12 Tips to Sell More On Black Friday

An American tradition linked to Thanksgiving, Black Friday is a "holiday" of promotions that can be considered the beginning of the Christmas season. These promotions aim to clear the stocks of the trades to receive new products for Christmas. 

Adopted also by other countries, Black Friday and Cyber Monday already are customs quite established. To help prepare for the event, we've brought 12 tips for your virtual store to sell more on Black Friday.

1. Use your online chat#

Many consumers wait to go shopping and buy their desired items on Black Friday. Online stores offer the facility of comparing prices without leaving home and not having to face long lines to have the chance to enjoy the offers, take advantage of that. 

Black Friday may bring a considerable increase in the number of visitors to your page. If you invest in creating a good marketing campaign around the date, the possibilities are even better. Enhance customer assistance by implementing a live chat on your ecommerce, which can help you turn visitors into customers. 

They will be able to solve their doubts right away, just by clicking on the live chat and talking with someone from your team. The customers will feel more secure to complete a purchase and enjoy the Black Friday sales, while you increase your revenue. It's a win-win situation. 

If you are looking for a great live chat tool, discover JivoChat features. You will be surprised about how simple it is to install it on your website. The platform is easy to use and you can keep track of all the messages sent to your store in a single place, following every interaction with the customers. 

Depending on the expected movement, it is worth bringing more operators or offering sales training to operators if they are not used to it. 

2. Offer Benefits Beyond Discounts#

The main Black Friday attractive is the discounts, but offering those can be hard for small businesses. It's difficult to compete with big retailers in terms of prices, but you can offer other benefits instead to make your online store stand out. 

Think about what your customers value beyond price. For example, many consumers opt to pay more for a product that they know how it was produced because they are worried about supporting companies that have a sustainable production chain. If your brand has total control of the manufacturing process, emphasize that in the communication with customers. 

Show what your company beliefs are, that can make a huge difference. Besides, you can offer other benefits such as free samples, free gift wrapping, and fast delivery. Explain that your company is worried about creating a sustainable economy, if that's the case, and show how customers contribute to that when choosing to buy from you on Black Friday.

3. Offer Free Services Instead of Discounts#

If you can give discounts on Black Friday, one idea is to provide services for free, such as free shipping. One strategy you can take is to simulate how much a customer would pay for transportation. This way, they would be aware that it is better to have free shipping than big discounts. If you can combine symbolic discounts with free delivery, it is even better for the buyer.

If you are a SaaS (software as a service) company, you can offer free services like free onboard assistance or give an extra feature without the customer having to pay any fee. Other options are extending the warranty period, or sending a gift with the purchase, for example. 

Be creative, study the market and your target audience demands to identify what you can offer them to make them want to buy in your store during Black Friday, beyond discounts. The relationship you have developed with customers will be valuable to help you with that. 

4. Extend Black Friday Deadline#

It's been some time since Black Friday stopped happening just on Friday after Thanksgiving. Proof of this is Cyber Monday, another day of promotions, but connected to electronic devices such as smartphones and video games. 

So, don't focus only on one day. Instead of just being on a Friday, your Black Friday can happen from one Friday to the next, for instance. You can create special discounts for each day of the week, and develop an email marketing campaign to tell the consumers about the sales. Explain to them how the discounts are going to happen.

 

5. Offer Discounts for Future Purchases#

Since Black Friday has the power to increase your website traffic and attract new customers, you can enjoy that to develop strategies to retain those customers. For example, offer them a discount on their next purchase.

Right after the customer buys something on your website, during Black Friday, send a thank you email with a coupon discount to encourage them to buy again on your online store. Even with the drop in sales after the peak period of the promotions, you will still have a higher average level than before the promotions.

Think of ways to conquer loyal customers, and develop a strong relationship with them after the sales period. The next purchase discount is a good start, but you can also offer other advantages like a reward loyalty program. 

6. Use Social Media to Promote Black Friday#

When you are planning Black Friday sales, it's essential to consider how to promote your online store so potential customers will know the discounts and other benefits they will be able to enjoy. Use your social media profiles to do that.

