With the Black Friday 2021 approaching, one way to give your online business a leg up is to implement the latest Black Friday eCommerce hacks. It sounds easy enough. But ask yourself a question: “Do you have access to all of the latest trends and best practices on how to make your brand stand out from the competition?”
Before the holiday frenzy begins, you need to start preparing your Black Friday marketing strategy. Consider that Black Friday 2020 data shows that consumers spent $188.2 billion in total! And this number is only increasing, especially with online sales.
Each year, more and more consumers opt to avoid crowded stores and shop from the comfort of their homes. 2017 saw new record highs of some 58 million people shopping online only, versus roughly 51 million at physical stores (practicalecommerce.com). In 2018, growth continued and online revenue surpassed the $18 billion , raising the expectations once again. Black Friday 2019 was also quite successfull with more than $7 billion revenue generated online. Black Friday 2021 will be different though. Every brand needs to take further actions to make sure that consumer will feel safe enough to make in order, despite the negative consequences of the pandemic in their wallets.
In this post, we show you the latest marketing tactics every brand must execute to be properly prepared for the Black Friday weekend. Here is the list of the best eCommerce hacks we gathered, so you stay ahead of the competition:
- The minimum marketing tactics for Black Friday
- The Black Friday eCommerce FAQ
- Black Friday eCommerce hack #1: Customize your Exit Intent Pop Up
- Black Friday eCommerce hack #2: Add a Black Friday related hook for your list building pop up
- Black Friday eCommerce hack #3: Modify your Cart Abandonment automation
- Black Friday eCommerce hack #4: Push Notification reminders automation
- Black Friday eCommerce hack #5: Give free stickers on each order
- Black Friday eCommerce hack #6: The Chat hack
- Black Friday eCommerce hack #7: The SEO hack
- Black Friday eCommerce hack #8: Adjust your remarketing ads
- Black Friday eCommerce hack #9: Create scarcity with a FOMO tool
- Growth hacking Black Friday with $275
- Other useful Black Friday resources for eCommerce
- Get prepared for Black November
The minimum marketing tactics for Black Friday 2021
The concept of growth hacking is quite simple: every idea, strategy or tactic you employ should be centered around driving business, thus, boosting profits. With email marketing contributing to almost 23% of total sales made on Black Friday last year, if you haven’t already started using eCommerce growth hacks, Black Friday is the optimal opportunity for your to re-image your automated email campaigns and strategies. Check out these least expected marketing tactics that every brand should execute:
- Create a Black Friday Landing Page
- Create dedicated designs for Black Friday (newsletters, website banners, social media). Tip: use gifs, people love’em and it’s super easy with pickapic!
- Schedule newsletters to nurture the demand
Of course, these three tactics are just the tip of the iceberg. Your competition is more fierce than ever this year. We’ve got the goods on the best Black Friday growth hacks to help you leave competitors in the dust.
Black Friday eCommerce hack #1: Customize your Exit Intent Pop Up
Tactic: Use nice Black Friday-related graphics and eye-catching copy to inform and lead people to your landing page.
Driving customers to your site and giving them a good experience is only part of your goal as an eCommerce retailer. You need to have a strategy in place to catch customers who try to leave your site without purchasing your product or direct them to your special promotions.
Utilize the best marketing automation tools to give one last shout-out to your potential customers. You have nothing to lose! Maybe offer them a discount on your products, you never know — you might just change their mind.
Black Friday eCommerce hack #2: Add a Black Friday related hook for your list building pop up
Tactic: Provoke people to opt-in to your newsletter so as to get early access to Black Friday deals.
It sounds illogical to interrupt your Black Friday shoppers with an opt-in pop up, but actually, it’s not. Black Friday is all about getting deals. So as long as you fine-tune your opt-in pop up to let customers known that signing up to your newsletter means getting an early bird special or discounts, they will sign up!
Just make sure you only display that to your unknown visitors, so you’re not impacting the flow of customers who have already done business with you previously. Also, be sure to rock your Black Friday newsletter opt-in pop up by evoking emotions, using humor or something intriguing.
Black Friday eCommerce hack #3: Modify your Cart Abandonment automation
Tactic: Adjust the graphics and copy as well as the sequence for maximum conversion. (Send an automated email 5 mins after, 6-hours later, 24-hours later, etc).
Cart abandonment is something that every online shop deals with, and Black Friday shoppers are no exception.
