Last minute black friday cyber monday tips for your ecommerce website

Black Friday is just a few days away and now is the time to make sure your eCommerce site is primed to earn great profits as you head into the holiday sale season.

Whether you’re offering physical merchandise or info products, we’ve collected some last minute strategies to help you make the most of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend.

Here are 10 mix-and-match options to maximize your online sales for BFCM.

1. DISCOUNTS

It’s no secret that Black Friday shoppers are all about the deals. BIG deals. Hitting magical pain points is less crucial during the BFCM event than being able to post significant %-off prices.

While 15% or even 20% off might be a treat for your regular customers, you won’t see a significant increase in conversions with those numbers. Black Friday shoppers are looking for something sensational!

If you want to bring around the rest of your hard-earned list, you’ll need to dig deep with BFCM sales.

This is one time you can set aside any concerns about undercutting your brand’s value by offering deep discounts. Many prominent brands will be offering discounts of 30% – 50% off.

Charles Fisher, founder, and CEO of Blenders Eyewear puts it this way:

“You can’t go into Black Friday and put 15% off, 20% off and expect to do well. Everything comes down to your offer – it’s the one time of the year you can lower your prices without feeling like you’re losing brand integrity. Make sure your offer is compelling, no matter what.”

If those discounts are too much of a stretch for you, consider designing bundle offers to create the impression of more dramatic savings.

2. UPSELLS

Upsells can be a lucrative way to increase performance on your eCommerce site and boost sales through the end of the year.

But not all upsells get the same results. For instance, thousands of tests have shown that in-cart upsells are likely to cause abandoned carts and harm overall conversion rates.

While this format may appear to boost the average order value (AOV), the lost conversions ultimately lead to lower overall sales.

A post-purchase upsell protects those original sales while giving shoppers a reason to keep shopping after the initial payment has been captured. This can translate to 200%+ increases in actual AOV.

Most major eCommerce platforms have tools and apps designed to make post-purchase upsell a breeze. ClickFunnels has the tools built right in, while WordPress, Shopify, and others have accessible apps and plugins to simplify the setup.

3. BUNDLES

As mentioned previously, bundles are another great way to capture those Black Friday, holiday shoppers!

In addition to return customers looking for a great deal, BFCM shoppers include huge numbers of Christmas gift-buyers who may never have considered your products for themselves.

Bundles hold a particular appeal with gift-givers looking for multiple gifts in a single purchase as well as shoppers who may enjoy a get-one-give-one “bonus”. And don’t forget the more-for-me crowd among your loyal customers.

Whether you prefer to curate a collection of items to sell in a bundled unit or simply offer discounts for quantity purchases, boosting your AOV and overall sales is a cinch with bundles.

Friendly Tip: When paired with paid traffic, bundles and post-purchase upsells are easy options to increase your ROAS (return on ad spend) all year long.

4. COUPON CODES

Of all the items on this list, coupon codes are the only ones we don’t recommend.

In all the activity around Back Friday and Cyber Monday shopping, asking your customers to keep track of coupon codes is a risky move. Lost and forgotten codes are a recipe for abandoned carts.

For many shoppers, an empty “coupon code” box is enough to send them on a search for codes they may or may not have had to begin with.

The opportunity to become distracted or discouraged and forget to complete the purchase is huge.

To make matters worse, those who complete the sale without a code are likely to follow up by asking for a price adjustment after the fact – creating extra work on the back end.

If coupon codes are unavoidable, save yourself some trouble and keep them simple. Limit codes to two memorable characters (2X or BF, for example).

Better yet, just skip them. We’re not kidding.

5. EMAIL MARKETING

Black Friday emails are popular for a reason. They work!

The more excitement you can generate leading up to Black Friday, the more impressive your sales will be that day.

It’s guaranteed everyone on your email list is going to have an inbox bursting with offers. That makes sliding yours in without triggering spam filters much easier.

Plan on at least two emails to your whole list in addition to segmented offers. A schedule of midnight, early morning, and late afternoon is a strong Black Friday campaign for your main emails.

To take advantage of email marketing for improved BFCM sales, list segmenting in addition to these primary emails is the way to go. We’ve prepared an example segment strategy that will make a big impact.

We recommend two primary segments:

The Early Opt-In List

A week or so out, send a blast inviting shoppers to opt-in to the exclusive advance-sale list. Apply your best copywriting techniques to communicate that the offers will be huge, limited, and available before Black Friday, but only for those who opt-in.

• Make sure interested customers can opt in with a click right from the email.
• Send the special deals the day before the big sale.
• Be sure to keep these customers on your primary list for the emails going out on Black Friday as well. Receiving these offers will emphasize the exclusive nature of any offers received the day before.

The VIP List

If you don’t already have your VIPs segmented, do it now. You get to decide how someone is included in the list. Most often this list is comprised of long-term customers, those who have spent a certain dollar amount, or loyal shoppers who have made X-number of purchases.

