Black Friday is a bonanza for brick-and-mortar retailers, who can generate big revenue with little cost. It’s a double whammy for online sellers, though. Not only are most of your competitors discounting heavily on Black Friday – but you don’t have the advantage of them stocking up on inventory to meet demand afterwards.
Black Friday has been historically one of the best days for any ecommerce business to drive traffic to your site and sell more products than you can handle. But if you’re not ready, you might end up losing money instead of pulling in profit.
Read on to discover how to succeed in Black Friday marketing and sell more than you can handle as an ecommerce business.
Why is Black Friday so important to ecommerce businesses?
If you’re just getting into online retail and trying to decide where to focus your marketing budget, Black Friday should be at the top of your list. Black Friday is the single biggest shopping day of the year, with more than 80% of sales being made online.
That’s twice as many online sales as Cyber Monday, making it the busiest online day of the year. But Black Friday is also the busiest single day for brick-and-mortar retailers. Because Black Friday sales have become such a big deal, it’s also one of the most effective ways to increase your ecommerce sales.
If you’re an online retailer, the competition is fierce. But if you’re ready to capitalise on Black Friday, you can significantly boost your online sales with very little additional effort.
How to succeed in Black Friday marketing
Black Friday is all about urgency, discounts, and getting your customers to buy now. So, the good news is that you don’t have to create any new content to succeed in marketing on Black Friday – you just have to repurpose your existing marketing.
You can easily create urgency by running a countdown timer on your website. You can run discounts on your most popular products, and create discount codes that are only valid on Black Friday.
Finally, you can collect email addresses from your customers to build your email list while encouraging them to buy on Black Friday.
Not only is this an easy way to exploit the fact that Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year, but it also lets you continue leveraging your marketing efforts long after the holiday season is over. You can send out new coupons, offer discounts or other specials throughout the year, and keep bringing in customers who have already shown interest in your products.
Decide which products to promote
Assess which products are your best sellers, and which products you’re least confident in. You want to promote your products that are already selling well, plus add some new inventory that you’re not super confident about.
That way, you’ll succeed at boosting your sales on Black Friday, but not be stuck with a bunch of inventory that no one wants. If you’ve got a product that’s already a bestseller and that you know is in demand, you can run a sale on that item and see your sales spike.
You can also create a new coupon code for that product, or give away a freebie when customers purchase it. That way, you can easily boost sales on your most popular products.
Use email marketing to grow your subscriber base
One of the easiest ways to boost your sales on Black Friday is to get more people on your email list. You can do this in a couple of ways – by adding a popup on your website, or by creating a popup when someone is adding an item to their cart.
You can also give away a freebie when people sign up for your email list, such as an e-book, checklist, or audio book. If you’re struggling to come up with ideas for an email, try hosting a poll on social media about where your customers would like to see your business expand next.
Once you’ve collected email addresses, contact your subscribers periodically to keep them engaged and offer tips and advice that will help them make the most out of their purchase and use your product.
You can also send out emails to customers who haven’t bought from you in a while and are therefore less likely to buy again. Black Friday is the perfect time to boost your email list as well because you can send out an email with discounted coupons and a special deal just for email subscribers.
Use paid ads to increase awareness of your sale
Your Black Friday sale is likely to get lost in the shuffle if you’re not using paid ads. You can specifically target your ads towards customers who have previously purchased from you and those who have shown interest in your products, as well as customers in your local area.
Paid ads will drive more sales and aren’t just for Black Friday. If you don’t have the budget to run paid ads from now until the end of the year, you can at least do it for Black Friday, get a few sales, and then stop your ad campaign.
Another advantage of paid ads is that you can target your ads to people interested in specific products, or to people in specific locations. This will help your ads get in front of more customers, and more importantly, relevant customers.
Know your audience and plan your ad spend
You don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on ads that are barely bringing in any sales. And you don’t want to spend nothing and not get any sales at all. It’s important to know your audience so that you can effectively spend your money. Here are a few tips to help you do that:
- Run a few different ads to see which one performs best. You can also run ads on different ad platforms to see which one brings you the best results.
- If you’re just starting out, don’t spend too much on your ads. Start small and increase your ad spend as you see your sales increase. You don’t want to spend all your money on ads right away, and then have nothing left when the sales roll in.
Plan your Black Friday Marketing Strategies Early
While many retailers start planning their Black Friday marketing strategies in October, it’s best to start as early as possible. A lot of your competitors may end up dropping their prices, and want to stay competitive, so they’ll start advertising their sales early.
The sooner you start planning, the more time you have to test different ads, different products, and different sales. You can also start collecting email addresses and building your email list as soon as possible.
This gives you more time to build up your email list, segment your emails, and send out relevant information to your customers that will help you sell more and increase your sales.
Run a Black Friday Ad Blitz
You don’t necessarily have to run ads all year long, but you do want to make sure that you’re the top result on Google when people start searching for Black Friday deals. You can do this by creating a special landing page that advertises discounts and special offers.
Then, you can make sure that you’re the top result on Google for any related keywords. A great way to do this is to create what’s called a “Black Friday ad blitz.” An ad blitz consists of continuously refreshing your ads with new variations.
This will help you stay at the top of Google’s search results, and the best part is that you don’t have to spend a ton of money on ads. You can keep refreshing your ad with new variations, such as a new headline, new images, or a new offer, and you can keep refreshing it as often as every 10 minutes.
This will help keep you at the top of Google’s search results and will also help you get more sales since more people will see your ad.
