Preparing For Black Friday 2024

Black Friday 2024 and Cyber Monday 2024 are huge dates in every eCommerce business calendar. The success of this day is partly due to reputation, but also dependent on a successful BF/CM strategy. It takes a coordinated effort by support, sales and marketing to ensure the day ends up as profitable as hoped. This post will get you informed on how you can prepare in the best way possible.

Why You Should Start Preparing Now

Black Friday is more than just a day of sales. It’s a period that has huge potential for your business. The influx of customers opens you up to new customer acquisition at a much less costly rate than other times in the year. Customers you convince through your Black Friday sales could turn out to be lifetime customers.

It’s important to prepare early as brand familiarity makes a difference. Particularly Gen Z shoppers are more likely to spend with a brand they are familiar with. Marketing needs to start early, and preparation needs to begin early. The earlier you start to plan, the more you can ensure that no last minute surprises disrupt your strategy. 

How To Plan For The Holiday

Follow these tips to make sure you are fully prepared for everything that might come your way in the holiday:

Update Key Policies On Your Site

When shoppers enter your site, they should be able to see and understand clearly what your brand is, what you stand for, and what you can offer. This will create a positive brand image, and hopefully a lasting brand image that your shoppers remember. 

One way to make sure that customers are informed is through a chat AI assistant. There are many questions that shoppers will be wanting to know the answers to before spending their money during this holiday. Having a chat assistant that can answer all their questions is cheaper and more efficient than human representatives. Especially since a lot of the questions that people will ask will be easy to answer.

Some policies you should make sure are clear are:

Returns & Exchanges

Since people are so willing to spend, they will want to make sure that they have the option of return and exchange. Many people use this holiday season to buy gifts for others, which is also why returns and exchanges are important. Make sure your returns policy is clear, and people are aware of the guidelines.

Shipping Policy

Customers want their deliveries to happen fast, and a lot of the time they prefer that there is free shipping. It is up to your personal business discretion as to whether you provide free shipping- but whatever you do offer, make sure it’s clear.

Delivery Tracking

Also make sure that shoppers know how to track their deliveries, how long they can expect to wait for them, what happens if they don’t receive their purchase etc. The more they know before making the purchase, the less likely you are to have unhappy customers further down the line. 



Plan Your Marketing Campaign

There’s no point in having your policies updated if you aren’t attracting customers to your site. Marketing for Black Friday should be creative, compelling and reflective of your brand. One of the main ways marketing runs these days is via social media. 

Social commerce is booming, with more customers making their purchases via the social media apps themselves. Even if this doesn’t suit your business, marketing via social media goes a long way to promoting your business and BF sale.

Some ways you can market over social media include:

Influencer Marketing

Building relationships with influencers who represent your brand values and who will appeal to your target customers is a great strategy. Rather than going for the expensive influencers with huge followings, find more niche influencers that relate to your product and match your brand persona.

Create Relevant Content

Creating content that relates to your BF premise, deals and offerings is a great idea. Creative content that lets shoppers know what your sales are, whilst also interesting enough to create the potential for resharing is a great idea. The more engagement your posts have, the more successful your marketing outreach will be.

Highlight Loyalty Offers

If you have a loyalty program, then make sure your members know their benefits when it comes to BF/CM. Early sale access, discount codes or exclusive products are a great way of getting shoppers engaged and spending as soon as possible. This also helps to build a stronger trust and connection with your brand.

Test!

You don’t want any last minute surprises to jump in and ruin your sales on Black Friday 2024. Once the sales are live is not the time to discover any bugs that have gone unnoticed, or any other hiccups on your site. Run your A/B tests, and keep things as simple as possible. These holidays are not the time to try a whole new system, or include a whole new module. Stick to what you know is reliable and will produce the best results. 

If there are any updates that you know have to be made in order to make sure that your sale runs smoothly, then make sure they are implemented in advance. Make sure you have enough time to test them, and that they will work proficiently on the day. 

Making sure that Black Friday 2024 can boost the revenue of your business for the whole year. It can have a hugely positive impact on your business, acquire new customers and shift a lot of stock. However, planning ahead is vital. Making sure you are ready for the sales to come will ensure that you don’t lose out on any of the profits you could otherwise achieve.