Read time: 10 mins

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are typically the biggest single sales days for ecommerce sites, with sales from smartphone mobile devices being the growth market you need to tap into.

Let’s face facts, this year, bricks-and-mortar shoppers have drastically fallen, for obvious reasons. Covid has changed the marketplace in a massive way. As a result, online stores in comparison are seeing some of the most significant growth that they’ve ever had.

These tips will help you tap into that increasing demand, and make the most of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend. I say the weekend, because, it used to be that Black Friday was 24 hours. Then Cyber Monday joined in to make it 48 hours. Then the sales continued throughout the weekend in-between, making it a four-day spending bonanza!

History of Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Both Black Friday and Cyber Monday were born from a consistent trend in spending in the US. Every Thanksgiving, the following Friday and Monday were consistently the highest-grossing sales days for online retailers.

Research indicated this was due to holiday shoppers, with their recent paychecks fattening their wallets, splashing out online, and maybe getting prepared for the next big holiday, Christmas.

This information went viral, and the publicity about this day spread quickly. The buzz from this research has resulted in year on year growth in sales revenues during these days, with sales continuing to grow.

Despite originating in the US, nowadays companies across the globe use Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns to increase sales. The United Kingdom introduced Cyber Monday in 2009 and we remain one of the countries that see as much popularity for these days as the United States.

When is Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year?

This year, Black Friday is on the 27 November, and Cyber Monday is on the 30 November.

Tip 1: Get your website ready

Think of Black Friday and Cyber Monday as the equivalent of a rush of customers storming through your shop doors. The most important thing is to make sure your online store is able to handle it.

The basics need to be done, these being:

1. Mobile responsive website. We use Google’s own mobile compatibility testing tools to ensure websites are optimised to customers on smartphone.
2. Trusted host, with excellent up-time. We use Uptime Robot to monitor websites for any downtime, so we can get them back up as quickly as possible.
3. Good site speed and page speed, use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to help you make your site faster.

Tip 2: Differentiate yourself from others in your marketing

The booming millennial generation is coming of age, with growing purchasing power, and creating messages that resonate with this audience can differentiate you from your competitors. The tip here is to not simply sell your products online, but be about something more. Create a campaign that does good for others as you sell. This will differentiate your brand, from your competitors, and appeal to many audiences.

Example:

Amazon donates 0.5% of every purchase through the AmazonSmile program to charity. Products are the same price, same service, but with a difference. Running a checkout process that supports a charity is a great example of this tip in action. The result of this, is customers get that double-gratification moment when purchasing, they’ve got something they wanted, and done some good in the process.

Tip 3: Consider sample requests

This can be a great time for selling new products to new and existing customers, so consider selling samples, or offering free samples, of your products. Samples are a proven way of boosting sales of new products. If you give potential customers the opportunity to try before they buy, or if you're selling samples, to spend a little to try the product out first, then this helps get those customers to convert that would otherwise be "thinking about it", or aren't quite ready to commit. Maybe because you're a brand they're unfamiliar with, or the products are a new range.

Tip 4: Consider an exclusive offer

Creating urgency around a product or bundle of products is a great way to sell, even without discounts. Use Black Friday and Cyber Monday as an excuse to mix up your products for “one night only”. By offering something different on a highly limited run, you can increase demand.

Tip 5: Go green with your packaging

This hardly needs explanation, but being green with your packaging ticks a lot of boxes (pun intended). Not only will this resonate with environmentally conscious shoppers, but from a moral and ethical perspective, your business gets a lot of brownie points. With ocean-friendly, plastic-free, fully recyclable options for packaging nowadays, it’s really a no-brainer to make sure you choose a sustainable, and environmentally friendly packaging solution for your deliveries.

Making sure your packaging is both visually attractive and ethical, will certainly help with any unboxing videos too, should your customers choose to put this on their social media platforms. 

Tip 6: Upsell other products

Help curate additional sales by promoting other products on product pages that you think the customer might also be interested in. For example, you could include:

• products that other customers also bought when buying a product,
• or best-selling products,
• or associated products.

By doing the legwork for the customer, you can greatly improve bundle sales and increase the average checkout value of each customer.

Tip 7: Run marketing campaigns

Once you’ve nailed the first six tips, you’re ready to run some inventive marketing campaigns across your marketing channels. Ensuring you make use of the tips to differentiate your messaging across your advertising. If you need help with anything, we provide marketing support across these platforms:

• Google Ads, including Google Shopping and Google Merchant Centre
• Microsoft Ads
• Facebook Ads, including Instagram
• Retargeting campaigns to attract back warm leads and abandoned baskets
• Display network advertising across Google Display Network
• Email marketing services, including Gmail insertion
• Search engine optimisation, ensuring your website has the best chance of ranking highly in SERPs

Summary and checklist

1. Understand what Black Friday and Cyber Monday is about and why it’s good for sales
2. Prepare your site technically to meet increased demand.
3. Market your business and create incentives and differentiators.

Remember, it’s the biggest sales days of the year, but in the run-up to Christmas it’s important to keep the marketing going, and the website optimised for your customers.