Know Your Inventory Limitations
If you’re selling more products than you can handle, you’re probably going to run out of inventory, especially if you’re running sales on popular items. It’s important to know how many of each product you can sell, especially if it’s a special deal, such as free shipping.
If you know how many units you can sell and when you will run out, you can send out an email to your customers, letting them know about it.
Decide Which Days You’ll Offer Black Friday Deals
The first step towards a successful Black Friday is deciding which days you’ll offer your deals. Because all kinds of businesses are participating in Black Friday, you should make sure your offers stand out from the crowd.
Many businesses that sell products like tools, kitchen appliances, and electronics tend to offer deals on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the weekend before and after. Retailers also see a lot of traffic on Black Friday, particularly those that sell clothing or have a lot of clearance items.
Black Friday lends itself to a lot of impulse buying, which is great for retailers because those items will likely be bought even if the buyer doesn’t need or have the budget for them. Retailers can use the deals to make shopping a fun event, especially for kids during the long holiday weekend.
Can you make money on Black Friday?
Black Friday is meant to boost revenue, not make money. One of the reasons why so many retailers go out of business is because they’re not profitable. They rely on revenue to keep the business running, but they don’t have a revenue coming in.
So if you’re wondering if you can make money on Black Friday, the answer is yes. It doesn’t matter what type of business you have or what products you sell, you should be able to make money on Black Friday. Keep in mind that this may not be the best day to make money if you’re an online retailer.
With all the discounts happening at brick-and-mortar stores, you’ll likely be unable to compete with the prices of online retailers. Instead, online retailers should try to use Black Friday as a way to boost traffic.
Why is Black Friday so successful?
The path to success on Black Friday is pretty simple: make sure customers know when you’re having the sale and make sure they know exactly how much they’re saving when they buy your products.
The retailers that do best on Black Friday are the ones that make it as easy as possible for their customers to buy. Revenue on Black Friday is mostly driven by impulse buys. Customers come into the store already in a shopping mood, so you don’t have to do a lot of convincing to get them to buy something.
That means that you have to make the shopping experience as simple as possible. You have to make sure that your customers know exactly where your products are, how to find what they’re looking for, and how much they have to pay for them.
Who sells the most on Black Friday?
Retailers that sell products that are easy to buy and require little to no customer service do the best on Black Friday. Electronics and appliances do particularly well because most people will need to replace a broken appliance or find a new one that they’ve been meaning to buy.
Clothing retailers might see a boost in sales, but they shouldn’t expect the same level of revenue as other types of businesses. Taking advantage of Black Friday is more about having a successful marketing campaign, not just having an abundance of products.
If you sell furniture or other large items, you might not even offer Black Friday deals because customers might not be able to take advantage of them.
How do companies make a profit on Black Friday?
One of the biggest misconceptions about Black Friday is that retailers have to sell at a loss to make their customers happy. In fact, most retailers actually make a profit on their Black Friday sales.
Worried that you’ll go out of business if you slash prices on Black Friday? Don’t be. Most retailers make their profit by selling more products than they would have at full price. If you sell 10 products at full price, you’ll make a profit from those 10 products.
If you sell 10 products at a discount, you’ll make a profit from those 10 products plus the extra 10 products that the customers who purchased the discounted items would have bought at full price.
How do I prepare my business for Black Friday?
If you want to succeed on Black Friday, you have to start preparing your business weeks, if not months in advance. First, you’ll want to create a calendar of dates when you’ll be running your special offers.
Keep in mind that Black Friday isn’t the only day you should run your promotions. You’ll want to run your Black Friday promotions throughout the month of November. Start brainstorming ideas for special offers that would appeal to your customers.
Revenue on Black Friday is mostly driven by impulse buys. Customers come into the store already in a shopping mood, so you don’t have to do a lot of convincing to get them to buy something.
How do I start Black Friday?
To start Black Friday, you have to start planning your promotions at least a month before the event. You’ll want to have plenty of time to get the word out about your deals. Start by making a list of your products and their prices.
You’ll need to decide how much you’re going to discount each product. Keep in mind that you don’t want to slash all your products by the same percentage. You’ll want to make some products more appealing than others.
You should also consider taking advantage of social media. Many social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, offer free advertising.
How social media promotes Black Friday?
Social media is one of the best tools for promoting Black Friday. There are currently 2.79 billion social media users worldwide, and many of them are on Facebook. Facebook allows you to create ads that will be displayed in the newsfeeds of your customers.
These ads can link to your website and include a clickable call-to-action, such as “Learn More” or “Shop Now”. You can also use Facebook live to boost engagement and encourage people to talk about your business. This can be as simple as filming a tour of your store or providing tips on products that you sell.
On top of that, you can use Facebook groups to host contests, ask questions, and engage your customers. When done correctly, engaging with customers on social media is free.
How can I promote my Black Friday deals?
There are a few ways to promote your Black Friday deals. You can create a blog post where you talk about the products that are on sale and why customers should buy them. You can also write posts on Facebook and Twitter that encourage your customers to buy.
You can also create a YouTube video that highlights your products and encourages people to buy. You can also create an email campaign that encourages your customers to buy. In fact, email is one of the best ways to promote your Black Friday deals. You can also create print advertisements and magazine ads that highlight your Black Friday deals.
How do you attract customers on Black Friday?
To attract customers on Black Friday, you need to make sure that they know when and where to find your deals. There are two things you’ll want to focus on: making sure your customers know that you’re having a Black Friday sale, and making sure they know exactly when and where to find your deals.
You can do this a couple of different ways. You can create signs in your store and make sure they’re visible from the street. You can also create radio spots or print ads. You can also have your employees talk
