Black Friday is almost here, and most businesses are preparing intensely for record sales. However, due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, consumer behavior has changed quite a bit in the last two years. This is one of the reasons why every business should review, but also adjust their digital marketing strategy to get the desired results. Statistics provided by PwC show that consumer interest in Black Friday has fallen from 51% to 38% in the last year. Knowing this becomes more important than ever to try a new approach, based on techniques designed not only to maintain but also to increase the interest of the audience.
Here are 4 tactics to include in your Black Friday digital marketing strategy this year:
1. Increase your presence in social media
Social media platforms are the perfect place to interact with the audience, becoming a powerful marketing tool that can influence their decisions. Since Black Friday, the platforms are mostly used to bring offers to the attention of consumers, but this year try to do something more than that. Use social media to listen to your audience and find out what their needs are. This way it will be much easier for you to take the necessary measures and improve the consumer experience. Some tips in this direction would be to always respond to messages and comments from customers, to optimize social media accounts so that users can easily find you, but also to connect your online store with social platforms to allow them to buy directly from the feed. The latter will save valuable time, urging them to make a purchase by facilitating the buying process.
2. Optimize the website
Website performance is one of the most important elements for eCommerce. When it comes to Black Friday, users expect it to have the highest possible loading speed, not to show errors, not to break, but also to be displayed properly. Otherwise, it will be very likely that they will give up making another purchase on your website. To increase your conversion rate, you'll need to make sure that your website's upload speed doesn't exceed three seconds, although the lower the better. To find out what the upload speed is, you can try a speed test tool like GTMetrix. In addition to loading speed, you need to test whether it can cope with a massive increase in traffic. If the website is already quite loaded and tends to fall when traffic is high, an upgrade will definitely be helpful. This way, you will be able to avoid any problems that could affect the shopping experience of consumers when they come in contact with your shop.
3. Offer more than just discounts
Black Friday discounts are at the forefront, but to have an advantage over competitors, you should consider offering something more than that. The provision of incentives could also come as a motivation for making a purchase. You can try to offer free shipping or returns, bonuses, or additional discounts when buying more products. Giving a gift when completing an order would also be helpful. This may consist of a small product to be included in the package or even in other discount coupons that users can use in their future purchases. Regardless of your choice, the inclusion of such a tactic in the digital marketing strategy will have positive effects, which will be reflected in sales and more.
4. Try to reduce abandoned carts
Abandoned carts refer to the situation where a consumer adds products to the shopping cart, continues to complete the order, but leaves the page before completing the transaction. These are a major problem for online businesses, causing substantial financial losses. One of the main reasons why this is happening is that users want to see if they can get a better deal elsewhere. To ensure that they will return and to reduce the rate of abandoned carts you can consider the following practices:
Implement an automated abandoned cart email
Email marketing is very helpful when you want to reduce the rate of abandoned carts. The implementation of such a campaign would consist of the automatic sending of emails to customers who do not complete the order, coming as a reminder, but also as a motivation to complete the order. To have the desired results, the subject of the email reminds the user that he "left something behind", but do not forget to include a discount code to increase his motivation to return and complete the order.
Make sure the checkout process is quick and easy
Nobody wants to waste a lot of time completing an order. To avoid the situation where the consumer gives up shopping, simplifies the checkout process. Make sure that you only ask for the relevant information for delivery and that you do not load the user with other additional details.
Black Friday marks the most important shopping event of the year, so implementing a strong digital marketing strategy will help you get the most out of it. Make sure you consider these practices and prepare your business accordingly so that you can get visible results. If you need help, you can turn to a digital marketing agency in London, which will provide you with the necessary guidance.