You see, eCommerce cart abandonment is quite common, occurring at a rate of 68.63%. However, by targeting Black Friday shoppers with relevant messages, you can continue to engage and convert your leads. Pretty cool, huh?
Really, the key to improving your odds of recovering potential sales loss is timing. You are not going to get them all back, but studies have shown that by sending an email within 20 minutes of cart abandonment achieved an average a 5.2% conversion rate. So, give it go and see your Black Friday eCommerce sales going up for sure.
Black Friday eCommerce hack #4: Push Notification reminders automation
Tactic: Set some reminders 1 week before, 1 day before, 1 hour before, and when the promotion starts.
Why are push notifications an important element to Black Friday eCommerce hacks? Simple: they do the work for you in keeping your customers engaged with your brand.
You can give your Black Friday marketing campaign an extra edge with eCommerce push notifications. This is because you can reach customers whenever they are active on their devices to tell them about Black Friday special updates, sales, promotions, and reminders. As a result of this communication, you can expect to have a 3 to 10x higher click rates compared to your standard newsletters!
Furthermore, try utilizing an automated push notification with cart reminder, to get the best of both worlds – push notification and cart abandonment automation in one!
Black Friday eCommerce hack #5: Give free stickers on each order
Tactic: People love stickers and it would be a nice loyalty tactic (and maybe a motive too!)
This is a no-brainer: Everyone loves stickers! Happy customers even post YouTube videos about their free stickers that they receive from their favorite brands.
Studies show that stickers can actually help drive people to your blog, increases your brand’s organic traffic and creates customer loyalty. Not only will you make your customers happy with a freebie, but they also will continue to promote your brand by displaying the sticker! Just think about it — there are wall stickers, bumper stickers and stickers people love to put on their laptops, etc. Endless possibilities to grab the attention of new customers!
Definitely one of our favorite Black Friday eCommerce tips!
Black Friday eCommerce hack #6: The Chat hack
Tactic: Setup triggered messages to provoke interaction with people and promote your Black Friday landing page.
This eCommerce growth hack is a well-kept secret and is often overlooked. However, it produces unbelievable results in increasing your conversions. In fact, visitors who use live chat convert at a rate of almost 8x versus those who do not use chat! At the same time, using chatbot can significantly ease the strain on your customer support staff during the busy holiday period, as simple and transactional inquiries can be taken care off by the AI.
Black Friday eCommerce hack #7: The SEO hack
Tactic: Add “Black Friday Sales” on the HTML titles of the participating categories/products to increase CTRs and organic traffic.
Titles are the very first glimpse that potential customers and, not to mention, search engine algorithms, get of your site. You need to be sure to create an eye-catching title, focusing on what you have to offer for Black Friday.
By implementing this simple SEO tweak, you will drive more traffic to your page and the more optimized your site, the higher search engines rank it! After all, what’s the point in implementing all of these game-changing Black Friday eCommerce hacks if no one can find your site?
Black Friday eCommerce hack #8: Adjust your remarketing ads
Tactic: Configure your copy and design to be Black Friday related to this day. (Maybe mention the free sticker thing, too!)
When you think that over 49% of online shoppers take at least 2 visits to your website before they make a purchase, you need a tactic that enables you to follow your customers and drive them back to you! By running retargeting and remarketing ads you will see an increase in conversions outside of your website.
All you need to do is choose a relevant copy to create mind-blowing ads for your Black Friday campaign. The result? You will succeed in increasing traffic, returning customers, and ultimately, conversion rates!
Black Friday eCommerce hack #9: Create scarcity with a FOMO tool
Tactic: Try using a FOMO tool like Proof for this day for maximum scarcity effect?
Scarcity, a term every (eCommerce) growth hacker should know. Truth be told, no one wants to feel left behind, and up 60% of millennials make reactive purchases based on this principle. Create urgency for your visitors by installing a countdown clock for your Shopify store, create alerts for deals of the day or discounts, limited stock, flash sales, and more. Show your visitors that your products are “In high demand!” or that there are “Only 2 left!” and watch your conversions soar.
FOMO eCommerce hacks can be personalized some by adding visitors’ gender, city and product category. And, as you know, the more relevant the message a potential customer receives, the more likely they are to click and convert!