• Members of the VIP segment should clearly understand that they are receiving exclusive deals.
• Prepare a more expensive offer that is only available to members of the VIP list.
• This offer can be sent as an additional Black Friday email.

In the interest of building anticipation for your sale, consider adding these “extra” segments for an even more rewarding BFCM event:

The Cold List

Even customers who have previously gone MIA may be enticed to re-engage with the use of pre-event notices. Send these a week or two before the event to generate interest before things get rolling.

The Leaky List

Build anticipation with an early notice about impressive Black Friday deals and pre-sale offers leading up to the event. This may be an add-on to your regular campaigns or an extra nudge for customers you know will be eager for holiday sales.

6. MOBILE ACCESS

Last year an impressive 70%+ of Black Friday customers did their shopping from mobile devices. Be prepared!

Test your site, funnels, and cart from various types of devices. Be certain each page is optimized for mobile customers and that every click lands smoothly on the next page.

When in doubt, keep it simple. You don’t want to lose sales because the checkout process stalls or mobile customers can’t navigate past an oversized pop-up.

7. COPYWRITING

Sending all those emails won’t do any good if people don’t read them. Copywriting is the art of using words and formatting to ensure visitors become buyers.

The average American adult reads at a 7th-grade level. For context, most 7th graders are about 12 years old.

Elegant, wordy text may sound pretty, but if your customers get bored or frustrated they will leave. If a middle-school student can’t digest your emails and the text on your Website, it’s time to simplify. 

Easy text is even more relevant online because the brain processes words in a more random pattern on a screen than in print.

This is where formatting becomes useful. Most visitors will only read about 18% of a web page before choosing to buy or move on. Clever use of formatting can ensure it’s the important parts that catch their attention!

• Use bolded letters, italics, and underlining to highlight important text.
• Bullet points draw attention and make the big ideas stand out.

The Bottom Line: Keep the words simple and make the format interesting to catch your readers’ attention and convert them to buyers. 

8. ABANDONED CARTS

One of the easiest ways to boost sales on Black Friday is to re-capture abandoned cart traffic.

There are likely to be a lot of abandoned carts on such a busy shopping day. But with a few simple strategies, you can re-engage those shoppers and convert the sales.

• Keep it uniform. Match your abandoned cart email sequence to the rest of your BFCM material. Check language, offers, and graphics for consistency.
• Don’t wait. Shoppers are on a roll during Black Friday, moving from one sale to another. Make sure to re-capture their attention before they’ve made their purchases somewhere else.
• Be scarce. Make your Black Friday customers feel the urgency to snatch up your offer before it’s gone.
• Use SMS. Leverage the huge conversion rates of SMS to transform abandoned carts into increased sales. SMS is a powerful tool during sale events.

Whatever you do, be proactive. A little effort aimed at converting abandoned carts can make a major impact on your sales volume.

9. LIVE CHAT

Having live chat available on your Website is a great way to handle questions, and concerns and encourage brand confidence. People who would not bother with a phone call will tap the “live chat” icon to connect with you.

If you can’t manage it yourself, consider hiring a VA to cover basic questions. You’d be surprised how many people will ask questions that are already answered on your Website and even on the same page.

Chat is the “path of least resistance” for people who don’t want to take the time to search for answers. That means it’s also a simple way to close sales and increase dollars flowing in from your customers!

If you don’t believe us, consider the following fantastic “chat stats”:

• Connection is key! Websites that implement (and actively engage) live chat experience a 40% increase in conversions.
• Your presence breeds confidence! Maybe people feel that a site with someone standing by provides greater value. Whatever the reason, research shows that customers are 63% more inclined to revisit sites with live chat, whether they use it or not!
• Conversation converts! When users engage in live chat, 38% of them attribute their purchases to the chat conversation.
• They can’t use what’s not there. If you don’t have live chat, obviously customers won’t use it. That’s a serious loss when you realize shoppers who use live chat are 85% more likely to complete a purchase than their non-chatting counterparts.

Think twice before passing on this simple income multiplier!

BONUS NOTE FOR THOSE WHO SELL PHYSICAL PRODUCTS:

If you have merchandise available on Amazon marketplace, your Facebook ads will still boost sales. You read that right.

People trust Amazon. Regardless of where they see the ad, most people will shop for the product on Amazon. So don’t feel locked in with Amazon paid ads.

10. CREDIT CARDS

These days being equipped to safely process credit cards is essential for any business to thrive.

But not all processors offer the same level of security and stability.

Imagine having your processing account closed right in the middle of your Black Friday sales streak.

Just as concerning, what if your processor put a hold on the payouts from your BFCM sales because of a few chargebacks, refusing to release them for weeks or even several months?

Very few businesses could survive something like that. But processors like Stripe or Paypal will make decisions to freeze processing or hold funds at the slightest hint of “trouble” with no warning.

Easy Pay Direct helps business owners protect their processing from events just like these every day. All you need to do is fill out our easy form to get started on the path to safe, secure payment processing.

We’re ready! Are you?