Black Friday & Cyber Monday (BFCM) Success Tips From Tako
Wednesday, October 30, 2019Eric Zegarski
Attention Shopify Store Owners!
Here's How to Make the Most of Black Friday & Cyber Monday
Whether this is your first go-around with Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) or you’re a seasoned veteran, you KNOW this is one of the most--if not THE most--important sales days for online retailers.
Last year,
consumers spent US$22.5 billion online from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday. And that’s just in the United States alone!
Here are the top 5 things you can do to make sure you’re set up for success this BFCM:
1. Get Your Email Marketing in Order
If you don’t already have an email drip campaign set up, you’re missing out on sales opportunities! Setting up a drip campaign takes time and effort up front, but then ticks away on its own with relatively little oversight. A well-designed drip campaign can keep you top of mind and nudge customers back to your store to follow through on the purchase they abandoned.
2. Give it Away, Give it Away, Give it Away Now
It’s an oldie but goodie: give away something for free with a purchase. Do you have a loss leader product in your collection? Now’s the time to bust that bad boy out and offer it for flat-out FREE.
If you don’t have a loss leader (i.e., a product or service you sell at or below cost to get customers “in the door” and hopefully buying additional, more profitable items), there’s still time to get organized, but you’ll have to work fast. The best loss leader product is one that is highly desirable (or necessary) to your target audience. For example, grocery stores often use milk as a loss leader.
Loss leaders can be a gamble when not tied to a purchase, because there will always be “cherry pickers” who buy only that item and nothing else--meaning you actually do lose money. Tying the free goodie to a purchase protects you from that risk. However, be sure to choose a purchase minimum that can be easily met relative to the average cost of something in your e-store.
3. Make it Easy For Customers to Make a Purchase
When was the last time you reviewed the UX/UI of your website? What kind of sales funnels do you have set up? Are they successful? Do they need some adjustments? Basically: is the path to purchase clear to the customer?
The browsing, shopping, and checkout process on your website should be a breeze. That means no bugs, no clunky navigation, no weird redirects, and no 404 errors or missing pages.
It should also convert those browsers into shoppers. That means engaging marketing copy, high-quality product images and/or demo videos, special promotions, personalization, and appropriate calls to action--all components of an effective sales funnel.
4. Shore Up Your Defences
If your marketing campaigns leading up to BFCM have been effective, you might get an onslaught of site visitors when the clock ticks over.
Okay, well perhaps not a total onslaught, but at least more visitors than you’re used to having. Is your infrastructure set up to handle that increased traffic?
Think about everything from…
server capacity (how much bandwidth do you have?) to
product inventory (do you have automatic backorder communications in place?) and email list (what is your subscriber cap?).
Lastly, make sure that your tracking analytics are set up correctly. That way you can go back later to ooh and ahh over the spikes--and gain valuable insight into customer behavior and trends.
5. Make Your Life Easier and Get Hooked Up With an ERP
A good ERP is a magical tool that helps you keep track of things like orders, inventory, and shipments. ERPs streamline information and data from all your departments and programs, maximizing your understanding of your customer and sales--and in turn, how to get more of both.
The problem is, most ERPs require manual data entry in order to track all these metrics. MANUAL! In this day and age, MANUAL DATA ENTRY! Uggghhh. No.
Solutions like
eBridge, on the other hand, offer ingenious software that integrates all your other software (ERP, CRM, ecommerce, etc.) together. Hooking up your e-commerce platform with your ERP ensures a smooth bi-directional data flow, and best of all--say it with me now--no 👏 more 👏 manual 👏 data 👏 entry!
If you can’t knock out all the items on this list before BFCM, don’t panic. Tackle what you can, and put the rest on the list for the New Year--and if you need some help,
give Tako Agency a buzz. We’re happy to help.
Good luck!
ABOUT TAKO
At Tako, WE KNOW SHOPIFY. Like, a lot.
We’re a web & mobile app design & development agency passionate about creating incredible experiences--for our clients AND their end users. We know Shopify inside and out, and can provide a comprehensive experience from start to finish: branding, design, development, marketing, and more.
CLICK HERE to tell us how we can help you accelerate your online empire.