Main Website

How to prepare your online store for Black Friday sales in the last minute

Late for your Black Friday sales? Do not worry. With the right strategy and guidance, you can still nail it in the available time.

Today, we are here to help you with the same.

As you might know, Black Friday is a term for the Friday that follows Thanksgiving Day. It is celebrated as a shopping holiday in many countries across the globe.

With the world going online and technology becoming our best friend, Black Friday sale has become more about looking for the best offers on the web rather than store hopping.

It gives customers the opportunity to satiate their shopping hunger and get the best deals, discounts, offers and more, before Christmas, New Year, and other festivities.

On the other hand, it gives businesses the opportunities to revamp their stores, launch new products, run sales campaigns, attract new customers, and multiply revenue.

Basically, everything a business wants and needs!

One can argue, but Black Friday is probably the best time of the year for selling AND buying!

A study by Adobe states that consumers have been spending more than $9 billion on Black Friday sales, in the US alone. Similarly, $10.8 billion was spent online by the end of Cyber Monday in the year 2020.

Clearly, the trend will continue to grow in 2021 and you must tap into it now.

Read through the points one by one and find out how you can make the most of the sale season in the remaining time. Let’s dive!

1: No time to update design? Create an attractive banner

The first thing that most businesses do to prepare for the Black Friday sales, is to give their platform a makeover.

Some overhaul their website and app design, some adopt new color schemes and palettes, some experiment with the graphics and visuals used in branding, and so on.

However, if you feel that it is too late to experiment with something so nuanced, then you can simply update your main banner and align it with the Black Friday themes.

Place it on the landing or home screen and it will liven up the look and feel of the entire website.

You can use the banner to showcase your most click-worthy, tempting, and important deals & offers. You can also highlight your USP on the banner or simply place ads to monetize your platform.

Just make sure that it blends well with your existing theme and still stands out on the page.

Suggested Read: Five tips to ace in-app monetization with banner ads

2: Be clear about what you want & what you’re offering

One line should be enough to describe your Black Friday goal.

Yes, that is how precise and focused you need to be.

You will be able to tell your customers what you are selling and how you are selling only when you know it yourself.

So, study your customers, competitors, market trends, etc., with whatever resources you have at your disposal, and strategize accordingly.

Write compelling and eye-catching copies. The first few phrases should distinctively read “Black Friday Sale” or something along these lines.

The rest of the copy can go on to highlight your offer or at least give a summary of it.

Back it up with striking visuals and graphics that pop out and tempt users to take action.

3: Mobilize your agents to harness multiple platforms

Make an assessment of your budget and plan how much you are going to spend on promotions and advertisements.

Go ahead and place targeted ads on various platforms, especially on social media channels that are more likely to attract the shopping enthusiasts.

Align your ad creatives and copies as per the platform. For instance, if you are placing ads on Instagram, then focus more on the visuals and make sure that it catches the attention of your potential audience. On Twitter, you can use the Moment Marketing strategy.

No budget for ads?

Do not worry. You can still make use of social media platforms. Do regular posts, stories, etc., and organize online events and contests that makes your users feel invested in your brand.

Additionally, you can also send emails and push notifications to get your customers’ attention in the last minute.

Design smart messages and notifications and create a sense of urgency and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). This will motivate the impulsive buyers to take quick actions.

Suggested Read: Popular mobile app marketing techniques – The complete guide to success

4: Offer what your competitors have missed

Why should customers come to you at the last minute?

Before you convince and rope in customers, find an answer to the above question yourself.

Scroll through your competitors’ websites and see what they have missed that could probably engage and attract the customers. You can offer that on your platform.

It could be any offer like free shipping, express shipping, buy one get one free, or more.

You can also leverage your USP and give it a new spin to suit all the Black Friday buzz.

5: Retarget your existing & lapsed customers

If it is too late to acquire new leads and attract new customers, just turn to your old ones.

You might already be having ample data related to them.

Put all the existing information to use and try to re-engage them with lucrative deals and offers.

You can create buyer personas to give yourself and your workforce, an idea of what your consumers’ want and how they would prefer it to get communicated to them.

Also reach out customers who abandoned you in the past and try to lure them back with the right deals and offers.

Study your customers’ purchase behaviors to deliver personalized deals, product suggestions, discounts, gift coupons, etc., to their inbox.

You can also run targeted ads to reach out to these customers specifically. After all, each retained customer can be worth more than a new one.

Do not forget to run referral programs and leverage “word of mouth marketing benefits” by allowing buyers to share your brand in their circle.

You can also run loyalty reward programs and incentivize your customers for interacting with your brand more frequently.

6: Include Cyber Monday and more

Cyber Monday sale illustration

“BFCM” (Black Friday Cyber Monday) remains the buzz word this season every year without fail.

So, do not just get stuck with Black Friday. Give equal weight to Cyber Monday in your marketing and promotional endeavors to make it sound like an extravaganza.

Cyber Monday is actually the marketing term coined for e-commerce transactions on the Monday after Thanksgiving. So, harness it to the fullest as an online business and spike your online revenue.

You can also use message titles like “Missed Black Friday? Cyber Monday is still here”, or “Still feel like shopping? Cyber Monday sale is on” to keep your customers’ interests spiked.

You can also extend the deal days and compensate for arriving late in the game. Make it sound like a reward and let your customers feel that you are doing it for them.

Use phrases like “We want to thank you for your huge response, so we are extending the deal longer”, to make your audience feel valued and rewarded.

You can also checkout what other similar businesses are doing to leverage Black Friday and Cyber Monday together and get inspired from the best ideas.

7: Create app with an instant app builder

Mobile shoppers are more impulsive, generous, and retainable. Therefore, any sale is incomplete without tapping into the shopping spree of the mobile friendly audience.

So, it becomes mandatory to have an app and turn visitors into buyers and then buyers into regular app based customers.

After all, the business consumer relationship should not be limited to the sale period but continue beyond that.

How can this be ensured? Well obviously, by making those customers download an app and give you a more concrete and clickable space on their mobile phones.

This will help you eliminate the terrors and risks of “buy and bye” phenomenon that websites without apps suffer.

So, place a prominent link to your app on the app stores on the website landing page. Give your visitors a reason to download the app with “app only offers” and return to your brand even after Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

However, if you do not already have an app and feel like its too late to build one, then get rid of that thought immediately.

Technology has advanced way too much for you to be sulking and regretting like that. You can make use of instant app builder tools available online and get Android and iOS apps in no time.

There are some code-free app builders that can help you build premium apps with all the latest eCommerce features, that too on an affordable budget.

You can convert your website to a mobile app with one such app builder within minutes. So go mobile and make Black Friday sales a treat for yourself and your business.

Suggested Read: 10 statistics that show why you should create an app for your business

Wrapping up!

That was all from our end today!

If you are interested in mobile app development and marketing, then do checkout our blogs.

We cover a range of topics like WordPress website maintenance, app building for WordPress websites and so much more.

You can also use our guide to create premium and affordable apps without coding. So, do not forget to sign up and join our subscriber list (IT’S FREE)!

Go ahead and build your own app within minutes and implement all the other techniques listed above.

Turn the Black Friday sales into an absolute delight and memorable treat for your customers, and for your brand as well.

Since you are slightly late, make every moment count! Get going now!

Related Articles