You can make posts showing the products that will be on discount during Black Friday on Instagram, and publish them in the stories and in your feed. Start announcing the discounts in the weeks before Black Friday. 

Your social networks will be your great allies to promote your Black Friday discounts. The possibilities are endless: a week before the date, you can reveal how much discount will be offered on a specific product, putting a new product every day, for example. You can also create polls asking customers what they want to see on sale, before starting to plan the Black Friday actions. 

7. Create Exclusive Deals for Loyal Customers#

Loyal customers are valuable to a brand, and it's important to show how you care about them. While Black Friday is an important moment to grow visibility and reach a new public, you should remember the ones who have remained loyal to your brand as well. 

You can use your customer email list and send exclusive coupon discounts to them. In this way, you encourage them to return to your store, instead of migrating and purchasing from your competitors. 

Another strategy you can use is creating exclusive offers to members of your loyalty programs, where the discount and number of products on sale are bigger to the customers with more points. 

8. Improve Your Page Rankings on Google#

Enjoy the increase of product and discount searches during Black Friday to enhance visibility on search engines like Google. To do that, you should optimize your pages using SEO (search engine optimization) best practices.

You can, for example, write a post about Black Friday. Search for the main keywords related to Black Friday, which are also related to your business, then select the ones you will use in the article. The main keyword should appear at least 3 times in the text.

Beyond that, it's fundamental to provide valuable information and write an interesting article. Insert the keyword in the URL name, write a meta description to the article and insert alt text to the images. 

If you are going to update the products page, include keywords related to them in the product description. Besides that, you should pay attention to user experience. Google takes into account factors like the time spent on each page, readability, mobile friendliness, load time, and usability. 

9. Optimize Your Website for Mobile#

If your virtual store is not yet optimized to be accessed by mobile devices, don't waste any more time. Many consumers access your store through these devices, regardless of where they heard of your Black Friday promotions (email, social networks, leads, etc.). 

It's worth remembering that mobile-optimized sites are better ranked by Google and help you pay less for your Facebook ads. If you are still developing your online store, the tip is to choose a website builder that already provides you with a responsive

10. Create an Email Marketing Campaign#

Email marketing is also a powerful ally to promote your Black Friday special discounts and services. With the list properly targeted, you can create multiple campaigns for different visitors.

From exclusive promotions to loyal customers to offers to attract visitors. who visited your site at least once, your reach and possibilities are much larger than a campaign on social networks, for example.

Plan yourself, and think about the details, including the subject line and the template of the campaigns. Consider your target audience behavior to develop the best email marketing campaigns, and when you launch them, keep track of the KPIs (key performance indicators).

Even with the campaign going on, you can identify its weaknesses and make improvements to guarantee better results. 

11. Create a Landing Page for Black Friday#

Be sure to create a landing page for Black Friday. When people click on your Black Friday ads and posts, on social media or in their email, they will be redirected to the landing page instead of your website home page.

Remember the landing page must have an attractive design and lead the customer to their next action. Considering that, it's important to write a compelling call to action (CTA), be direct and drive the visitor's attention to the landing page's main message. 

12. Keep the Website Maintenance Updated#

The recipe for failure on Black Friday is to totally neglect the state of your website. Every year, several virtual stores end up suffering bad results because their website didn't support sudden traffic growth.

Prepare your website for this big event, and make sure it's capable of functioning properly without any page failing due to traffic peaks. This is extremely important, so you won't lose sales, and your investments in Black Friday campaigns won't be in vain. 

Besides, it's very frustrating for customers to visit a website and encounter a page that doesn't work. This can damage your brand's reputation and make you lose credibility. 

Discover JivoChat's features for your Black Friday virtual store!#

It's important that you start preparing for Black Friday as soon as possible! Discounts, services, gifts, and every other benefit you will offer must be defined, as well as policies such as special working hours to meet the demand. 

JivoChat can help you plan Black Friday! Be sure to check out the features and plans offered to assist you to get the best results for your online store!