Black Friday 2019 is coming: 6 lastminute ecommerce tips
The busiest shopping day of the year since 2003 is right around the corner. Retailers probably regret missed opportunities in hindsight every year. Don’t make such a mistake this time!
Even though preparations for Black Friday should be in full swing already, it’s not too late to refurbish your website, marketing strategy and customer service.
First of all, get ready not only for the Black Friday but the entire Thanksgiving weekend - from the Thanksgiving Day to the Cyber Monday (November 28th to December 2nd).
The question is: how?
Let’s dig into our sure-fire and feasible Black Friday e-commerce strategies!
1. Smoothen the buyer’s journey
The numbers speak for themselves. 86% of customers are more likely to purchase when companies make the shopping process hassle-free. Check out how you can shorten the customer’s path, even last minute.
Enable buying without registration.
During the busiest shopping season of the year, buyers don’t have the time to register. Frankly speaking, they might think they’ll never come back to your store, so they don’t need to get your newsletters and give away all the information. Make sure that you only require obligatory data to finalise a purchase. Your e-commerce visitors came only to make the deal at that time – and they want to do it ASAP.
Optimise product pages.
Craft brief and easy-to-scan descriptions, but include essential information so that customers can make a decision right away without asking for details. Use bullet points and icons to highlight the best features. Make sure your CTAs are clear and visible – this way, the visitors will know exactly where to click. Add certificates, testimonials, as well as payment and delivery options to inform customers about the crucial aspects within the product page. As mentioned above, they’re in a hurry and they want all the information to be accessible right away.
Run social media campaigns that link directly to products.
How often have you clicked on an ad because you liked a jacket, but you’ve been redirected to the homepage of the store and couldn’t really find the desired item? It’s incredibly irritating, right? Avoid that technique, especially around Black Friday when you can only get a short moment of your customer’s attention. While creating social media ads, promote particular products and link to them directly. Use the store section and tagging feature on Facebook and Instagram. This way, you can minimize frustration and shorten the customer’s journey. Below you can see how the Ecologic Cosmetics brand is using the shop section on Facebook.
Frictionless customer journey is a must-have for events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Make it as easy and pleasant as possible in order to increase sales.
2. Reward loyal customers
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are all about special deals. You’ve probably already planned plenty of types of discounts. Nevertheless, there’s always a field for improvement.
Don’t forget to pamper customers who purchased in your store in the past. Give real value to make your offer outstanding and an obvious choice. Create exclusive discounts for loyal customers. Black Friday initiates Christmas shopping season. This means you can offer deals for gifts (for example, free Christmas wrapping). Your customers probably have their friends and family in mind while shopping around that time - take advantage of that fact. You can also initiate a referral program during Black Friday promotions.
Free delivery and return can be additional incentives. Use Black Friday to engage existing customers and gain new buyers.
3. Provide omnichannel customer support
Even though it’s the last moment to improve your website or marketing strategy, it’s never too late for fine-tuning customer experience. Excellent customer support is one of the key elements that factor the customer’s satisfaction.
Prepare or update the FAQs section on your website and make sure your team is ready to answer every possible question. Try to predict what kind of issues might come up during the frenzied shopping season and craft kind answers that your customer-facing team can use as a script. Consider problems with website, delivery, returns, contact and every other aspect that you can think of.
If you have a live chat widget on your website, use chatbots to help your customer service team and boost workflow. AI-powered chatbots can easily manage to reply to repetitive questions. Thanks to the usage of Natural Language Processing, the conversations can be smooth and humanlike. This way, your team can only respond to more complex inquiries and have more time to take care of your customers adequately. Besides, chatbots work 24/7, and that’s a considerable advantage of automation both for you and the buyers.
By providing many customer support channels, it’s much easier for the customers to get in touch. Millennials and Generation Z are immersed in the social media universe. Therefore, it pays off to enable a chat on Messenger. You can integrate it with your live chat on the website via Chatbotize to have one inbox for all the messages. Don’t worry; it only takes a few minutes! Check out these tutorials and find out how to integrate your bot with Facebook Messenger.
The key to delivering fast yet high-quality customer support is in the usage of new technologies. Take advantage of that and create an omnichannel experience with integrated platforms.
4. Use a unique value proposition
Highlight the most significant product features and your advantages over the competitors. You can refer to fabrics, options, price, delivery methods or company policy. Give shoppers a practical value to attract them to your offer. For example, instead of writing down the whole technical specification, inform how a customer can benefit from it. Of course, you can include complex specs in the description but list the main advantages first. These can include features like waterproof fabric, eco-friendliness, capacity etc. Check out Lefrik’s product page:
Moreover, if you cooperate with local manufacturers, use recycled materials or have a CSR program, you should definitely mention that! These days, consumers have become more aware and choose responsible retailers.
Use a unique value proposition on the product page and in your marketing messages (Google Ads, social media campaigns, newsletter).
5. Trigger shopping impulses
Create a sense of urgency.
Use simple, yet effective tricks, such as a temporary deal with a countdown on your website. Another idea, which can also be considered as social proof technique, is to add a real-time counter on a product page. This way, you can inform how many customers have already purchased a given item or how many products are in stock.
In your marketing messages, highlight that the deal is temporary. You can also craft CTAs on your e-commerce in the way they additionally motivate to buying. Some good examples include, “Buy now” or “I don’t want to miss the deal!”.
6. Schedule your posts and campaigns
Once Black Friday craze starts, you won’t have time for anything, especially not marketing actions. Fortunately, you can schedule your posts and campaigns so that all of your efforts can go to current interactions with customers and build a stronger relationship with them. An absolute must-have is a set of appealing and outstanding graphics and animations. With the right online tools, designing visuals is a cakewalk.
Configure Facebook Pixel or share links armed with pixels to retarget your audience in future campaigns. By running more personalized and relevant ads, you sure get better results.
PRO TIP: Conversational marketing can boost your efforts on social media. Create a buzz around the upcoming sale to allure Facebook users to contact your brand via Messenger. Organize a contest, quiz, or simply distribute promo codes through this channel. Thus, you’ll not only attract potential customers to your Black Friday offer but also gather customers’ data that can be useful in the future, and get the possibility to contact them on Messenger.
Key takeaways
Even though retailers and marketers put all their efforts to maximize the revenue during Black Friday, you should keep a much more beneficial long-distance goal in mind. By rocking overall customer experience, you can give buyers a reason to come back. Customers’ loyalty is at stake here. Focus on increasing customer lifetime value, not just the value of carts during that time.
Make sure your team is ready to implement impeccable customer service and integrate your tools. If you need any advice regarding conversational marketing, we’re at your disposal!
Black Friday and Cyber Monday e-commerce checklist:
- Competitive and limited-time promotions
- Special deal for loyal customers
- Fast loading website (compress images)
- Optimize for mobile
- Clear and visible CTAs
- Easy-to-scan product description
- Simplify checkout
- Scheduled social media posts
- Updated FAQs
- Integrated chatbots on website and Messenger
- Black Friday visuals on a website and social media
- Campaigns based on retargeting
- Free delivery
- Many payment methods available
- Free and easy returns
- Reminders about abandoned carts (email, web push notifications)
- Set up UX tools to monitor visitors behavior