By Dalia Abutteen
Are your sales calendars marked for the biggest shopping event of the year? We sure hope so! The emails, messages, ads, and push notifications are already flooding the internet, as every online retailer tries to stand out in the midst of the virtual crowd. eCommerce businesses around the world are carefully preparing their sites and perfecting their marketing strategies to boost their sales on this date. What about consumers? Well, they are cancelling plans, bringing their credit cards and e-wallets out, and getting ready to find the best bargains for items on their wish lists!
Black Friday/White Friday is a really exciting time for everybody, but we understand how stressful it can be for retailers trying to put together the best deals to maximize sales. In an attempt to help out, we put together a list of the best marketing tactics you can easily apply in time for the big day. But first, let’s answer a few questions you might have. If you are already familiar with the big event of the year, you may skip to the list.
What is White Friday?
White Friday is another term for the famous Black Friday that emerged from the United States, and now is globally known as the biggest online shopping event. Every year, around this time, almost every ecommerce site starts preparing for Black Friday (White Friday in the Middle East), which takes place annually during the last Friday of November and usually extends to the last few days of the month.
When is White Friday in 2020?
White Friday will officially start on November 27, 2020.
Although White Friday comes in pandemic-style this year, with e-commerce booming and consumer behaviors changing, we expect it to be a huge success for all online retailers.
Four Marketing Tips to Boost Your White Friday Sales
1. Optimize Your Site Banner for Better Conversions
Create a flashy White Friday banner on your website or app with carefully crafted messaging that positions your business as the absolute go-to for the biggest deals of the year. Link the banner to a separate landing page with the special “White Friday Discounted Products” to simplify the browsing experience for your customers.
Bonus tip: some retailers are adding a countdown clock that creates more urgency to buy before time is up, with messages such as “Hurry, time is running!” or “Hurry, white Friday sale ends in X number of hours!”
2. Offer Irresistible Deals and Display Them Correctly
Sprii online store is planning to offer discounts up to 90% during the black friday dubai version! Now you are probably wondering, what would be considered a ‘Hot Deal’ and which products should be discounted?
a. Prepare a list of your most popular products, the best-sellers, and knock down their prices to give customers an irresistible bargain on the items they have been anticipating to buy.
b. You can benefit from cross-selling if those discounted products require other complementary items available on your website.
c. When displaying your White Friday deals make sure to show the original price and highlight the exact savings percentage to motivate buyers to click that “add to cart” button.
Bonus tip: Offer free shipping, it almost always works in speeding up the buying decision!
3. Hype Up Your Social Media Channels
You nailed your promotions strategy and optimized your site, but how do you create hype around your big sales to keep your customers engaged even before the big event?
a. Leverage all your active social media channels, and start giving followers a sneak peek into your Black Friday sale early on
b. Create content that features the products that will go on sale so customers can start adding them to their shopping lists ahead of time
c. Increase your social media ad spending to expand your reach and maximize your sales possibilities
d. Stay active all the time, answer all questions quickly, and engage with your potential customers as much as possible throughout the entire online shopping event
Bonus tip: Create a Facebook Event for your white Friday sale 2020 with a start and end date, and invite many people to it to keep them posted on all updates fast!
4. Personalize White Friday Emails to Increase Click Rates
First, it’s important to mention that your subscribers’ inboxes are probably flooded with advertising emails from e-commerce businesses promoting their Black Friday sales offers. So, keep your content short and straight to the point by mentioning in bold the big discounts and deals you are offering, with a very clear call-to-action leading them to your products page, (and then hopefully to the checkout page).
One of the proven ways to cut through the noise during White Friday and boost engagement, is to send out personalized emails to your subscribers, promoting special offerings and relevant recommendations tailored to their preferences, using the insights and history collected when they visited your website.
And definitely, don’t underestimate the power of retargeting lost customers through email. Whenever an indecisive customer abandons their cart, send a teaser email that will woo them back in to complete the purchase.
Bonus tip: The secret behind a high click rate is in crafting a catchy “Subject Line”! For Black Friday Emails, it’s best to include the limited-time deal you are offering in the subject line.
Finally, we recommend extending the sale a couple of days past White Friday, as this is quite common amongst retailers in the Middle East.
These were some of the few essential tips to help you gain traffic and take advantage of all the possible opportunities to maximize your sales during this annual online shopping event. However, the tactics are numerous, keep researching, testing, and leveraging all marketing strategies to stand out from the competition. Follow our blog on Hyperpay for more useful and informative articles covering ecommerce challenges and market trends along with payment solutions customized to meet their needs.