that both the deadline and the number of deals left are defined (an exact number as opposed to just saying it’s limited) and clearly visible.
8. Offer Free Shipping
Most stores focus on discounting the products, forgetting about shipping. And yet, if you are selling physical products, offering free shipping may easily increase your conversion rate by as much as 20% (or more – you’ll never know until you try). In the end, almost every store is doing some kind of discount.
But, for some reason, people really don’t like paying for shipping. Removing that obstacle can significantly improve their buyer’s journey and reduce the number of those who leave the checkout right before making a purchase.
9. Take Your Customer Service to the Next Level
During Black Friday, you need to act fast. People will come, ask questions, and leave if they won’t get the answers. This means that you might need to consider adding extra people to your customer service team. Naturally, make sure that people can easily reach you in the first place.
An online chat is a much more preferred way of getting in touch than calling over the phone. Also, consider upgrading your FAQ, terms and conditions and privacy policy pages – should people want to look for information on those first, before they reach out. Although we wouldn’t really count on that – during Black Friday, everyone is in a hurry.
10. Most Importantly: Keep Things Simple!
Black Friday and Cyber Monday happen only once in a year. If you are preparing for them at the very last minute, there is little time left to boost your sales. But that can actually be a good thing, as it may prevent you from making too many changes.
Remember – even though it’s the biggest sale of the year, it’s still a sale. People want a discount, they want a smooth checkout experience, and they want quick shipping and an easy way to return the product if they don’t like it.
If your site is fast (don’t forget about Black Friday web hosting deals and upgrade your infrastructure), and people can quickly understand what the deal is all about – you are already one step closer to a sale!
