Are you ready for Black Friday?
If the answer is no, don’t panic!
We have outlined some online marketing tips to help you have a successful Black Friday.
Black Friday comes around every year in November, and just like at Christmas, Digital Marketing Managers and eCommerce Managers alike will be preparing for the influx of visitors to their websites.
Why?
Black Friday is an online deluge of super deals, special offers and bargain shopping. It’s a day of online buying which is utilised by many businesses around the world! Some businesses have reported that Black Friday alone accounts for 40% of their total online revenue in one single day. And each year we’ve seen the concept expand into more days including Cyber Monday and even Cyber Week!
Is it important to prepare your marketing for Black Friday?
Yes! And this year, it’s expected to be even busier and bigger than before due to the cost-of-living crisis. Shoppers are hoping to save as much money as they can on deals to help spend their pennies more wisely.
This expected surge in Black Friday traffic will offer an amazing opportunity for extra revenue for eCommerce businesses.
Buying Behaviour on Black Friday
Firstly, it’s important to note that the online shopping behaviour on Black Friday is different to customers’ usual buying patterns. On Black Friday consumers are focused on searching for those amazing one-off deals that they aren’t able to get at any other time of year. Therefore, we have put together seven tips for you to ensure you’re ready for this online shopping event.
Tips to prepare your website for Black Friday 2023
1. Did you know that 60% of online shoppers abandon their shopping cart if it takes more than three seconds to load?
So, our first tip! Ensure your website is optimised for UX, with fast page loading speeds and a simple customer journey; from the product search to the basket and then through to purchase. If you can only focus on one thing, this should be it, especially on the lead-up to Black Friday.
There are plenty of online marketing tools to help you to understand your page load speed but we recommend Google Page Speed to get an insight into how to improve your website speed.
2. Did you know that 89% of consumers use search engines to find products?
Therefore, you need to focus on getting your website to rank highly in the search results. Use your previous Black Friday sales data to assist you in finding the relevant keywords. And choose the search terms that you would expect to use throughout the year but optimise these for Black Friday e.g. deal, offer etc.
Try to focus on long-tail keywords such as “great Black Friday beauty kit deal” or “Cyber Monday deal on garden tools”.
A focused Black Friday landing page is ideal to help you maximise your on-page content and to start your customers on their Black Friday journey with you. Don’t forget to clearly sign-post your visitors onto other pages they might also be interested in.
3. Did you know that more consumers read returns pages before making any purchases on Black Friday than on any other day?
Really good deals with a limited time to purchase encourages customers to make impulse purchases. This in turn can lead to buyer’s remorse. Therefore, consumers will be more confident to buy from online retailers who highlight and have a clear and easy to understand returns policy. Don’t hide yours away and make sure to emphasise that it is hassle-free.
4. Did you know that 93% of customers will read online reviews before making a purchase?
Only 47% of customers leave a good review but an astonishing 95% of consumers are willing to tell everyone about a negative experience. Therefore, reviews are a big deal!
Customers need to feel confident that your company is giving them the best deal, especially on Black Friday, so play into this by utilising your amazing reviews to build credibility and trust. Plus, these reviews could also help to avoid any returns.
Use your homepage, landing pages and product pages to display your reviews. Depending on the CMS you’re using, there might be apps, widgets or plugins you can use to show off your reviews.
5. Did you know that emails are used by more people than social media and by 92% of the online population?
Sending emails to your contact list is a great way to share your Black Friday promotions with the people who are the most likely to be highly interested in your company and its products. To get an idea of what your customers may be interested in, use your previous purchase data to help shape your email content.
The number one goal in any email activity is to get the recipient to open the email! Therefore, your email subject lines are the most important aspect of the campaign. Take the time to create a few different subject lines that you can then A/B test and learn from.
6. Did you know that social media offers you the ability to directly connect with your target audience?
There’s been an increase in social media content and usage in the last few years especially during the pandemic. So, you should be using it and your content needs to be focused on gaining the attention of your followers.
If you use Instagram, as it’s a great visual platform, use this channel to inspire your audience and motivate or encourage them to interact with your company. It’s also the ideal platform to showcase your products and your company’s brand identity.
Don’t forget to mix up your content. Post a mixture of videos, reels, story posts, memes and gifs as part of your social content. In the lead-up to Black Friday experiment within those formats to see where you get your best engagement and utilise this option for your Black Friday deals.
Videos are a great way to reach a wider audience and carousel posts generate more than three times the engagement of regular posts.
7. Did you know that the number of times a customer needs to be exposed to messages from you before they trust you is between 7-10 times?
To assist with this consistent messaging an effective and creative paid media strategy ahead of Black Friday can be crucial in not only raising brand awareness but also in improving the customers' trust and confidence in your company.
An online shopper will more likely consider you a trusted company and be interested when you offer them a special deal if they have already seen your Google or paid-for social ads. So this type of marketing activity should be implemented into your Black Friday marketing strategy.
Building trust takes time, so ahead of Black Friday, aim to optimise your paid ads, display ads and paid-for social ads and use this time to test the creative and the messaging ahead of your Black Friday campaign.
As with social media content, to ensure greater engagement with your audience, use a variety of ad formats across video, statics, carousel, or even reels. You’ll probably need to increase your ad spend around this time to make sure you get seen. Ensure audience targeting and ad set-ups are correct for your objectives. Then you’re ready to go for the Black Friday push.
Identified an opportunity to improve?
If you need a spare pair of hands in the run-up to Black Friday and Christmas to give your online sales the very best opportunity to break records this year we can help.
You might have identified that you need a Social Media Manager to drive traffic from Instagram to your website or perhaps an eCommerce Manager to audit and improve the performance of your website.
Our Recruitment Consultants can find the talent you need to make this happen.
Contact us to find out more.