White Friday and Cyber Monday deliver exciting opportunities for merchants to connect with customers. In fact, for weeks leading up to these sales, a number of brands become more active, promoting deals and working to create buzz around their products and services.
Why? Because shoppers are essentially primed and ready to shop while enjoying some of the year’s biggest savings, whether they have big-ticket items they’ve been saving up for on their shopping list, or presents for their family and friends they want to buy in preparation for any end of the year celebrations and gatherings. Capturing their attention at this vital period is a no brainer if you want to boost your sales.
So, with retail spending forecasted to grow in MENA across several major shopping categories, we believe all merchants should be ready to truly make the most of this event this year. Below are our top 8 tips for doing so!
1. Create an Enticing Deal and Shout About It
The first and most important thing is to craft strong deals, discounts and offers that your customer will think are unmissable within a sea of discounts and mega-sales being rolled out across various retailers.
Here are some creative options to get you thinking:
● Create a limited-time only product collection or hamper that bundles together different products for a discounted rate
● Offer different deals by the hour, starting with one huge deal but then offering a variety of different deals and discounts on the day
2. Don’t Lose Interested Customers
More people than normal will be landing on your site and product pages during White Friday, but many might not actually make a purchase. Cart abandonment rates or shoppers simply bouncing because they’re not enticed enough increases massively at this time of the year.
Make sure you’re not losing out on sales at the last hurdle by sending out cart abandonment emails to remind shoppers of the items they’ve left behind, as well as optimizing your website so that every single person who lands on it is aware of your great deals and offers.
Emphasizing the “limited-time only” element of your deals and creating a sense of urgency around offers that will quickly disappear can be enough to prompt someone to finalize a purchase they’re already close to making.
3. Focus On Getting New Customers
This is not just a time to make sales to your existing customers, it's a time to reach new customers too! With many on the lookout for great deals, White Friday is an important opportunity for merchants to entice people who aren’t yet familiar with their brand yet.
If you can persuade customers to opt-in to marketing, it’s a great opportunity to boost your email list and communicate new offers and deals to your audience too.
4. Only Promote Select Products
Simplifying things for your customers by only promoting select products and lines can help to focus attention and increase appeal. For instance, choosing your most popular can help people to make a decision when they’re already overwhelmed by the many deals and offers going around during White Friday.
5. Build Anticipation
When so much depends on a few days of sales going well, starting early with exciting promotional emails and announcements to build anticipation is important. At the very least, you want to make your email subscribers aware of the deals about to land, but you should also be leveraging your social media audiences to their full potential.
6. Prepare for Increased Traffic!
If things go well, an increasing number of customers will visit your site and explore your deals. To make sure your site doesn’t face any technical problems such as slow speed due to a surge in traffic, make sure you have the digital infrastructure in place to handle the increased traffic.
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7. Optimize for Quick and Smooth Mobile Payments
We’re sure you already know this, but make sure your site is 100% optimized for mobile sales. Check everything from the page load speed and the way your images are displayed, to the layout of your actual website in mobile view. Sometimes, mobile versions will appear differently to desktop after you make changes to your banners and graphics, so double-check everything looks perfect!
Time is such an important aspect of this period and doing everything you can to guide your shoppers smoothly, with no barriers or payment friction, through each step towards checkout is paramount.
8. Offer Free Delivery
If you’re not doing so already, consider offering free delivery for the White Friday and Cyber Monday events. While customers might be willing to spend more during this time, they’re still conscious of delivery costs and many will see free shipping as a deal-breaker when comparing different deals.
It’s a simple way for brands who aren’t able to offer attractive discounts, to at least entice customers with an incentive to shop during the sale.
Final Word
We understand that White Friday can be a lot of pressure for merchants. And if you’re not at the point where you can offer attractive discounts, you may be worried that going too deep with your deals will affect your bottom line negatively.
Having said this, a little can go a long way. Whether it’s just offering free delivery for a limited time or increasing your marketing spend slightly to communicate a modest discount offer, you can signal to customers that you’re also in the White Friday game and should be considered.
Sources:
https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/black-friday-ecommerce
https://blog.hubspot.com/website/prepare-website-black-friday
https://www.similarweb.com/corp/blog/marketing/sem-ppc/black-friday-marketing-strategy/
