How to drive sales during Black Friday, Cyber Monday Weekend

Spring has sprung in the southern hemisphere and that means Christmas is around the corner. As early shoppers plan and write shopping lists, bargain hunters will be waiting for the Black Friday annual sales.

Here are our top tips to drive sales for Singles Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. 

Review previous promotional campaigns.

Before you launch into a campaign take a step back and review what you have done in the past. Many small businesses leap into a sales campaign at the last minute but taking the time to review your previous campaigns will help you fine tune your Black Friday sales campaign in 2020. Questions to ask yourself include:

• Did you run a promotion last year, if so how did it perform compared to your expectations and objectives?
• What did you achieve, can it be replicated?
• Anything you wouldn’t do again?
• Was there any aspect of the campaign that you ran out of time to implement?

What do you want to achieve in November 2020? 

Next develop SMART objectives to suit your business goals. Your objectives need to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. 

Example SMART objectives include:

• Increase order volume by 20% over the four day campaign
• Increase average cart value by $10 per order over the four day campaign.
• Decrease old stock by 25% over the four day campaign

Consider is a huge discount worth it? A great discount like 50% off looks great, however if you are not making any margin, is it worth it? However if your objective is to reduce excess stock then a big discount with no margin could be your best option.

When is Singles Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

Choose your start and end date for the campaign and what your offer will be.

Different types of sales offers

Depending on your SMART objective, choose from the following types of promotional offers:

• % off discount site wide
• % off discount with code sitewide
• % off discount particular categories only
• Buy this, get this % off discount
• Spend X get X% off 

Consider if you will have the same offer everyday or a bigger discount on the first day and less on the subsequent days.  

Who is your intended audience?

As part of this process determine who your target audience is and how they will learn about your great offer. Use tools like Google Analytics Audiences to identify who your best converting audience is.

Where to promote your fabulous promotional campaign?
So you know the who, the what, and when, it’s time to look at the where. The following tactics will ensure your promotional messages reach your intended and targeted audience.

• Add a promotional banner to your homepage or a top of each category page
• Add to your email marketing including blast newsletters, welcome emails, and abandon cart emails
• Shout your promotion all over your Facebook page, Instagram, and anywhere you can connect with your audience. Don’t just post, share your stories too
• Run a paid Facebook or Instagram ad to your followers, plus ‘people’ who look like your followers, using look-a-like audiences
• Create a promotional offer in Google Ad Words shopping campaigns plus add a promotion extension to Search campaigns
• A push notification can help drive traffic to your website
• Communicate any discounts with your MarketPlaces to drive sales too.

Get ReadyToShip!

With the influx of orders you will need to be super efficient to ensure turnaround times are as quick as they can be. Using a shipping software integration like ReadyToShip will ensure you are not wasting time cutting and pasting shipping labels. 

Find out how ReadyToShip will help save you time with a free 30 day trial. Setting up takes a few minutes. No credit card required.

Measure your success!

Tools like Google Analytics will help track customers visiting your website conversions. If needed incorporate UTM’s to track where your traffic is from and sales conversions. Remember, buyers don’t act in a linear fashion and last-click conversion tracking is only one way to evaluate your campaign. Customers may visit your website multiple times through various channels before they convert. We recommended looking at assisted conversions along with first and last click interactions. After your campaign, take a moment to reflect on how it went. Did you reach your objectives? Any surprises along the way? What would you do differently next time?

A final word.

Now is the perfect time to plan and implement your promotional campaign to drive sales, introduce new customers and reward your existing customer base during Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales period.  So start planning, create your campaign and get ready for a successful holiday season. Best of luck!