Black Friday/ Cyber Monday: How To Dramatically Increase Your Sales This Year

The Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend is hands down the busiest shopping season. As shoppers prepare for the holidays, they have an endless variety of deals offered to them in one chaotic weekend that makes it difficult for merchants to stand out. 

When everyone is offering a blowout sale, you want to be the one that customers choose and in order to do that, just like the customers who camp out at storefronts, you'll have to get an early start. 

Take Time to Prepare For Black Friday/Cyber Monday

Preparing for your promotions ahead of time can be just as important as their launch. So before we get to the sales, here are some steps you can take before you begin to promote your Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.

Optimize Your Online Presence

Organize a promotions calendar. Making sure your customers know that you'll be offering holiday deals will be central to a successful Black Friday/Cyber Monday and that will take more than just a few emails or a quick social post. Be sure to schedule regular postal reminders and emails ahead of time so that your customers can be reminded of the sales to come.

You'll want to ensure that when the promotions bring customers to your site, their experience is pleasant and streamlined.

Make sure your online store is up to date, with eye catching landing pages that display where customers can click to buy easily. Highlight some of your newest or best selling products up front, update your descriptions and clearly display promo codes and deals you'd like to draw attention to.

This may seem like a common sense checklist, and it is, but it's important that customers are greeted with a well organized and easy to navigate website once the promotions have brought them in.

Grow Your Pre-Sale Customer Base

In the lead up to Black Friday/Cyber Monday, an ideal strategy for maximizing sales is to work on growing the number of customers who will see your promotions.

Building a mailing list is an effective and easy way to do this. Quite simply, it's just a matter of asking customers to provide their emails when they make a purchase and you can quickly build a database of customers who are already interested in your products. You can also encourage your followers on social media to join your mailing list with the promise of future deals, discounts and promo codes. Those who sign up will be anticipating your Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals and will likely be receptive to them. 

Beyond just gathering emails, this can be an opportunity to engage with your customers. Use this opportunity to create a survey or ask regular questions in emails and social posts to get a better idea which products your customers prefer and what they would like to see more of.

Look into gathering as much data as you can on customers and make use of something known as "discovery commerce" Making use of automated programs and targeted ads on social media that let customers know about products they didn't know they were looking for. Identify the type of customer that your products would be an idal fit for; perhaps a certain age group or occupation, and target some ads on social to make them aware of your products before they go on sale. This way you'll capture the interest of some new customers who may consider purchasing your products, but need time to get acquainted with your brand.

Use Social Media to Build Excitement for Black Friday/Cyber Monday

Let your customers know of the coming holiday sales and build excitement through social media. A surefire way to engage with customers are their Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts where users scroll through your products and posts every day.

Posting about Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales well ahead of time and frequently will give your customers something to look forward to. The steady reminders in their daily scrolls are sure to generate shares as the big day approaches and people get started on their holiday shopping.

The more they see your reminders the more likely they'll be to remember your offers when Black Friday/Cyber Monday finally arrive.

Use A Countdown To Create Anticipation

Add an element of urgency and excitement to the wait by introducing a countdown clock to your website. This will encourage customers to return to your social page or website and act as a reminder of your promotion. They may even be encouraged to browse for products they'll want to buy when the time comes and sign up for mailing list reminders.

If the sale feels like a big event that many are looking forward to, customers will feel a sense of urgency to get involved and snatch up the limited time deals before they're gone.

Offer Free Shipping

Customers are more likely to stock up when they see discounted products, but those deals can sometimes be offset when the final cost is tallied at checkout and the cost of shipping is too high.

When you offer free shipping, customers are incentivized to load up on discounted products to get the most bang for their buck.

You can even encourage customers to load their carts up by setting a threshold of free shipping after a certain amount of money has been spent. For example free shipping on all orders over $100.

Bringing Customers Back After Black Friday/Cyber Monday

When Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, it's important to hold on to the customers that were brought in by the sale. Be sure that you are attentive to any concerns your customers might have and follow up with them to assess your service. After all, you'll want them to come back for next year's sales and become regular customers in between.

Use Retargeting Ads to Bring Customers Back

Even if a customer browsed your products without buying, they may still be considering your products in the back of their minds. That's why you need to make sure that your ads keep that spark alive. Retargeting ads identify those who have browsed your products and send them ads as they scroll through other sites acting as a reminder of their recent searches.

Leave No Cart Behind

Sometimes when browsing a customer will abandon a cart they've filled with products they felt they wanted at the time, but had second thoughts about.

If a customer has done this during your promotion, you could send them a reminder that their cart is still full of wonderful deals and that the same offers are waiting for them, extended past the day of the sale. Their personalized approach could make customers feel as though they've received a special offer exclusive to them and improve your relationship with customers who are just getting to know your brand. 

Create A Loyalty Program to Hold On To Customers

If the holiday sales are what brought customers in, then there's always a chance these customers are one time shoppers who were looking for the best deal they could find.

One way to ensure that they return to your store after Black Friday/Cyber Monday is to keep the deals going. Customers who were brought in by your promotions will be excited to know that they could have more deals if they regularly purchase from your store.

Loyalty programs make customers feel like they are being rewarded for sticking with your product and increase the chances that they'll come back for more.