Four Quick and Easy Ways to Boost Online Sales During Black Friday Weekend

Last-Minute Things You Can Do to Take Advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday to Help Rev Up Online Sales this Holiday Season

The holidays are upon us again! For most retailers, Q4 is the busiest time of year and it all starts with Black Friday/Cyber Monday. In fact, the research suggests that Americans are expected to spend $90.14 billion on BF/CM shopping in 2018.

While large companies like Walmart and Amazon have historically dominated the BF/CM conversation, it’s possible for businesses of all sizes to participate in and benefit from this unofficial start to the holiday rush. With Small Business Saturday growing as an online movement, there’s never been a better time to kick start Q4 sales with an epic BF/CM weekend no matter the size of your operation.

And this is increasingly true for businesses that run an online store. According to stats provided by Adobe, there are now more people shopping exclusively online during this time than those who stick to brick-and-mortar stores alone. More and more consumers are opting to take advantage of deals on their mobile devices, and overall online sales for the weekend hit an all-time high in 2017.

Even better news for small businesses: According to the data, “websites from small retailers that make $10 million or less convert twice as much as bigger retailers that make $100 million or more” during the BF/CM weekend.

With all that in mind, here are a few Black Friday/Cyber Monday tips to help get your holiday sales humming.

Offer a Promo Code on All Online Marketing Platforms

Customers are always looking for deals at this time of year. If you want to stay competitive in the fourth quarter, it’s worth considering offering Black Friday/Cyber Monday coupons and/or discounts to new and existing customers alike.

If you’ve got the right eCommerce platform, creating a discount code is easy. Platforms like BigCommerce allow you to build discounts that apply to certain product categories, your whole website, or clearance items you’re hoping to push out of your inventory before EOY. BigCommerce’s custom coupon codes allow for both percentage-based and dollar-based discounts, and you can also create free shipping offers. Best yet? You can set an expiration date for pretty much any style of discount to help create a sense of urgency in your buyers.

Once you have a discount in place or a promotion code set in your eCommerce back end, share that news as widely as possible. You can publish a coupon code in on a banner on your website, send it across all your social media feeds, and put it in an email blast to your customer list. Just make sure you get the word out!

Gather New Customer Emails

If you run an online store, odds are that you’ll get an uptick in website traffic this time of year. Make the most of this boon by setting up an email blast to be sent to new email subscribers.

Most eCommerce platforms have great email newsletter technology built into their systems. And dedicated platforms like Klaviyo and MailChimp take all things email marketing to the next level.

Whatever platform you’re working with, make sure your email sign-up form is featured prominently on your website. You can even promote sign ups this time of year by promising new subscribers a special discount code (remember all that talk about customers expecting coupons right now?).

Make sure the first email blast of your campaign includes a warm welcome message as well as that promised code, all with the aim of inviting new and potential customers back to your store.

If you can craftily capitalize on getting more email sign ups during the crazy end-of-year holiday rush, you’ll have those emails available all year long—with the option of sending product news, company achievements, and maybe a few more promo opportunities well into the new year and beyond.

On a related subject, check out our recent post on how to make the most of your abandoned carts (hint: email campaigns play a huge role).

Make the Most Out of Selling on Amazon

Amazon is a great place to gain visibility for your brand. At efelle, we regularly strategize with our eCommerce clients on how to best use that visibility year-round.

If you sell products both from a company website and on Amazon, you’ll know that as great as Amazon is, it has its limitations (for instance, Amazon tends to take a bigger piece of the pie per sale). To drive some of your Amazon customers back to your own online store, consider including a note that features a discount code in the packages you sell through Amazon; set this code to work specifically on your own online store. This will help you earn repeat customers while making the most of the exposure you originally received from the Amazon sale. Follow-up coupons can also help boost customer loyalty (you worked so hard to earn that customer in the first place—if you can earn their repeat business with little effort, you’ll give a serious boost to the lifetime value of your average customer).

Don’t Participate at All—For a Cause

Are you not wanting to participate in the Black Friday/Cyber Monday craze for whatever reason? Consider sharing your reasoning behind why your company is abstaining—if you get your pitch right, you may actually gain business.

Your lack of participation can be a vehicle to share your values if you’re doing it for reasons that resonate with your customer base. We’ve seen huge success with purposeful lack of participation in Black Friday by companies like REI. They famously close their doors on Black Friday and encourage their customers to head outside instead, promoting their cause with the hashtag #OptOutside.

You may also consider participating in Giving Tuesday instead of Black Friday. Giving Tuesday is an online-driven movement that sees companies donating a proceed of their sales that day (this year, it falls on November 27) to charities they support. Some consumers will respond well to knowing that part of their sum total is going to a good cause, and will feel encouraged to make a purchase whether they get a discount or not.

Looking for More Tips to Give Your eCommerce Website a Boost?

At efelle creative, we’ve been in the business of designing and developing eCommerce websites for well over a decade. If you’re looking for more advice on how to take your online store to the next level, sign up for our newsletter (scroll down to our site footer to find the sign-up field!). We’re also here to answer your questions. Call us at 206.384.4909 or reach out via our online contact form.