Running a Black Friday Deal is an amazing experience if you nail it. Getting it planned well in advance is a no brainer. We’ve run two deals with Better Proposals and brought on 300 new customers in the space of 4 days each time. Here’s what we did to make sure it went off without a hitch.
Basics first: Make sure your emails, landing pages, checkout pages, countdown timers are all sorted and ready to go. This will save you a massive headache when it all kicks off.
Remember you’re not the only country in the world and you need to possibly be ready for other parts of the world to wake up to Black Friday before your country does (wherever that is). When setting out your deal you want it to be a no brainer. It shouldn’t be a complicated decision. If you have to reduce the amount they get to keep the price low – do it.
Keep it all simple. Don’t try and get cute with your offer. This is the one time to look to the big box retailers for clues here. There’s a reason “Half price”, “Was $99, Now $29” and “Buy One Get One Free” type offers work, they are simple and even the most tired, overwhelmed person can understand what it means. Lastly, always pretend the deal ends Friday night. Extend it over the weekend due to high demand then do it again for Cyber Monday too. When Monday ends though, that’s it. You have to teach people that they missed it. No exceptions.
Adam Hempenstall – CEO and Founder
Better Proposals
As Black Friday approaches, my top tip is to sweat the small stuff. If you are using Google Shopping campaigns, make certain that you set up price extensions, promotion extensions, and countdown timers. I would recommend setting up countdown timers that start 24 hours in advance to build a sense of anticipation and urgency. Be clear about your offers and set up and test your ads in advance. Determine your budgets in advance (I would recommend dissecting the data from the previous year to get an idea of the needed budget and add 15%-20% on top of that). Set up and test everything that you can in advance. Be ready to flip the switch and set a personal reminder to return to normal operations when the frenzy is over. Finally, make certain that your remarketing audiences and conversion tracking are set up properly. You will likely get a lot of new traffic. So, make sure that you are in a position to leverage that traffic and to continue building relationships with these new consumers.
Don Seaberry – Director, Digital Marketing
MDT Marketing
To take advantage of the Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the Holidays 2019, we would recommend that you prepare, plan and respond.
In preparation, make sure any website tests; whether design tests, functionality updates or tracking changes are completed and fully tested well in advance of Black Friday (and Thanksgiving). You don’t want website or tracking issues during this period. Also, consider the potential volume of website visitors and if necessary increase your website’s bandwidth, and if necessary upgrade your hosting, so you know your website can cope with the increase in traffic.
In planning, consider the products to be promoted and potentially use a loss leader to drive traffic and then build in the upsells. Make sure you have an integrated strategy that includes all channels and all forms of retargeting, where you would promote the specific products of interest. Ensure your channels have enough budget for the weekend in particular as conversion rates are usually higher over the weekend. Don’t forget email marketing; it works.
In responding, make sure you keep a close eye on the data coming through and respond accordingly.
Jackie Key – Managing Director
Key Principles
Brian Roizen is the Cofounder and Chief Architect of Feedonomics, a full-service feed optimization platform that optimizes product data for hundreds of channels. He has been featured on numerous podcasts and eCommerce webinars, and regularly contributes to Search Engine Land and other industry-leading blogs. Brian graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.
