Black Friday 2021 Ultimate eCommerce Marketing Tips and Strategies

Every year, the combined revenues from Black Friday and Cyber Monday are increasingly profitable. The growth is evident and reaches up to 20% with each passing year. This year, it’s only expected to get better.

What does this mean to eCommerce? On Black Friday, the people worldwide are looking for the best offers on the internet, and businesses are getting ready for another record-breaking year. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are excellent opportunities for retailers to maximize their profits. You can not afford to ignore it! Take a look at our list of  Black Friday marketing ideas to help you curate a successful promo campaign and maximize your online sales.

What is Black Friday, and why it’s so important

Black Friday is the day after the US Thanksgiving holiday. It falls on the first Friday following Thanksgiving. In 2021, this will be Friday 26th November. It’s a shopping day, which is filled with shopping deals both online and in-store. Many retailers offer special discounts and sales, considered the first day of the new shopping season. That day is regarded as the official start of the holiday shopping season and is the biggest shopping day of the year with discounts and savings offered by brands worldwide.

Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday

After Black Friday, there is always Cyber Monday. Few people know the difference between the two. 

Black Friday has a tradition as a completely offline event. It focused on in-store deals, where bargain-hungry shoppers flocked to the shop to take advantage of them.

Cyber Monday takes place mainly online. It was created in 2005 to help smaller retailers compete with large companies that give discounts on Black Friday. Cyber Monday falls on Monday immediately following Thanksgiving.  

Prepare your eCommerce store 

One thing you can be sure of with Black Friday - your online shop will experience a surge in traffic. Unfortunately, this also means that high traffic can quickly lead to poor website performance. Therefore, your website must be prepared for the Black Friday effect, including SEO optimization.

We've put together some tips below to help you make sure your site is ready for the expected surge in traffic.  

Plan early 

It's never too early to start preparing and enter the time of Black Friday discounts fully prepared with ready-made content and strategy.The earlier you start, the better because the competition is getting ready earlier and earlier every year.  

Test your website speed 

Black Friday Sale is a stressful time for shoppers who don't want to waste time waiting for their favorite eCommerce websites to load. 

One of the biggest reasons why visitors bounce is because your website loads too slowly. Having a slow website also hurts your credibility with shoppers and threatens customer retention. It's worth checking the speed of your site and making sure its performance is top-notch.

Google offers free tools that are easy to use. Just type in the URL of your site and the tool will analyze your site's performance, giving you instant results.  

Test your checkout process

People who shop online, especially during Black Friday, often have little time and expect the process to go quickly and smoothly.

Therefore, the buying process on your site must be seamless. After all, if your visitors cannot go through the buying process smoothly and quickly, then all your marketing resources and efforts will be in vain. Often, an inefficient buying process leads to cart abandonment.

So you should adequately test your buying process beforehand, go through it yourself and optimize it for the best results. 

Here are some additional tried and tested ways to streamline your ordering process:

• If you have few payment options only, offer more
• Enable automated cart abandonment notifications
• If possible, include an automated BlackFriday code instead of forcing users to enter it on the checkout page  

Get support on deck

Customer service is an essential part of running a successful online shop. A bad customer service experience can easily damage your brand image, causing you to lose customers and reduce the number of sales. 

Since you are expecting a large number of online sales, you should prepare for an increase in customer service inquiries and have a few visible ways - identified on your website - for reaching out to get support.

For shoppers, the most essential aspect of customer service is resolving issues through interaction with a knowledgeable representative customer service department.

Create a smart master plan

Many retailers start promoting their sales a month in advance. The situation forces a change of thinking towards promotions to a more comprehensive one as all the action is actually "Black November."

Here are some key dates that you should include in your calendar:  

• Thanksgiving Day: November 28
• Black Friday: November 29
• Cyber Monday: December 2

Announce your Black Friday Deals on the Landing Page of Your website

Update your website background theme, create banners, and images for your website based on themes relevant to the Black Friday sale.

Schedule Pop-ups  

Carefully targeted and planned pop-ups can make sure you capture the attention of your website visitors.   

Having attractive pop-ups on your site is a proven way to encourage visitors to behave in a certain way (such as signing up for a newsletter or using a discount code). Pop-ups can be intrusive, but the customer will forgive this if they carry some benefit.  