Growth hacking Black Friday from $275:
Growth hacking your Black Friday sales isn’t an easy task. The competition gets higher year after year but the good news is that you can implement all the above-mentioned eCommerce hacks only from $275, using 5 different tools. The best part? You can replicate this strategy to run all year round and adjust it to other seasonal marketing campaigns. All using this same growth stack. So, the marketing tools you will need are:
- ContactPigeon ($199/month):
Why this tool: ContactPigeon is a 100% eCommerce-focused marketing automation platform which trusted by 250+ enterprises in the US & Europe can help you with: Exit Intent popups, List Building widgets, Cart Abandonment strategy, Email Marketing, Push Notifications, SMS marketing, other custom, omnichannel automations you may need. The plans start from $199 per month. - MobileMonkey (freemium):
Why this tool: Being the favorite chatbot tool of Neil Patel, MobileMonkey can help your company set up highly converting Facebook Messenger Chatbots. The company offers a free plan. - Proof ($26/month):
Why this tool: Proof is a Ycombinator-backed company used by 3,000 companies which can help you increase conversions with its live social notifications. The plans start from $26 per month. - Facebook Ads Manager (free):
Facebook Ads Manager is the official platform to set up your Facebook/Instagram remarketing ads. The actual cost here is the budget you will spend here. - Google Ads (free):
Google Ads is Google’s official platform to set up your remarketing ads at Google and partners’ websites. Same thing here, the cost here depends on your budget. - Your own (team’s) hands (free):
All the SEO tasks and the setting up of the mechanisms should be done from you and your team. However, if you have a ContactPigeon subscription, a marketing automation consultant can help you in the implementation stage to save lots of time. - A local printing partner ($50):
You will need to design and print your free Black Friday stickers. Printing ~1,000 stickers won’t cost you more than $50, depending on the desired quality.
The Black Friday FAQ of any eCommerce business
How can an eCommerce business prepare for Black Friday?
- Step #0: In 2021, every eCommerce or retail brand oughts to take additional neccesary preparation actions and decisions to deal with the pandemic crisis.
- Step #1: Start preparing your Black Friday eCommerce strategy early. The perfect time for this is during September
- Step #2: Make a quick tech audit to your website (speed, UX flow errors, check for pages with high bounce rate)
- Step #3: See what worked for you in the past
- Step #4: Do your research on Black Friday marketing resources over the internet
- Step #5: Merge #4 & #5 and craft your own Black Friday marketing plan
- Step #6: Execute the plan
- Step #7: Distribute/Promote
How successful is Black Friday?
- In short, just in the US Black Friday eCommerce grows approximately $1 billion every year with Black Friday 2018 reaching 6.22 billion. In 2019, online sales exceeded $7.2 billion sales. In 2021 predictions are quite controversial, however, due to the pandemic.
How do you promote Black Friday deals?
The more omnichannel your approach is in 2021, the better your Black Friday sales will be. You should create a complete marketing plan including email, push notification & SMS in coordination with Social Media marketing efforts, PPC and SEO tactics. Using an omnichannel marketing automation tool can greatly increase your company’s results.
Why is Black Friday so important?
It is the #1 shopping day for retailers in the Western world. The global average difference in Black Friday vs ordinary Friday online transactions was +624% in 2018. So if you don’t run a Black Friday promotion then your competitors will.
Other useful Black Friday resources for eCommerce
- 7 Creative Black Friday Strategies for retailers
- Black Friday statistics: The 80 most important stats for retailers
- 9 Email Marketing Ideas for Black Friday 2020
- Black Friday Email Subject Lines
- Top 5 Black Friday Marketing Automation Scenarios for Holiday Success
- The Black Friday Wiki for eCommerce
- Black Friday report 2018
- How to Prepare for Black Friday 2021: A Retailer’s Guide
- 20 (awesome) Black Friday Email Subject Lines for eCommerce
- The 12 best Black Friday campaigns of all time
- Top 5 Black Friday Marketing Automation Scenarios for Holiday Success
- Cyber Monday Statistics: 70 Stats Every Retail Executive Should Know
Get prepared for Black November
With Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas around the corner, the sooner you set up these mechanisms and eCommerce hacks, the bigger results you’ll have this holiday season. Grab the above-mentioned Black Friday eCommerce ideas and turn them into actions. This is crucial. You HAVE to chase the maximum growth and sales, and in order to do so, you need to consider that growth hacking is a mentality, not a tactic. Only the active brands will stay at the top of the pack. How prepared are you for Black November? The toolset a brand uses can be a piece of cake or a curse.
ContactPigeon’s all-in-one eCommerce marketing automation tool with more than 140 templates for emails and pop-ups makes it easy for you to create an optimal eCommerce campaign quickly and efficiently.
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