US consumers spent $8.9 billion in 2021 on Black Friday online, according to data from Adobe Analytics’ Digital Economy Index. This year’s Black Friday forecast e-commerce sales are projected to grow 1% YoY at $9 billion and your store can get a share.

According to Salesforce’s 2022 Peak Holiday Shopping Predictions, this year’s profit margins will tighten, as rising costs are outpacing what can realistically be passed on to consumers and will put up to 10% of the potential margin at stake this year. As inflation continues to increase and shoppers place fewer orders, cost-saving measures like the following we are going to share are going to be e-commerce stores’ best friends.

Matt Ranta, Head of Practice of Digital & E-commerce at Nimble Gravity, has shared 3 ways your store can prepare for Black Friday to increase sales:

1.    Audit your website

You don’t want to miss sales because of a technically poor website. Audit your entire site to check for any possible problems that increased Black Friday traffic could cause and optimize your website for SEO.

Check the following:

• Site speed: A website that takes a long time to load a landing page can turn people off straight away and suffer in the search rankings. Upgrading the host service to a faster one, cleaning up the media library, and compressing images can speed up your site.

• Functionality: Check every page to make sure there are no expired hyperlinks or broken pages, especially in the checkout process. An error message when browsing for Black Friday deals may make you lose sales.

• Quality content: Make sure all products and images have matching descriptions. Analyze your current copy and see if it can be improved to include more keywords around the interests of your target market, or if it could be made shorter and clearer for a better user experience. 

• Mobile friendly: Make sure your site’s template adapts for mobile. 79% of last year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday purchases were made using mobile devices, you don’t want to lose this market.

2.    Digital Marketing

Businesses of all sizes will participate in this event, creating a solid digital marketing strategy is a must to win customers, you will compete with every retailer online. 

Follow the next tips:

• Start early: Launch your campaigns as soon as possible, due to competition you would want to have an engaged and captive audience before the event starts. Build buzz by teasing your promotions in advance.

• Optimize your Social Media: 78% of consumers say a company’s social media posts will impact their purchases, make sure your online store is connected to every social media platform and use clear profile pictures relevant to the business so users can find you quickly. Make sure your type of content is diversified and you use multiple types of posts, don’t focus on a single channel. Users may use social media platforms in different ways, for instance, some Instagram users may be focused on reels, while others are focused on timelines or stories.

• User-generated content: Create dynamics so users are encouraged to upload pictures of their purchases or write reviews and repost them as social proof. 81% of US respondents from a survey indicated posts from their friends directly influenced their purchase decision. 

• Test your ads: Run A/B tests on your campaigns to understand what would work best for your audience and if your budget is well spent.

• Create urgency using time-sensitive language: Urge your clients to rush to purchase your products, keywords like “flash sale” “last chance” and “today only” could maximize sales.

• Direct messaging automation:  75% of consumers now prefer to engage with a brand over private messaging channels versus traditional channels. Automated DMs are programmed responses, that can be as simple as answering the most common questions or as complex as interactive conversations where you can guide customers in their shopping journey. What about sending special targeted offers to your clients or thank you notes to new followers you gain during the event?

3.    Reduce cart abandonment rate.

Cart abandonment means customers add items through their shopping journey and proceed to checkout but decide to leave the page before completing the purchase. The average cart abandonment rate over the Black Friday period in 2021 was 79.88%.

• Email marketing: create a campaign that will automate emails to send reminders to users when they have left items in their cart. The subject line of the email is the key to success as it will determine the user’s open rate, try to be creative and fun.

• Be clear about total costs: 21% of US online shoppers abandoned orders in the last quarter because they “weren’t able to see the total order cost upfront before initiating the checkout.”

• Analytics: Use analytics to monitor abandonment, track the rates, identify patterns and find the root issues.

• Offer help: Customer services is essential, offer explicit help by offering clear links or paths to access the help.

If you’re ready to harness the power of E-commerce and Digital Marketing to improve online sales for your company, reach out and let’s talk: sales@nimblegravity.com. 

Are you interested in joining? check out our careers page on open roles!