Black Friday is certainly one of the most anticipated events of the year, both by retailers and consumers. The date that marks the last Friday of November inaugurates the shopping season at the end of the year and stirs the trade with aggressive discounts and increased sales.
Originating in the USA, the American event takes place after the Thanksgiving holiday, being incorporated into the Brazilian calendar in 2010 and since then conquering physical and online stores. After all, it is on Black Friday that companies hope to get out of the red and increase profits. And in online sales the appeals are even more aggressive and the chances of increasing sales are greater.
The success of Black Friday is undeniable and during this period the competition is even fiercer and whoever knows how to plan to reach the consumer with the best offer faster wins. Thus, preparation for the event has become mandatory for companies to succeed and remain competitive in the market.
Tips for selling on Black Friday
Offer and target planning
The first question that will structure your planning is: will you only hold Black Friday, will you extend discounts in Black Week or Black Month? What makes the most sense for your consumer? And don’t forget Cyber Monday, the Monday after Black Friday dedicated to promoting online sales.
Defining the type of strategy used will help in making all other decisions.
Another important point is to establish the pricing strategy used to offer discounts and understand which products will be included in the promotions.
With the rain of offers during Black Friday, it is very common for retailers to be tempted to offer a bigger discount than the competition to compete on equal terms and win more customers. But be careful! Before applying discounts to products, you need to study your finances to ensure discounts that will not harm your company’s cash.
Furthermore, it is essential that you analyze the cost of the product, considering the acquisition value at the supplier, storage cost, transport and possible reverse logistics, and then apply a discount percentage that guarantees a minimum profit margin to make your operation viable.
Another part of planning is setting goals
- What amount will be invested in campaigns and other actions during and Black Friday?
- How much do I want to earn on Black Friday?
This is the only way to determine the number of orders that need to be made based on the average ticket. Based on this, understanding the conversion rate of the virtual store, it is possible to have more clarity about the amount that should be invested in each of the actions during the event.
Know your consumer
Knowing your consumer is part of a good sales strategy. For this, it is essential to rescue the persona planning.
- Who is the persona you want to talk to?
- Which channel will be used?
- When and what time will the communication take place?
- In what language and approach?
A curious and important fact about the consumption behavior revealed during Black Friday 2020 is that consumers have been waiting for discounts since the beginning of November. So, preparing them from the beginning of the month is essential. The famous “warm up” for Black Friday can yield good results, according to consultancy Ebit/Nielsen.
Therefore, we said above that planning needs to be carried out in advance to keep up with trends and consumer movement at the time.
Create Digital Marketing Campaigns
Only applying discounts on your website and marketplaces and not disclosing them to your audience will hardly result in more sales. The consumer needs to be informed about the promotions, mainly because of the fierce competition in this period. If you don’t, your competitor will surely do it!
For this, digital marketing will be your great ally.
Digital Marketing is nothing more than a series of actions and communication strategies aimed at attracting consumers and promoting brands in the online environment. And the advantages of these actions are diverse, such as:
- Possibility of personalized communication with the public
- Interactivity with the public
- Analysis and measurement of results
- Targeting marketing actions to specific audiences
- Wide audience through digital channels
And to establish a consistent online presence during Black Friday, it is essential to follow some steps for your company to increase results through the internet.
Choice of channels
Use different channels to run campaigns. Be present where your consumer is. It can be Social Networks, Blog, Marketplaces, Google, among others.
For this, it is important to create a communication plan with a beginning, middle and end so that you can make the best use of Black Friday.
Therefore, you need to plan ahead. Whether 15, 30 or 45 days before Black Friday. One of the perks is preparing your customer base for promotions when no one else is talking about it, so you’re more likely to be remembered.
Another point is that, when you anticipate, it is possible to get a lower cost per lead in paid campaigns, because the closer to the Black Friday date, the more expensive the campaigns tend to be for you to achieve the same result.
Get organic and paid traffic
With the definition of the channels that will be used, it is possible to make a more detailed campaign planning for the generation of organic and paid traffic. And at this point Google can be a great friend, as it allows the creation of specific actions for organic ranking.
Thinking about organic traffic, it is necessary to do an SEO plan for keyword development, but with the support of media for the message it is going to convey. Considering that, at this time of Black Friday there are several competitors trying to fight for the attention of the same user.
Remembering that Google contributes equally to the acquisition of paid traffic to your site as investing in sponsored links.
Make sure you use the other available communication channels such as social media. And then Instagram and Facebook come into the picture!
Advertising on Instagram can boost your results. In social networks it is possible to make two types of paid campaigns, to attract new customers and remarketing.
In case you didn’t know, remarketing campaigns are aimed at users who were previously impacted by your brand on social media or went to your website and didn’t complete their purchase. These are the consumers who need one more incentive to make the purchase.
Invest in Email Marketing
Many may consider email marketing an outdated strategy, led to a mistake. Investing in a structured email marketing campaign can yield good Black Friday sales results.
Email marketing offers a unique channel to your consumer base for personalized communication.
The first tip regarding email marketing is to use an email automation tool. Without it the work will be impossible! Automation tools that will make it possible to create automatic triggers for a large number of recipients.
The second tip for creating personalized offers for your customers is: segment your contact base before and during Black Friday. The more segmented your base, the greater the chances of converting into sales.
There are several types of segmentations, some of them are:
- Seasonal buyers
- Buyers more engaged with your email communication
- VIP customers
- Customers who abandoned their cart
- category buyers
- Users who have not yet made a purchase
- Email ignorers
- Geo-targeting
- People who like to give
And remember, for each of the consumer segments a different and personalized offer that will be irresistible.
Customer service
And I couldn’t miss the service, of course!
A key aspect to your Black Friday success that needs to be planned very carefully.
And thinking about digital marketing, customer service is a key part of a well-executed strategy.
One of the most important channels that retailers need to be aware of is Reclame Aqui. Unaddressed complaints on the platform can result in a bad reputation for your e-commerce.
Other channels also need to be included in the service, such as social networks, WhatsApp, email and tickets open on marketplaces.
In order to have good service, you need to assign someone from your team to support customers in case there is an increase in the volume of requests from these buyers.
Something that can make it much easier, especially in times of crisis, is the creation of an FAC with the main doubts that consumers may have in the pre, during and after purchase on Black Friday, such as: delivery time, cumulative discounts, exchange and return, among many others.
To provide a good service, answer these questions:
- How will the monitoring on Reclame Aqui and on social networks be for service?
- What is the contingency plan if there is a problem?
- What is the crisis management plan to anticipate and manage any problem quickly and directly?
- Will there be a task force to serve these customers after sales?
Take care of your Inventory and Logistics
And let’s go to one of the most critical points when we talk about Black Friday, Logistics and Inventory.
First take an inventory of your stock. You need to know very well which products you have and how much of them. This will determine your purchases for Black Friday.
A tip to optimize your stock during the promotion season is to apply greater discounts to those products that have a lower output, the products that are not star. This gives you the opportunity to sell them to renew your stock.
But balance is everything, isn’t it? So, be careful not to apply discounts only to stranded products.
On the other hand, not all your products need to be part of the Black Friday promotions. Remember that Christmas is just around the corner and you can’t run out of stock on Black Friday.
Maintain a good relationship with trusted suppliers to ensure that your orders are delivered on time and do not result in the lack of key products in your store.
For logistics, you need to understand once and for all that it is not just about shipping products. It involves the entire process from picking the product, packing the item and even shipping the product.
If you don’t have an organization, address, if you don’t prepare your operation to separate orders quickly, there are great chances of a problem. Shipping will take longer than expected and you will have a lot of dissatisfied customers.
