Black Friday is an American phenomenon which has taken the world by storm. This event is in November and businesses offer customers steep discounts to encourage purchases. But how can you be involved and succeed at Black Friday for your SME? Here are 10 ideas.
1. Design bundles
Giving excessive discounts is sometimes not feasible for SMEs. By bundling your products together, you can create an offer which suggests the customer is getting excellent value for money. If you have an online product, you could offer a product and free access to the online product.
2. Listen to social media
Use social listening well before Black Friday to hear what specials your customers and prospective clients are looking forward to. This can help you to decide how to create special offers for your customers which are tweaked to their needs.
3. Create a buzz
Create sneak peek posts on social media and send emails well in advance to create anticipation among your customers. You could also send preview emails to your loyal customers so they can prepare for the sale items they want to buy from your business. You should also pre-plan your social media posts which can be uploaded or sent quickly.
4. Check your stock
Ensure you have enough stock for your promotions. It takes a bit of finesse to reach the fine balance between too little stock and too much stock. If you have too much stock, then you may struggle to get rid of it after the day. If you review your records from previous years, you can create a good guesstimate of how much stock you need.
5. Walk through your store
For a brick-and-mortar store, walk through the store and ensure that everything is easily obtainable, and people can move around with some ease. For your online store, hire a private shopper to use your website and highlight where they may have experienced problems.
6. Give free shipping
To discourage online cart abandonment, you should offer free shipping. This may encourage your customers to buy more products. Or encourage first-time buyers to complete their purchase.
7. Keep the hype going
Because of the chaos associated with Black Friday, many people stand outside the shops from early in the morning to get the best deals. By offering a new deal throughout the day, you could minimise the chaos. You should ensure that if you do offer hourly deals, they are clearly indicated on all collateral that advertises your Black Friday deals.
8. Be prepared
Hire more staff and check your website can take the increase in traffic that you expect with Black Friday. The new temp staff you have during Black Friday must have some training before the Black Friday day.
9. Extend the sale
Some customers have come to expect Black Friday Month, or the sale is on from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. However you choose to extend the deal ensure that your customers are aware of it.
10. Review your sale
At the end of the event, you need to review how it went. By looking at analytics you can see which approaches worked and which didn’t. This can help to make the next sale better.
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