Help your business prepare for a successful Black Friday

An effective way to draw in those users who have already had a look at some of the products on your site, but not converted, is to use social re-marketing tools. This is a great way to show your target user that their item is in the sale, but will only be available at such a great price for a limited time.

Amend your PPC ad copy

Ad copy will need to be extremely compelling and appeal to users who are actively looking for sales, so make sure the term ‘Black Friday’ is present in your ad. You’ll also need a strong, stand-out call to action to ensure that users want to click on your ad above your competitors’.

Remember, competition is going to be sky high during Black Friday. This means you’ll need to bid more aggressively in order to promote your sale.

Put plans in place in case products go out of stock

During Black Friday, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that products will go out of stock. That’s why you need a plan.

Out-of-stock products can actually present an internal linking opportunity that could still lead to a conversion. If your sale products aren’t due to come back into stock, but that page is still receiving traffic and / or has backlinks pointing to it, it’s in your website’s best interests to keep the page live. In this instance, it’s a good idea to add some links to products the user might also be interested, based on the original sold-out item.

Make sure your user actually sees the links; if all they see is a big SOLD OUT sign, they’re just going to leave straight away. Placing internal links above the fold will give you the best possible chance of keeping customers on the site.

Get your homepage Black Friday ready

Think of your homepage as a shop window and make it as clear as possible that you’re holding a Black Friday sale. You can do this by placing eye-catching banners with compelling calls to action that will also help users navigate to your discounted products.

An effective way to get customers excited about your Black Friday sale is to add a timer or countdown to your homepage. This will also build up a sense of urgency, as it highlights the fact that the discounts won’t be around for long.

Look at your site from a UX perspective

It’s worth bearing in mind that Black Friday shoppers don’t want to hang around. If they’re asked to fill in their details as part of a registration process during the path to purchase, it’s likely that they’ll get frustrated and leave.

To remove any possible barriers to purchase ahead of Black Friday, it’s well worth carrying out a UX and CRO test. This will help you to remove those obstacles and speed up the buying process for your customers, increasing your chances of conversion.

Examples of good Black Friday marketing

Even when you’ve got your Black Friday strategy underway, one of the biggest challenges is getting your brand to stand out against all the others. Here are two amazing examples of Black Friday marketing that made a lasting impact on customers:

Very.co.uk

Very.co.uk operates solely online, with no high street stores. With £600m worth of sales taking place on the high street last year, this presented a problem.

To overcome the challenge, Very brought their campaign to the streets using roadside digital 6-sheets, which acted as ‘digital shop fronts’. The ads were powered by real-time data from sales, audience, search and location, so they were updated throughout the day. This was a brilliant way to get shoppers to shop online and benefit from the site’s great deals.

Pieminister

In 2016, British pie shop chain Pieminister opened pop-up shops across the UK, giving away surplus supply to raise money for homeless charity, Shelter.

This campaign meant that the brand made money from stock that would otherwise have gone to waste, and raised £3,600 for a charitable cause.

Sarah Wain, senior content executive, Return