Every November is Black Friday season!
This is the season for patrons who have waited all year to get the best deals on products they’ve been wanting to buy, regular customers who want to purchase more of their favorite product, families that want to stock up for the approaching Christmas season and generally anyone who wants to increase their purchasing power and get more value for their money.
For businesses this is the season presents an opportunity to build a more loyal customer base as well as make more sales on products and services.
According to a SaleCycle survey, 76% of retailers in the US and UK look forward to participate in Black Friday promotions this year. Though it may have its cons, the pros are enough for businesses like yours to want to participate.
Increased Traffic and Sales
People are looking for deals, they’re also shopping for Christmas, and Black Friday and Cyber Monday focuses a lot of traffic and sales into a short period. It’s the one of the best days for ecommerce sales throughout the whole year.
Many retailers see sales volumes many times those of an average day on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
This is a clear opportunity for retailers to capitalize on customer demand and bring extra traffic to their business.
An Opportunity to Clear Stock Before Christmas Season
Many retailers see Black Friday as an opportunity to clear old inventory in order to introduce newer stock in time for Christmas.
This applies to fashion retailers of course, but electronics retailers can also offer discounts on items like TVs and laptops knowing that newer models are coming soon.
Customer Acquisition
New customer acquisition can be expensive, but Black Friday offers retailers a chance to acquire new customers at a key time of year.
If you acquire customers around Black Friday, and keep them happy, then you have a chance to drive repeat sales in the Christmas period and beyond using a good post purchase email strategy.
If customers can be retained in the longer term and they buy at full price later, this justifies discounting around Black Friday.
Incremental Sales
People have a real intent to purchase around the Black Friday weekend and this can translate into incremental sales.
This means that customers head to sites looking for bargains, but end up buying full-price items as the money is burning a hole in their pockets.
Stats from last year show this propensity to buy. Normally, shopping cart abandonment rates for retailers are around 81%, but they’re much lower around Black Friday weekend.
But to make the most out of Black Friday, there is the need to put in place certain strategies and tactics that help you convert the most leads as well as build long term brand affinity with the new and existing buyers. Here are 5 things to do to ensure you’re optimizing your Black Friday activities.
1. Extended Awareness
Create awareness for your Black Friday deals and offers on social media days before the big day. Big reveals on social media are a thing.
Create awareness with social media posts and stories a week, two or more before the main Black Friday to introduce your audience to your upcoming offers, how long it lasts and what products will be on sale. You can run an email campaign by collect emails with a waitlist before the main day. This creates anticipation and exclusivity for your Black Friday offers.
2. Extended Sales Days
With all this promo and awareness run selling on just one day may just not be enough.
Extend your sale from Black Friday until some extra days to gain more customers and patronage. Cyber Monday is one day to take advantage of. This is usually the Monday after the Black Friday weekend or the weekend after Thanksgiving weekend for people living in the United States.
Another rising trend among retailers is making every Friday in the month of November a Black Friday. This allows for higher patronage on four different Fridays instead of one.
3. Influencer Partnerships
Partner with social media influencers who complement your brand to promote your deals for a wider audience reach. The importance of influencer partnerships for brands can’t be overemphasized.
Partnering with influencers to offer discounts by using referral or discount codes is a great way to attract more people to patronize your products.
Partnerships could also go beyond custom discount codes to influencers sharing your Black Friday promo ads on their social media pages. An Instagram story takeover or live session will also create more awareness and traffic more traffic to your business page and introduce your product to new audiences.
4. Use Hashtags
Increase visibility for your offers by leveraging trending Black Friday hashtags. Search your Instagram and Twitter feeds for the most used and most relevant hashtags during this season and add to your post captions. This will increases the chances of your deals been seen by more people.
Another easier way to reach more people with your offers is to increase your ad spend on Facebook and Instagram.
5. Referral Programs
Set up referral rewards to retain customers after Black Friday by using new customers to find and capture new customers.
Having a referral program can increase your overall number of repeat customers. Whether you curate loyalty through rewards, exclusive V.I.P incentives, or simple cash back rewards that go towards their next purchase.
If you are looking to run a Black Friday campaign iSupreme is properly positioned to help you with just the right strategy and execution. Reach out to us and let’s get to creating magic.
