Opinion article by Arsenis Paschopoulos, founder of Just Online Digital Marketing Agency. After running thousands of online campaigns he has set up a hot list of must-do steps for making the best out of Black Friday Sales.

We are more than grateful to host his article because his Sales Strategy Tips apply all year long. We are firm believers that an evergreen e-commerce strategy works for any size online business. To make a long story short, the best time to prepare for your next Black Friday Sale is now.

Black Friday Tips

Continuing the tradition of recent years in Greece, we ‘’celebrated’’ Black Friday on November 25th and Cyber Monday on November 28th. If you are an e-shop owner and, while you are reading this article, you are wondering ‘’Do I have to start thinking about what I will do on November 25th’’?

I would say that you are probably already late (and I am probably late in writing this article). But if you are planning to ace next year’s Black Friday then there is plenty of time to wow your customers.

So let’s both agree that you are going to prepare for the next Black Friday as soon as possible. And that’s because the competition is already preparing for one of the biggest commercial days on the planet. So, keep on reading to find out what you have to do and you will understand why you had to start doing it…yesterday.

Get Ready for Black Friday

What do we mean by that? Take out your notebook and start taking notes.

• Have you checked the functionality of your e-shop? The slightest mistake will reduce your credibility in the eyes of your visitors whom you brought at a cost but you will never see again.
• Have you checked the bandwidth consumed by your e-shop?
• Has your hosting package reached its limits and will you need something more extensive? Ask your hosting company to inform you how much you are already consuming from your existing bandwidth.
• Have you checked the security and speed of your e-shop? If it doesn’t load in 3’’ or at least 5’’ you will definitely lose customers because they’ll leave before they even enter the e-shop.
• Have you done an evaluation of the mixed product that you offer?
• Which products are you going to put on sale? All of them?
• Isn’t it an opportunity to enrich your product range with new products that your customers might be interested in?
• Have you planned for at least one extra ‘’shift’’ to provide the best support services to your customers via Viber, Messenger, email, and phone?

Bring Them In

Give them a bunch of good reasons to give you their full attention.

• Will you create E-mail & Viber messaging to reach out to your existing customers so as to give them something more than you will offer to new visitors?
• Have you set up the necessary ‘’scripts’’ for email marketing or are you just sending out a newsletter?
• Will you run Google & Social Media ads to make your offers known to the general public?
• Have you considered all the possible campaigns you can set up or do you believe that just Boost Post is enough? (read why it’s not enough in this article).
• If you also have a store, will you do local online & offline advertising actions to bring them to your door?

And now here is the BIG question: Have you prepared the ad visuals for Black Friday?

Sell, It’s More Than Selling

It’s all about pure strategy. And Sale is only the tip of the iceberg.

Have you thought about the offers and discounts you’re going to give? What exactly will you offer? Giveaways?, Promotions? Discount prices? Free shipping? When you decide you should:

• Create the corresponding banners which you will put in the slider or pop-ups
• Create the corresponding offers in the e-shop’s admin panel
• Check if the mechanism of the offers is working and does not affect or combine with any other discounts.
• Have you considered that maybe you should motivate your e-shop visitors to buy from you and not from the hundreds of other e-shops that will bombard them with advertisements during this period, such as a loyalty scheme?
• Have you ever thought about the mechanisms your e-shop should have like product suggestions, smart search, emergency ordering techniques, notification mechanisms, upselling & cross-selling mechanisms so as to increase the value of your average ‘’cart’’?
• Besides the standard payment methods (card, bank deposit, Paypal, POD-Pay on Delivery) do you also use one-click checkout and BNPL (buy now pay later) methods?

Resell After Black Friday

• Have you predicted to set up a “forgotten in cart” scenario via email?
• Have you set up remarketing & dynamic remarketing campaigns?
• Do you have an alert mechanism for products you don’t have in stock?
• Do you offer a customer loyalty program?
• Do you have a customer experience rating program?

Deliver

• Have you talked to your suppliers about the increased stock they need to be ready to supply?
• Have you talked to your courier company about the increased traffic and if they are prepared to handle it?
• Have you discovered the new click & collect delivery formats that allow you to reduce your costs and increase your delivery speed?
• And finally, have you set up enhanced e-commerce tracking in Google Analytics to measure which promotion and advertising channel brought you how many sales (in terms of turnover and items) and for which products?

Conclusion

After reading the entire list, are you sure you want to wait a week or two before Black Friday?
Read also this article if you want to run a self-assessment of your eshop today. If you want an eshop evaluation and someone to help you with your Black Friday campaign, we are here to help you.