Black Friday is fast approaching, with customers all over the country getting ready to shop for their favourite brands online. Do you have your Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) campaign prepared, or are you looking for some advice on how to supercharge your sales? asks Olivia Jenkins, award-winning business and marketing consultant. It’s not too late to ramp up your strategy.

The secret to a successful BFCM campaign is to plan ahead and ensure you have a solid strategy going into the BIGGEST eCommerce event of the year.

Here are the top tips to walk you through the strategies, best practices and expert suggestions to help your business have its biggest and best BFCM yet!

Six tips to soup up your Black Friday sales

Black Friday discounts need to be significant to attract your customers

Now is the time to offer your customers the BEST deal of the year. Think of large storewide discounts off your entire product range or excluding already reduced items. The biggest mistake I see brands make is offering a tiny discount in comparison to their competitors, who are offering large storewide discounts. Think of Black Friday as your one opportunity in the year to go all out and offer your customers a memorable offer – we are about to head into January and February, which are notoriously slow months for retail and eCommerce brands.

Keep it simple

Keep your offer simple for customers to understand, so it’s not confusing when they are receiving your emails or shopping on your website. A storewide offer (either % off or $ off) is really easy for your customers to understand and shop without confusion or needing to seek clarification. Be sure to avoid anything too complicated that will force your customers to get their calculators out when they’re trying to shop on the fly! Customers are simply too impatient, and if they don’t understand your offer, they will likely shop elsewhere.

Extend sales beyond Black Friday

Don’t be afraid to start your campaign earlier and finish it later. It’s common for brands to begin activating their BFCM campaigns as much as two weeks prior to Cyber Weekend. If your campaign is going live across Cyber Weekend, think about offering it to email subscribers 12 hours early and sending your email list the offer to shop early. You can always look to extend the sale for a further 24-48 hours after Cyber Monday to maximise your investment in advertising for the campaign period. Just remember to use countdown timers where appropriate on your website and email campaigns to promote a sense of urgency.

Markdown pricing on your website or store

If you are able to, it’s always a good idea to manually mark down your pricing or use an app to power the markdowns for you. If customers can see the already marked-down price, it will help to optimise conversions – particularly if you are advertising through Google Shopping, as these discounted prices will pull through into your ads. It’s a good idea to consider turning off any conflicting discount codes that would offer customers an additional discount on top and review any apps that would need to be temporarily disabled, such as subscription apps that could allow customers to subscribe to ongoing orders at a BFCM marked down price.

Activate your campaigns across the entire eCommerce ecosystem

A successful campaign is the sum of all the parts – so don’t just execute your campaign in one area. When activating a campaign, it’s important to consider touch points across your website, email marketing, SMS marketing, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest and Google. This includes a combination of organic social media marketing and paid advertising channels like Google Shopping and Facebook Ads.

Make it easy for customers to view your shipping and returns policy

This is the perfect time for your customers to stock up on Christmas gifts, so be sure to make it easy for them to find your shipping and returns policies. Many customers will be actively looking for this information to help guide their purchasing decisions, and a visible policy may help you to optimise conversions during the sales period. You can look to add any important information to product listings to help customers find the information quickly and easily.

While customers are primed to buy on BFCM, the competition has become increasingly fierce. A successful strategy is a must and preparation is key to ensure you have a successful BFCM campaign.

The main objective in the lead-up to BFCM should be driving traffic to your site and increasing the size of your email database so when you push your campaign live – you have the best possible chance of skyrocketing your sales.

If you haven’t yet prepared a BFCM campaign for 2022 – it’s never too late! Even the best thought-out plans can hit roadblocks and challenges along the way. Many consumers are also leaving shopping until the last minute before Christmas so you can always look to extend the sale and capture some of those late shoppers!

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Now read this:

Top 10 tactics to boost your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales results