With Black Friday and Cyber Monday fast approaching and more and more people shopping online (thank you Covid-19) there is no better time to start preparing for the busiest shopping days of the year.
However, it’s certainly not business as usual. The ongoing pandemic continues to create uncertainties and presents unexpected challenges for businesses worldwide. No one can be sure how Black Friday and Cyber Monday will play out but one thing we do know - it pays to be prepared.
Globally recognised eCommerce marketing problem solver, Chloe Thomas, gives insight on how businesses big and small can prepare for the upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday while contending with all the uncertainties that come with a global pandemic. .
Chloë Thomas, author of several bestselling books, keynote speaker, advisor, and host of the eCommerce MasterPlan Podcast and Keep Optimising Podcast. She helps her clients maximise their marketing performance.
Plan ahead
Whether you are a single person business entrepreneur or a multi person business, this year a plan is more important than ever before.
Think through all of the possible scenarios that could unfold and have a plan ready for each.
What if there is a second lockdown?
What happens if the courier service implodes?
What happens if my suppliers can't supply this particular product?
And so on and so forth.
You don’t need a detailed plan for each eventuality. Instead, Chloe suggests:
She further suggests that each lever or tweak should be to the level of each campaign on Google ads, not simply doing more Google ads.
There is also a need to plan in what the other parts of the business are going to be doing. If you are a multi person business then you need to be working more closely with buying and merchandising teams and customer services.
Don’t use voucher codes
When you’re putting your promotions and offers together, you can help your team to be more streamlined by getting rid of voucher codes. Site wide discounts or product bundles that don’t require voucher codes will reduce customer service inbound queries because customers won’t be calling to say that the voucher code isn’t working. Customers also won’t have to contend with trying to tell a O apart from a 0 or which letters are to be capitals or not.
Chloe suggests that in the place of voucher codes you create different landing pages with various offers that can be linked in from a range of places. For example if you want to retain a number of your new customers and give them your best discounts, you can email them a link that takes them to the landing page with offers specifically for them.
Look after customer service teams
Increase the manpower of your customer service team, especially over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. .
Even though you may run a two week promotion, Black Friday and Cyber Monday is a weekend and you will need a customer service team to be available. If customer service isn’t available and customers can’t get the help they need they will go and spend their money on a different online store. It makes it essential then to look after your customers over Black Friday and Cyber Monday so that you don’t lose them.
Having customer service in place over the weekend also means that someone is there to monitor the site, sales, ads and social media and keep things from spiralling out of control.
Warm up your list and ads
It is essential to warm up your list now so that they are primed and ready for Black Friday rather than fighting for their attention during Black Friday sales.You want your customers to recognise your emails in their inbox and your ads on Facebook and so warming them up and building trust with them now will go a long way.
Start regularly emailing your list and put post purchase sequence automations in place to make sure your customers are getting a good experience. This increases their chance of buying again and it allows you to be proactive about customer service issues and provide the most current information on couriers and deliveries. This is your opportunity to reduce pressure on your customer service team and make customers more confident in your brand and service. Happy customers become repeat buyers.
If you can turn prospects into buyers now then you are more likely to buy again on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Install the Facebook pixel
Set up and test the Facebook pixel is working so that by the time Black Friday and Cyber Monday hits you can let the algorithm do the work.
The Facebook pixel records every person that comes to your website and measures the effectiveness of your advertising based on the actions people take while on your site.
The Facebook pixel is particularly useful over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday (or any peak sales) period because it is likely that your site will have a lot of hits. Whether people buy from you or not, this analytics tool can still be used to retarget and remarket them through follow up ads and or profiling.
Starting this process now means that you can test to see what ads are working and where the conversions are coming from. You can also create and test hidden landing pages for different product bundles or specific product offers to see what bundles work best.
Takeaway #1 Plan ahead and be prepared to adapt as and when necessary.
Takeaway #2 Warm up your list and test your ads now. Black Friday and Cyber Monday is not the time to be testing.
Takeaway #3 If someone has bought from you once they are far more likely to buy from you again.
Connect with Chloe Thomas
Website (and new podcast)
Links
Story telling great about us pages
https://www.farmtoysonline.co.uk/pages/about
https://www.jerseybeautycompany.co.uk/about-us
https://moscowcopper.com/pages/our-story
Welcome campaigns
Post purchase