In recent years, Black Friday has become the biggest calendar shopping date of the year. It’s estimated that shoppers spent over $9.12 billion last year alone on Black Friday purchases - a 2.3% increase from the year before!
Marking the official run-up to the Christmas shopping season, if you’re an eCommerce brand, Black Friday and Cyber Week are not to be missed. We’ve put together a quick checklist of everything you need ahead of the big day!
1. Set Clear Goals
First things first, define your goals and objectives. Plan ahead and think about what promotions you’ll be running, brand awareness, inventory and engaging new customers.
2. Plan For A Longer Sale Period
Black Friday sales begin earlier and earlier each year. It’s rare for a brand to offer a discount on one singular day. Consider expanding your discount through to Cyber Week. Or try offering early access to email subscribers to build anticipation.
3. Audit Your Website
Make sure your website is optimised. Ensure it’s user-friendly, clear, concise and mobile-responsive. Last year, 76% of Black Friday and Cyber Week traffic came from mobile devices, so it’s important to cater to this to avoid customers dropping off without purchasing.
4. Finalise Your Email Marketing Strategy
To really drive the FOMO with your customers, make sure you’ve got attention-grabbing campaigns at the ready. Running a lead generation beforehand is also a great way to increase your list size and gain more potential customers.
5. Implement Paid Advertising
There’s nothing more important than a solid paid social strategy in place (if we do say so ourselves *cough cough*). Running advertising across Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other social platforms is key to increasing your brand awareness. Create eye-catching creative, use targeted keywords and finalise your budgets to maximise your Black Friday success.
6. Post-Black Friday Follow-Up
Once Black Friday is over and done with, it’s always a good idea to follow up with customers. Sending post-Black Friday email campaigns or setting up retargeting campaigns across paid advertising will help to keep Black Friday fresh in your customers' minds and contribute to retaining and encouraging repeat customers!
7. Performance Tracking & Analysis
Throughout Black Friday and the following sale week, take time to monitor the performance of your Black Friday campaigns in real time. Tracking website traffic, conversion rates, and revenue metrics will help you tailor your strategy if something is underperforming!
8. Reflect On What Worked & What Doesn’t
No matter how much you plan for Black Friday, sometimes certain strategies don’t pan out how you thought they would, but that’s ok! Marketing is all about trial and error - sometimes, what works well for one brand might not work well for another. Once Black Friday and Cyber Week are over, take a close look at your successes and also your missteps so you’re able to work on this going forward!
Missed any of these off your Black Friday checklist? There’s still time to add them to your Q4 strategy and make this Q4 your best-performing one yet!
If you want to get ahead with your marketing strategy, our award-winning team of experts are here to help with everything from Paid Social and PPC to Email Marketing, Web Development, Strategy and more! Why not fill out our FREE Audit to see what we could do for your brand?
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