Last Minute Black Friday and Cyber Monday Planning 

The busiest shopping time of the year is rapidly approaching. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the best times to shop for the holidays online because stores put their best foot forward and offer very competitive sales and promotions to kick of the season. It's also the time to discover and buy the hottest items of the year.

When you're planning on joining the countless other businesses online to promote sales and special deals for these occasions, you'll want to map out your strategy to get the best results.

Consider the following strategies and add them to your list of "to-do" activities to help eliminate struggles related to annual Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Now's the time to act because the clock is ticking, and this time of the year is a massive boost to profits for many businesses, including your own.

Decide on a sale

The best place to start your Black Friday and Cyber Monday event planning is to decide which items to include in your sales. You might choose to highlight separate items for Black Friday and Cyber Monday or offer the same items for both and have extended weekend sales.

When you're planning your sale strategy and deciding which items to offer, remember that you don't have to include every item in your store. Consider offering sales on the most popular items and those creating the most traffic to your store. If you have trendy items in stock, offer discounts, BOGOs, and other incentives to attract shoppers looking for popular items to give as gifts. 

You may also want to consider alternating your sales for Black Friday with the sales you offer on Cyber Monday. This strategy can help attract additional traffic and encourage repeat visits to the website for both days or the whole weekend.

The next challenge is deciding which types of sales and discounts to include. Here are a few of the most popular options for online retail stores.

• Buy one get one free or for a discount (BOGO)
• Traditional discounts
• Discount for certain products or a combination of products
• Whole store discounts
• Free shipping
• Free gift with purchase

Capitalize on the chance to draw in high numbers of customers in a short time frame and potentially create new loyal customers by offering great deals.

Create your discounts

Once you decide on the sales you want to run, you can create them directly in a supporting CRM or platform. Achieve this by using the default functionality, coupons extension, or even advanced offers.

One issue many retailers face is scheduling their sales. Marketing platform software eliminates this problem by providing access to their sales scheduler. Using a scheduler to handle your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales makes planning easier. List sales to the minute so you can sit back and relax.

The scheduler also allows you to discount categories of products instead of needing to list them individually. You can also create sales that offer certain percentages off, BOGO, price discounts, and more. This feature allows you to display the time frame of the deal where it's visible to the customer. There are many other features too that make using the WooCommerce Scheduler an asset in your planning. 

Once you create your discounts, you're well on your way to making the ideal sales. If you have a large inventory of products or complex business processes, consider using the Scheduler and give advanced offers.

Give customers immediate notice

The best way to advertise and create a buzz about upcoming sales is to let your customers know about them right away. The sooner you advertise, the more time they have to think about which items they want to buy and make plans to purchase them as soon as they're available. Use these marketing outlets to get the word out in advance.

• Social media campaigns
• Email newsletter, updated regularly
• Targeting ads
• Multiple media outlets such as television, paper, and radio

The goal is to let as many people as possible know before the sale, so use as many of these platforms and outlets as you can. Advertising across several channels well in advance allows shoppers to tell others who might be interested, helping spread the news via word of mouth at no extra cost to you.

Test your site functionality

Test your website performance and speed. Some tools allow you to evaluate how fast your website loads and how it performs overall. Shoppers like to have a quick and easy experience and don't want to struggle with slow connections. Use the following for technological advantages:

• A CDN network—provides cached content from a server near the shopper to help reduce load speeds and bandwidth requirements.
• Optimized image files—the smallest file for your needs gives you better resolution and improved quality.
• A VPS or dedicated server—instead of a shared server, which has slow load times when traffic from the other companies using the server increases

Try to provide shoppers with the best experience so they don't leave your site out of frustration.

Advertise your sale

You'll need to advertise your sale on your website right away. The sooner you get started, the more people will notice. Consider adding eye-catching features and pop-ups they can easily see when they arrive at your website. You can also use slider images and notifications at the top of the website's pages that feature details about the upcoming sales. Here are some things to include.

• Sale items
• Sale amounts
• Date and time
• Special offers

The more information and advertisements you feature visibly, the more chance you'll have of increasing your sales.

Track conversions

Easily track conversions by using an e-commerce platform like WooCommerce. It can allow you to use collected data to create analytics showing you how your marketing strategy performs. This process allows you to see where you need to boost your focus and where you perform successfully.

You can also use the remarketing tag to easily reach a specific audience with messages related to your retail site. All you have to do is place one tag across all the website's pages and begin boosting traffic to your store.

Create abandoned cart emails

Abandoned carts are a pain point for many retailers. To do something about it, you can use certain strategies to reach out to those potential customers to find out why they didn't convert. Some extra effort or discounts may convince them to make a purchase.

There are plenty of instances where an effective abandoned cart email helps lure leads back to the site to potentially make a purchase. Whether the customer got distracted while browsing through your site or saved an item and then forgot to buy it, an email is a gentle reminder to revisit their cart and hopefully help convince them to complete the sale.

Considering that approximately 75% of shoppers select items for their cart and then leave them is enough to warrant taking measures to address them directly. On average, abandoned cart emails handle an additional 30% recovery. Using the abandoned cart recovery extension is the perfect way to increase sales for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Prepare now

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are tremendous opportunities for many retailers. There's more need than ever to perform well and make the most out of these shopping events.

If you want to compete effectively and attract your shoppers' attention for the upcoming events, begin creating a strategy that works for your store and highlight popular products that drive traffic and increase sales.

Time is running short, and now is the time to act. Don't wait until a week before the event to begin the campaign. Start now to get the best visibility and create a buzz within your target audience.

Consumers are already preparing for the season and want to discover the best deals online to know where to focus their efforts. If you have a great sale that provides them with a chance to get items for unusually low prices, they will visit and likely make purchases.

Team up with platforms such as WooCommerce to get the tools and features you need to plan effectively and automate and post the deals you offer. You'll also want to ensure your website is ready to handle the increased traffic flow and won't freeze or operate slowly. These problems quickly drive eager shoppers away.

Takeaway

Start planning your sales now and advertise on your website ASAP. Don't wait to reach out through as many marketing channels as possible to get the best results. Try using these smart strategies and harness the power of a top open-source e-commerce platform. Get started today with your sales planning and get the tools and marketing features that allow you to better connect and interact with your audience.