Black Friday 2020 – No it’s not been cancelled like the rest of the year.

The rest of this year’s events may have been delayed but one thing is for sure Black Friday and Cyber Monday are going to be the busiest events this year… online of course. We’ve gathered some useful info to consider in the run up to this year’s sales.

Create brand awareness
Brand awareness is key when building a bigger consumer base in the run up to any sales. Consumers should be able to recognize and remember your business:

• Guest blogs on sites, run a good old fashioned google search for guest blogs in your sector or use social media to find sites which might be good for you to have a guest blog with or collaborative blog post.
• Create easy to understand and shareable infographics. Infographics can be  engaging, easy to consume and quicker to read than an article. The brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than plain text.
• Improve your SEO give us a shout if you need help with this one. Quick tip:  Incorporate your keywords into the headline, body, and image titles of your post– the more mentions, the easier it is for Google to pick up your post

Run an effective campaign in the run up for Black Friday
Start planning now and begin remarketing products you think are going to be best sellers for Black Friday. Evaluate the best channels you’re going to use whether that’s google ads, social media or something else. Consider Email campaigns? Setting up mail chimps to let your customers know the best deals you’ll be offering. Ensure to plan everything and schedule it ready to launch at peak times to have maximum effect.

*Image from Pretty Little Thing, their pre Black Friday campaign links customers to a holding page introducing that they’ve got their own spin on Black Friday.

Aligning your social channels
Are all your social media channels linked up and easy to use for the customer, does your branding look the same across all channels? 

• Instagram, ensure that your Instagram link in bio is directing customers straight to your Black Friday deals without multiple click throughs that may lose interest. Set up Instagram shops if you haven’t already, and allow time for Instagram to verify your shop (Instagram product tags can often take a few days to be verified if you’re adding this as a new feature to your page). 
• Facebook, Get all those Black Friday deals on your Facebook shop and make sure they’ve all got a link to purchase the product. Making it as simple as possible for the customer to buy what they’re seeing. Consider Facebook ads campaigns aimed at your target market
• Twitter, use the insane consumer buying data to engage curiosity, Black Friday and Cyber Monday aren’t just shopping events. They also have the feel of being a part of something. Shopify connects with its audience of entrepreneurs by letting them watch Black Friday sales and orders from around the globe as they pour in. If you have the ability to do this it can be used as a way to make customers feel part of a bigger picture

Making sure your server can handle it.
Know your load limit on your server before it causes unnecessary downtime.

• Speak to your hosting provider to make sure you’ve got everything set up to handle spikes.
• Make sure you’ve got all your caches warmed ready for lots of traffic.
• It’s important to work out your max level of users you can have on your site from previous load tests, this is important to know how hard you can go on marketing. Services like Shopify won’t have any limits so you can go crazy but self hosted platforms like Woo Commerce, Aero Commerce and Magento will run on hosting with limits, if these limits get hit your website can go offline.

Change your CTAs
CTA’s (Call to actions), There are two main purposes of a call to action: to tell someone what they should do, and give them the motivation to do so. Most of these come in the form of banners on your site or simple ‘buy now’ buttons. Consumers are sucked in with a CTA as soon as they enter your site so make sure you’ve got an epic entry banner upon arriving on the site that links to your Black Friday deals. Often if a customer can’t find the deal easily they’ll give up and look elsewhere.
Decide if you’re running a pre-Black Friday marketing campaign, consider adding in a ‘sign up now to be the first to receive updates’ style CTA. Square have an immediate CTA on their site upon arrival to encourage customers to start the journey to purchase immediately .

Square Payment CTA upon arrival on their site

Both Black Friday and Cyber Monday are like most of the year going to be slightly different. If you need any support during the period Contact the Big Eye Deers team.