Making the Most of Black Friday & Cyber Monday – For Businesses

With November rolling around, the windup to Christmas is beginning; but before we get to enjoy the peace and quiet of the festive period, we first must face the chaos of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In 2021, the UK public spent 9.42 billion pounds across the Black Friday weekend, a value that has steadily grown over preceding years and is projected to keep growing well into the future. Many consumers absolutely love a sale and getting hit with a website banner detailing a seemingly impossible reduction in price is more than enough to exponentially grow conversion rates – frequently earning businesses their most profitable weekend across the entire year. With the sheer buying intent present over these few days, it would be a massive loss for a business to not partake in Black Friday & Cyber Monday. Partaking and profiting, however, are two completely different things and if your website isn’t reaching users, no number of flashy sales guarantees you a steady stream of conversions. Below are some of our top tips for making the most of this year’s – and subsequent years’ – Black Friday and Cyber Monday festivities. Year-Long Dedicated Landing Page It’s pretty common for large corporations to create a dedicated Black Friday & Cyber Monday landing page to funnel visitors straight to the discounts and to compete for massive sale-related key terms. Of course, the quality of their original domains means that these pages quickly pick up rankings and end up performing very well across search engines. Smaller or medium-sized businesses don’t have the same capability and will need ongoing SEO services to build authority and gain preferential treatment across search engines; in the time this takes to happen, you might as well start thinking about the next Black Friday & Cyber Monday. By maintaining a dedicated Black Friday & Cyber Monday landing page on a year-long basis, you give the page an opportunity to naturally establish itself within search engines. You can even go one step further and carry out SEO optimisation specific to this page in order to get it fully primed ahead of the next year. Google reports that up to 61% of holiday shoppers begin browsing for Black Friday & Cyber Monday and a year-long landing page can be key to hoovering up early traffic and swaying buyer intent while competition is still relatively low. Ongoing SEO services are required for websites to build authority and gain preferential treatment within search engines come Black Friday & Cyber Monday. Competitive Discounts With developments in web browsing as well as the introduction of price comparison sites and apps, it’s easier than ever to find the best deal on any product or service. During Black Friday & Cyber Monday – times of the year specifically dedicated to sales, you’re going to see almost every supplier large and small offering discounts. Unfortunately, this makes it easier than ever for a consumer to find a cheaper alternative if your prices aren’t quite as competitive as they could be. You may wish to do your own research once the Black Friday sales start to get a better idea of where competitors are pricing their own products/services. While it may be slightly unethical to change the sales once live, some suppliers offer flash discounts where additional savings are added during a certain timeframe – if properly utilised, this can help to keep your prices level with the competition. You may also wish to consider current trends when choosing products or services to go on sale. The pandemic has meant that demand has shifted slightly with different items currently trending than what was seen historically. Countdown Timers & Item Bundles Conversion rate is a potentially make-or-break metric for businesses; if you can’t convert visitors, this may be indicative of deep-lying issues within your website or sales process and something that will no doubt hinder your profits. Amongst the many ways in which you can boost your website’s conversion rate, below are our two recommendations for doing so during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period. Countdown Timers – a great way to put pressure on whimsical buyers, a countdown timer incentivises quick purchases by threatening them with the fear of missing out. When paired with a flash sale, a countdown timer can be especially effective. Item Bundles – already used by some retailers, item bundles look to offer additional discounts to users purchasing multiple products. For businesses that sell smaller, cheaper items, bundles can entice buyers into making multiple purchases. By integrating these strategies within your Black Friday & Cyber Monday selling strategies, you give visitors a gentle nudge pushing them into making a purchase or at least adding something to their basket. Referral Programs Opinions play a major part in buyer intent and if your business has established brand loyalty, a referral program can introduce the friends and family of your repeat customers directly to your business. It’s rare for someone to refer a business or product purely off their own back and it frequently takes some form of incentive in order to persuade them to do so. Due to being one of the most trusted forms of advertising, referrals tend to garner far higher repeat conversions than many of the alternatives and frequently generates loyal customers. Examples of referral incentives provided by businesses include free products, discount vouchers, or even a small sum of money. Contact Our Experts for Digital Marketing Strategy Get in touch with our team of Digital Marketing Strategy specialists who have the knowledge and know-how to fully optimise your social media and website, allowing you to enhance the number of leads and conversions your business gets. Call our team on 0121 439 5450, alternatively fill out our contact form.

For more information on Making the Most of Black Friday & Cyber Monday – For Businesses talk to Odyssey New Media Ltd