The countdown and potentially even your sales have already begun, but Black Friday nowadays is much more than a lone event. Utilised correctly, the time following the year’s most anticipated sale can be invaluable to us as marketers, but there may be some things you’ve missed – let’s dive into a last-minute checklist to ensure you’ve covered all bases and are primed for a victorious Black Friday campaign.
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Craft a Post-Black Friday Nurturing Plan:
As the adrenaline of Black Friday fades, don’t lose sight of the post-purchase phase. Develop a strategic plan to nurture customers beyond the sale, aiming for a longer buying lifecycle. If you’re thinking about this strategy once the dust has settled, it already should have begun. Consider now what options you have, and which fit best with your audiences and products. Personalized follow-up emails, exclusive offers for repeat customers, loyalty programs to keep your audience engaged and encourage future purchases, or even carts abandoned on the day offered later at the same price. The options available are endless, and clearly mapping your customer’s journey through them ahead of time will guarantee a higher rate of success.
Precision Conversion Tracking:
In the heat of Black Friday, it’s crucial that your campaigns’ success is tracked with precision. This doesn’t just mean knowing whether a sale has come from Black Friday, but if you’re making use of a multi-channel approach it’s vital to know which it came from. Trackable links should be different for each social media platform or email campaign so that you can evaluate which to spend more or less of your time on next year. This not only helps you gauge the effectiveness of your strategies but also provides valuable insights for future campaigns.
Fine-Tune Prices Strategically:
While slashing prices for Black Friday is a common strategy, it’s equally important to use sales data to refine your pricing strategy. Take note of which products perform exceptionally well at discounted rates. If a product that typically struggles to sell sees a surge in demand at a 50% discount, it might indicate that the ideal price lies somewhere in the middle. Use this insight to find the sweet spot that maximizes both sales volume and profitability.
This goes for which items sell together, as well – use the increased sales volume of Black Friday to analyze carts. If there is an influx of orders for a specific combination of products, perhaps it would make a successful bundle in the offseason. Remember to also think about the structure of product categories, too, and be sure to utilize any user behaviour plugins to see whether these need re-jigging. If you don’t have one of these installed – such as Hotjar, now’s the time!
Optimize Mobile Responsiveness:
In the age of smartphones, overlooking mobile responsiveness is a costly mistake, and you would be surprised how many even e-commerce businesses do not consider it thoroughly enough. With consumers increasingly turning to mobile devices to quickly check Black Friday deals, ensure that your website and user journey towards it are optimized for a seamless mobile experience. If you haven’t already, double-check your website’s loading speed, check the responsiveness of email campaigns on various devices, and quickly optimise any mobile-specific advertising to capture the attention of on-the-go shoppers.
With Black Friday just around the corner, these last-minute checks can make all the difference in the success of your digital marketing efforts. From nurturing customers for a prolonged buying lifecycle to fine-tuning prices based on sales data, each step contributes to a comprehensive strategy for a memorable Black Friday campaign. Take a deep breath, run through this checklist, and get ready to reap the rewards of your well-prepared marketing efforts on the biggest shopping day of the year. Happy selling!
