Every business has that one time that’s their busiest time of the year. For most, it’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s an understatement to say that things get pretty crazy at this time. Businesses start preparing for this time 2-3 months prior, and some of them start preparing even farther back. Of course, the reason for this is the deals for these two days sometimes start coming in earlier and customers anticipate when the deals would start.
It also seems like the perfect time to shop considering that the Christmas holidays are right around the corner and everyone needs to get some presents too. It’s a good time for customers and businesses alike if done right. To properly prepare for these few days, businesses need to plan and follow a sort of checklist. Not only is it a time to get an increase in sales, but if you play your cards right, you might increase your customer base and loyalty.
So, what do you do to make this happen? This is exactly what we will be discussing today. After reading, you can make a checklist of the things you need to do and if you time it right, you will start seeing results!
Set up Email Marketing Campaigns
Emails are a great way to grab your customers’ attention. Especially, if these customers have signed up for your newsletters and are expecting updates as well. Over the entire year, you have collected several emails through your loyalty program or sent them an e-receipt after online shopping, etc. It is a good practice to send an update to every email that you have.
Not only will it update loyal customers, but it can also bring in some old customers that may have shopped from you only once or twice.
This will also attract new customers as your loyal ones might recommend the business to their friends and family and talk about upcoming deals. Additionally, instead of just copying and pasting the same email and format everywhere, you can try this. The first round of emails could be like a teaser or a hint for the upcoming deals. This will particularly capture customers’ attention.
The second email should be sent once the deals have been posted and it could contain a few items that have been personalized for every person (based on their purchase history) and their deal prices!
Use Social Media
Social media is a great way to gain attention and traffic to your website. Most people, if not all, like to keep their eyes peeled on social media for a big day like this. This is also why every business makes social media ads and targets their customers and noncustomers on social media. However, social media is tricky.
Not only is it expensive, but your efforts can be ineffective if you don’t play your cards right. Instead of targeting every single account that exists, target specific accounts only. Or you can target those that have similar interests and are more likely to click on your ad. You can filter who sees your ad and who doesn’t. You can select interests, location, and the like when choosing who can see your ads.
This way whatever you spend on these ads, will not go to waste since you have added this filter to target those similar to your business and those who have a higher chance of liking and purchasing your products. Facebook ads and Instagram shopping are two of the most common ways to get shoppers onto your website and start purchasing.
Focus on Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization is one of the biggest tricks in bringing in customers organically. It also leaves a long-lasting benefit, unlike inorganic marketing, which is best for a little while only. The best thing about optimizing is that you can do that for all of your content and website. While it sounds like a lot of work if you have to do it for your entire website, it is not so difficult if you have been maintaining this since the beginning.
The product descriptions that you add, the picture subtitles, the text on the landing pages, product pages, and all of these contribute to the overall SEO. So, when you are updating the new prices and deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you can just make sure about these details and check if the picture files of the product are not too big. Otherwise, they might cause problems later when the website needs to load.
Set up customer support teams
Black Friday and Cyber Monday mean the biggest sales of the year. To deal with all of these people and manage the sales, you will need a huge team backing you up. Being a business, you already have a customer support team managing the problems and issues customers are facing. However, this time around, we recommend that the team goes through some training and workshops to devise a strategy to deal with customers quickly and efficiently.
The first step or the first change you need to make is the internet connection. You can’t have your internet causing problems for you, especially during this time. So, if you have been facing internet problems recently, you should consider changing your ISP. Xfinity Internet is a popular internet provider that offers some exceptional internet plans that you can check out. They are highly responsive to any complaints and issues about their services, which is why we are recommending them. To know more about their plans, check out www.buytvinternetphone.com/xfinity/internet.
To Sum Up,
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are one of the best or worst times for any business, depending on the response of their customers. If you don’t want to end up in the latter, then you should start preparing for it beforehand.
Following the tips we have given above is just step one of the big plans. After you have somewhat prepared your business for these special days, the next thing to do is look into the next steps of what to do. We didn’t write them here because it is a topic for another day!
