How to drive sales during Black Friday, Cyber Monday Weekend.

As the holiday shopping season approaches, online retailers gear up for some of the most significant sales events of the year: Singles Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. These days present golden opportunities for retailers to boost their revenue, attract new customers, and clear out old inventory. To drive Black Friday sales effectively in 2024, it’s crucial to review past promotional campaigns, set SMART objectives, and choose the right promotional offers. By targeting the right audience and leveraging various marketing channels, businesses can maximise their sales potential. Additionally, ensuring efficient order fulfilment and measuring campaign success will help refine future strategies.

In 2023 ReadyToShip customers processed a whopping 36% more orders during Black Friday Cyber Monday fortnight compared to the previous period. Here are our top tips to drive sales for Singles Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. 

1. 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 2024. 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?

2. Define your goals. What do you want to achieve in November 2024? 

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

3. Decide when to run your campaign

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

When is Singles Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2024?

4. Decide your sales offer type

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 every day, or a bigger discount on the first day and less on the subsequent days.  

5. Determine your intended audience

As part of this process, determine who your target audience is and how they will learn about your great offer.

6. Decide where to promote your Black Friday sales campaign

So you know the who, the what, and the when, now 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 at the top of each category page
• Add to your email marketing including blast newsletters, segmented emails, welcome emails, and abandon cart emails
• Shout your promotion all over your Facebook page, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, 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 video and share on your socials
• Create a promotional offer in Google Ads, plus add a promotion extension to Search campaigns
• A push notification can help drive traffic to your website
• Consider communicating any promotions with your MarketPlaces too.

7. Measure your success!

Tools like Google Analytics (GA4) can help you track customer visits and conversions on your website. If needed, incorporate UTM parameters to identify the sources of your traffic and sales conversions. Remember that buyers don’t act in a linear fashion, last-click conversion tracking is just one method to evaluate your campaign’s performance. Customers may visit your website multiple times through various channels, or sign up for a newsletter before converting. After your campaign ends, take some time to reflect. Did you achieve your objectives? Were there any surprises? What would you do differently next time?

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. 

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 the Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales period. So start planning, create your campaign, and get ready for a successful holiday season. Best of luck!