Top 10 Tips for Trading Black Friday
You’re an e-commerce business or multi-channel retailer, how can you make sure you and your teams are ready to capitalise on the biggest online shopping period of the year?
Prep is key, because this is also the most competitive time of year, so you need to be well planned to ensure you can win market share in a crowded market.
1. Grow your addressable audience with first party data.
Grow your email database with lead-generation adverts on your website and through your advertising channels with an incentive of finding out about Black Friday offers first if you subscribe.
2. Make sure your offer is enticing.
Plan an offer than is better than anything you offer the rest of the year.
Consider exclusive products or bundles to offer big savings but without taking the hit your average order value.
Ensure the offer is simple and easy to understand. Complicated offers will result in lower conversion, simple messages jump out most in busy inboxes and social feeds.
3. Ensure your website is prepped for spikes in demand.
Undertake pre-peak performance load testing, testing both spikes and continuous heavy load to ensure your website can cope, and make changes to the code or resources available if these tests fail.
4. Plan your marketing budget
Set you budget by day and by channel to optimise acquisition of new customers and reactivating those you may have lost. Retargeting customers that have shown an interest in your brand but not converting can be a big win during this discount period. Also think of how you will nurture new customers you’ve acquired post Black Friday, to make sure they shop with you again in the coming months.
5. Having a contingency plan for if anything goes wrong.
If an offer doesn’t go live – make sure you’re checking nice and early, and have a plan B to fix it. If sales aren’t as good as you needed them to be, what is your back up offer? Have campaign assets prepped so you can react quickly.
6. Make sure your fulfilment warehouse is ready.
Work with your logistics provider nice and early and share forecast so they can plan in resources.
Keep that communication alive during the promotion.
Consider changing your delivery options and customer promise to help manage the spike. Customers are usually more willing to wait at this time of year as a trade off for getting the best bargain.
7. Ensure your website is looking and operating it’s best.
Make sure all click paths are as smooth as possible, remove distractions. Have a clear homepage message with clear CTAs.
8. Respond to customer queries in a quick and efficient manner.
Offer help centres with clear FAQs and terms and conditions. Have macros set up for common customer questions, or use as AI enhanced customer care platform.
Increase customer care resources and hours if necessary. You don’t want to loose a sale because of an unanswered question.
9. Have a clear daily action plan for you and your team.
You need to know what things need to be checked or done each day. Who is checking the website has the correct messaging and pricing? Who is refreshing the website as you go? Who is monitoring the marketing channel performance? What’s the process to pull back or increase budget if you see an opportunity?
10. Monitor and react as the promotion runs.
Which products are trading better than others, which are slow, where is your stock sticking that may be ripe for a daily deal. Are certain marking channels performing better than others, are CPAs rising too quickly because of competition. Always have reporting set up to monitor in advance, and then daily look at what is good but what could be improved and tweak within the day to optimise.
