Having an e-commerce business enables you to showcase your products to an expanded and diverse pool of customers at all times of the year. However, never are your chances of success higher than on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S.
The challenge lies in finding ways to distinguish yourself and your products from similar companies who are vying for your customer’s business from around the world.
Understanding customers’ holiday shopping habits, and devoting time and attention to a strong marketing strategy can elevate your opportunities, boost sales and foster satisfied buyers who can become passionate ambassadors for your brand.
Set up your payment infrastructure
First, let’s quickly review how online payment processing works. After all, getting this element right will ensure that you get your funds in full and on time, and will help to furnish your customers with the best possible payment experience.
Partnering with a quality payment services provider is the key. If your current company does not offer a variety of payment method choices (credit and debit cards, digital wallet options, ACH/echeck, recurring billing), you might want to start shopping around for a better option.
You should also require that your online payment processing company demonstrate a commitment to cutting-edge security, transparency, customer service, and scalability.
These traits will help to keep your data safe from bad actors and will give your shoppers a seamless buying experience that will keep them coming back long after the holiday season has passed.
Amplify your email list
It’s never too early to grow your database of customers who sign up to receive regular electronic communications from you in their inboxes. In October or even earlier, mount an aggressive campaign on your website to recruit new subscribers.
The key is to offer multiple opportunities throughout your website for people to connect with your brand.
Do so with popups, embedded forms and onsite notifications, and make it worth their while. Incentives may include time-sensitive Black Friday flash sales and promotions as well as early access to highly sought-after trending products.
Channel traffic to your best deals
Onsite notifications give you a way to funnel visitors to your home page, and toward the products you are actively promoting. Although this technique is effective year-round, it is crucial during the Black Friday holiday weekend when shoppers are frantically hopping from one website to another in search of the best deals.
By grabbing their attention and steering them toward what you already suspect they want, because of the demonstrated holiday shopping habits that your analytics revealed, you will exponentially increase the chances of a successful sale.
Draw interested customers in with additional offers
Shopping cart abandonment is one of the most frustrating but inevitable aspects of e-commerce. Although you will never obliterate it entirely from your life, you can reduce its impact by finding ways to keep customers engaged until they complete the sale.
One of the most effective techniques to accomplish this goal is to instantly communicate with visitors as soon as they have added an item to their shopping cart.
Configure your website to immediately send a curated message that offers free shipping, additional discounts or other promotions, if they add a set dollar amount of items to their cart.
Give special rewards to returning customers
Attracting new members to your brand family is vital, but keeping your existing patrons engaged and happy is also a must. After all, these people have already demonstrated their allegiance to your brand and have entrusted you with their hard-earned dollars.
But not all return visitors are previous customers, and you have another chance to grab them. If someone is revisiting your website, they may be a browser that clicked away, but come back because of something they saw on your page.
Convert their visit into a first-time sale with an additional discount or other incentive.
Capitalize on customer FOMO
FOMO, the customer's “fear of missing out” on a special deal or trendy product, is something you can harness to your advantage, especially during the few hours that combine to make up Black Friday.
You can create a sense of urgency with countdown timers and other notifications that let visitors know that time or product supplies are running out.
Your point of sale system’s inventory management tools are extremely helpful in making this happen. If you’re not sure how to use them to keep track of and create reports about your stock quantities that you can leverage for this purpose, contact your online payment processing provider to learn how to configure your system.
Use social media to send customers to your website
If you have not done so already, immediately take the time to create your own business pages on the social media platforms your customers prefer. Taking this step is a necessity that enables you to engage with, educate, and incentivize existing and potential customers in numerous ways.
More than just a place to post reviews and product demos, your social media pages can be portals to your full website that first catch a visitor’s attention, pique their interest in your store or the products you sell, and then direct them right to your website where they can make a fast and secure purchase.
Especially on Black Friday when shoppers are trying to make the most of their time, this streamlined strategy can quickly lead to lucrative sales while simultaneously enabling you to add new clients to your database that you can contact later with additional promotions.
Optimize your website
Customers tend to spend more money and stay longer on websites that are mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. Invest some time in advance to ensure that your digital store downloads quickly, and that the holiday-related bundles and promotions that you are featuring are prominently displayed and easy to understand.
To minimize confusion and chargebacks, also examine your privacy, terms and conditions, and shipping and delivery policies, focusing on clarity and visibility.
Black Friday only comes once a year.
Play your cards right, plan in advance and use the modern technology and resources available to you in your point of sale system, and you could be riding high this holiday season.