Start Email Marketing Campaign  

Email marketing is a proven way to engage or reach out to unique customers. Plan your Email marketing campaigns for Pre-Black Friday in advance.

Begin your plan by email, blasting your past and potential online shoppers ahead of the influx of marketing, especially when your competitors are still busy figuring out what to do. Many sales during the Black Friday promotion season have originated from email marketing, which makes it the most significant driver for Black Friday trades. 

What's essential in an email campaign? Here are some things to bear in mind and take into account. Include Call-to-action and links in your email campaigns so that after clicking that link, people come back to your page.

Use a catchy subject line. Your email subject line is a crucial component to your campaign's success, as this is the first thing that your targeted audience will read. Schedule emails based on time zones or the optimum time for them to open your emails.

Don't Spam Subscribers - Sending emails is an obvious way to increase revenue. But you can't spam your database. Create separate email campaigns for your past and potential customers using segment lists. For example, Past customers are more on a loyalty program strategy like offering discounts or freebies.   

Increase social media campaigning 

Social media is another excellent, proven E-commerce marketing strategy, perfect for getting more customers. It's also a great place for brands to provide engaging, high-quality content that entices customers to make a purchase. 

Planning your Black Friday social media marketing can be a real challenge. Social media posts should be divided by the promotion duration - those before, during, or even after Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Additionally, it would help if you did not neglect advertising on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, or other social media platforms.

Another important thing is finding the right time to publish social media posts. Plan your post when there are the most social media users online. Don't leave a comment unanswered, as quick responses are well received and essential for your image. Remember to include a call to action "visit our site" or "buy now."   

Use the right Keywords and Hashtags

Using BlackFriday related keywords and hashtags will help you achieve your SEO goals and attract BF/CM traffic to your shop. 

Proper keyword selection is not just about pasting in the keyword "Black Friday 2021," etc. You should also focus on long-tail keywords and use industry-related terms in your product descriptions and every landing page. Google offers quite a few tools to help you do this. You can also track the effects of your SEO strategy using Google Analytics. 

Using the right BF/CM link hashtags in your marketing can significantly increase traffic to your social media pages and online shop.  Use a variety of hashtags, from general to specialized. You can include your location or the niche your shop operates to attract people from a specific category. Check out what hashtags other brands are using to promote their Black Friday offers. Don't be afraid to experiment and change the tags in your way. 

Launch and promote 'early access' offer on Black Friday

The Email campaign is a proven and universally acknowledged best converting tool. It is important to remember that sending Newsletters on Black Friday, although necessary, is doomed to struggle to stand out even with perfect preparation in the flurry of emails sent by competitors. Your emails can get lost in the explosion of emails from other shops.

Customers know very well that the best offers appear on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. That's why you should think about sending your offers out earlier to offer your engaged contacts an "exclusive" offer.

By starting as early as a week or a few days before Black Friday, you will reduce the competition for inbox space and increase the visibility of your emails. 

Run paid advertising campaigns

Using paid advertising is a well-known eCommerce marketing strategy that you can use to engage more customers during Black Friday. 

According to a recent study, 50% of all Black Friday eCommerce transactions are generated through search ads. Before launching your campaign, it's a good idea to research your market and plan which elements you can adjust to increase the most profits. 

Additionally, it would help if you considered using conversion tracking tools to know the percentage of achievement of each campaign and see what brings the most results (e.g., which keywords are valuable).

The countdown timer

Adding a timer is an exciting solution. It can force you to act quickly because customers can be very indecisive. Most of them like to compare your products with your competitors' products before clicking the buy button. By including a countdown timer in your promotions, you help customers make a decision immediately.

You can implement a countdown timer for elements such as: 

• Newsletter emails
• Landing page Banner
• Social Media posts 

Conclusion

Are you looking forward to the arrival of Black Friday? If so, you're certainly not the only one.  

Small businesses but also big online retailers are preparing for this moment. Is your eCommerce site ready for the biggest retail event of the year? People are bargain hunting and looking for the best deals (this year is expected to be no different), so if your website is search engine optimized, chances are good that they will discover your shop.  

With a bit of preparation, you could find yourself in an excellent position to gain new customers. We hope you found some tips you can apply to your business this year. If you use the correct strategies, you’ll earn huge profits this season.

Recently we've published a blog post about Halloween marketing ideas that will help you boost your store’s sales. Most of them suits well for the Black Friday Sale as well!