Preparing for a Black Friday Promotion

02/09/2020 | Share:

It’s that time of year where we talk about Black Friday again. There’s not long left until this American event makes its way across the pond for another year. And let’s not forget Cyber Monday! In this blog post, we talk about ways to prepare for a Black Friday promotion.

What’s Black Friday again?

Everyone in the e-commerce world knows about Black Friday but just in case you’ve been living under a rock, or you’re new to the world of e-commerce, we’ll explain.

Black Friday to Cyber Monday is an extended weekend of discounted products on sale. Originally Black Friday was the day after Thanksgiving in the United States which marked the start of the Christmas shopping season. This attempt to encourage spending before Christmas is now well-known across the world and has become something that UK shoppers look forward to every year.

With Black Friday only a few months away, now is the time to start preparing!

Make sure you have stock

If you’re expecting customers to flock to your store on Black Friday, you need to make sure you have increased stock! Now is the time to work out how much extra stock you’re going to need and to give your warehouse a head’s up.

Drill down on the deals

Don’t pluck a discount out of thin air. Take some time to sit down and work out which products you’re going to promote and how much of a discount you’re going to offer. Do the numbers and work out if it’s still profitable.

Prepare your website

If you’re going to be running marketing campaigns to drive traffic to your website, make sure that the site can handle the increased traffic. We recommend following these steps to help improve your site, well in advance of running the promotion.

Let people know in advance

Make sure you let everyone involved know about the huge promotion coming up. This includes suppliers, marketers, web designers, website hosts, the fulfilment team and most importantly, your customers!

Prepare an email marketing campaign

One of the most effective ways to promote a Black Friday promotion is to send marketing emails to your existing and potential customers. Email marketing is a great way for advertising time-sensitive deals due to the push notifications users will receive on their devices.

The message is also a lot more personalised than a social media post and the sales emails can be segmented.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t promote elsewhere, but you should expect to receive much better results from your email marketing efforts.

Learn from last year

Did you run a campaign last year? What mistakes were made? What would you do differently this time? Use last year’s experience to influence this year’s campaign.

Get your fulfilment in order

Discounts and promotions are one thing, but you also need to be able to fulfil all these orders with the same level of service that your customers know and expect. Make sure you’ve chosen a fulfilment company that can scale to your requirements.

With all these preparations in place, you’ll be much better equipped for Black Friday success. Best of luck with the promotion!