There is no doubting the huge importance of Black Friday and Cyber Monday to your online sales, as the dates have become firmly embedded in the minds of UK shoppers looking for great discounts and deals on the run up to Christmas.

Even if you don’t currently run an eCommerce website, but want to use the two days as an excuse for a promotion to your customers, read on for some handy ideas you can easily implement.

Falling on 24th of November and 27th of November respectively this year. Although many of you will have already planned your Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, if you’ve still to put together your campaigns, here’s a handy checklist to maximise your sales.

Although many of you will have already planned your Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, if you’ve still
to put together your campaigns, here’s a handy checklist to maximise your sales.


Timing is everything

If you are warming up your audience before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you need to be clear on the specific timings of your promotions. You are in the best place to know your audience, so tailor timings likely to give the best response and engagement.

And don’t forget the weekend in between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it is worth thinking about some specific promotions over the weekend to keep your customers hooked on to your site in between the two big days.

Even if you’ve been engaging with your audience over the last couple of weeks, ensure you give them the ‘heads up’ the day before the sale. Make your message persuasive and clearly state the time your sale starts and ends.

Often, this pre-event emailer can generate some great traffic to your site, even more so if you have some links to a ‘see what’s in store’ message.

Keep your audience engaged with a ‘sale ends soon’ message at some point in the day. Make it clear that they are NOT too late to still benefit from great deals. (often customers will believe it’s too late if they are not early birds, tell them they are still in time for best deals).


Make your offer tangible

Don’t be tempted to make your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals too complex or hard for your audience to understand. Often setting a clear percentage discount will be a powerful tool to engage and convert sales.

If you decide to promote with some ‘hero’ deals, then make them prominent on your home page and promotional landing page and ensure you have enough of these promotions to keep the campaign alive for the whole day.

Exercise clear pricing on your deals, demonstrating the savings over your normal selling price and RRP, so customers can see the extent of your deal.


Be generous

Remember, people see Black Friday and Cyber Monday as exceptional shopping days. The reason the dates have become such a fixture with shoppers is that they have come to expect great deals.

Whilst we are not saying go crazy and throw money away, just make your offer a good one, that presents a genuinely good deal for the customer, and that way you will ensure a higher volume of sales, even if you have cut back a little more than usual on your normal margins.


Invest in quality imagery

It makes sense to ensure your promotions, whether email, social or onsite are eye-catching and high quality. Need some free images? Try searching on Pixabay or Pexels for commercial use images at no cost.

How are you stacking up visually? Take a look around at others’ promotions so far and make sure you are portraying your promotions with great imagery that measures up to what the big online players are putting out.

You will be rewarded with higher click-throughs and conversion if you present a quality image.


Make it personal

A great idea to motivate your customers is to write a short piece on your promotional page, with your own personal observations on Black Friday and Cyber Monday – what it means to you and why you love putting on the sale.

Make some suggestions of how they can benefit from the sale, so this may be a reminder about your great range of Xmas gifts and stocking fillers, or suggestions on what other customers are finding popular on your site.

Give away some of your personality and ask for feedback and reviews, along with a message of thanks for them coming to your store for their shopping.


End with a bang

So, it’s getting to the end of the sale… ensure you send that ‘last chance’ emailer or post on social channels to ensure you mop up the people who habitually leave things to the last minute.

You may wish to change your on-site promo banners to the same effect. The trick here is to gently remind and persuade your audience to take action. Again, clearly sate the end time of the sale, with a ‘don’t miss out’ message.

We often see this final communication creates a very healthy last minute surge of sales.


At seoBusiness, we help eCommerce businesses to maximise sales and growth with a wide range of eCommerce services across Magneto website development, SEO and multi-channel Linnworks integration. If you would like personalised help with any aspect of your eCommerce business, call our experts now on 01254 279 998 or email us here for a no obligation free initial consultation.

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