Maximising Your Black Friday Sales: Strategies for Small, Independent Product-Based Businesses

With Black Friday just around the corner, I’m sharing my top strategies to help you maximise your sales this holiday season.

From prepping your website and planning great promotions to marketing tactics and enhancing the customer experience, we've got it all covered. Stick around, because these tips could make this Black Friday your best one yet!

  Want to listen instead? Click Here to hear this episode of The Abundant Business Podcast

This episode is specifically for all you small, independent product-based business owners out there. With Black Friday just around the corner, let's make sure you’re all set to maximise those sales! 

Why Black Friday is a Big Deal

So, why is Black Friday such a big deal, anyway? Well, for starters, it's one of the biggest shopping days of the entire year. People are in a serious buying mood, hunting for the best deals and coolest products… and feeling like they are getting the best value for money! For small businesses like yours, this is a golden opportunity. Not only can you boost your sales during this sales period, but you can also attract new customers who, if treated correctly could stick around long after the holiday season.

Think about it—everyone’s looking for gifts and deals. This is your chance to get your products in front of a lot of new eyes. Plus, it’s a great way to clear out some old inventory and make room for new stuff. So, let’s talk about how to get prepared for the big day.

Getting Ready for Black Friday

Preparation is key. Here’s what you need to do to get ready:

1. Plan Your Promotions: What deals are you going to offer? As always you must know what your profit margins are for every single product that you sell before you can even think about putting any promotions on anything. When you know this… Think about discounts, bundles, or even freebies. I personally love bundles that show your customers just how much you care about them and you understand their needs when buying from your store… Tiered discounts can also work wonders, like 'Buy One, Get One 50% Off' or 'Spend £100, Get 20% Off. Both of these encourage further purchases from your shop. Rather than rewarding customers that buy little or just 1 item, here is where you can really maximise the amount of products that you can sell and then reward them for these purchases.

2. Optimise Your Website: Your website needs to be ready for a traffic spike! Are you using google ads, or social media ads to drive traffic to your website? Then you must make sure it loads quickly and works smoothly on all devices, all buttons take your customers to the correct pages and your customer can find and purchase what they’re looking for in no more than 4 clicks. Nothing’s worse than a slow site on Black Friday as your customers will be thinking could they find something better elsewhere. Also, check that your product pages are top-notch—great photos showing your perfect customer using your products, clear descriptions that deliver the benefits as well as the features, and customer reviews all work wonders!

3. Stock Up: You don’t want to run out of your best-sellers, right? Look at past sales data and forecast what you’ll need. Consider how your sales have been throughout the last year, have they been running about the same, have you been selling more then look at how much more and order that much more for this sale. If your sales have been down since last year, please don’t overstock just for the sake of it! Although I want you to have plenty of stock on hand to make the most of this sales period, I also don’t want you to over stretch yourself unnecessarily. So please look back and really get to understand your sales throughout the last year and which products are going to be in high demand or not.

4. Get Your Marketing Materials Ready: Start creating those emails, social media posts, and ads now. Tease your deals to build anticipation. Use bright, eye-catching graphics and clear calls to action. Make sure everything is on brand, you could even create a waitlist for customers and future customers to get your black Friday deals first, simply collect their email addresses and keep them in the loop and open your promotions a few days prior to them going live elsewhere. This works amazingly well and you can really maximise sales by doing this!

5. Customer Service: Make sure your customer service team or if you’re on your own, have plenty of sleep on the run up and have systems ready for the rush. Maybe even extend your customer service hours during the sale period. Happy customers are repeat customers. Do what you can do, and don’t beat yourself up over anything at all. Remember you are just 1 person trying your best and that is all you can do!

Alright, with these preparations, you’ll be setting yourself up for success.

Marketing Strategies

Now, let’s talk about how to get the word out. Here are some marketing strategies to drive traffic to your store:

1. Email Marketing: Start sending teaser emails now, encouraging customers to join your waitlist to get early access to your sales. Build excitement with subject lines like 'Sneak Peek of Our Black Friday Deals' or 'Exclusive Early Access'. On the big day, send reminder emails with direct links to your deals… and don’t just send 1 email and hope for the best… 3 emails minimum! In the morning to share that your promotions are live, at lunch time to use scarcity and share how quickly certain items are selling and to encourage other people to take action before it’s too late, and then in the evening for last calls and reminding what time the sale ends.

2. Social Media: Use the social media platforms that your perfect customer uses to promote your deals. Post engaging content, use stories, and don’t forget to encourage customers to engage with you, start conversations like, “what would you most like to see?”, “What cant you wait to get your hands on?” This helps you to get an understanding of what your customers are excited about. Consider running targeted ads to reach new customers.

3. Influencer Partnerships: Team up with influencers who align with your brand. They can help spread the word about your deals to their followers. These must have a large amount of followers who are your perfect customer and also go through their content to see how much engagement your perfect customers are actually giving these influencers so that you can really make the most of this platform.

4. Content Marketing: Create blog posts for your website, or create videos about your Black Friday deals and gift guides. This helps with SEO and drives traffic to your site and is as engaging as possible for different types of customers to understand how you, your products and your business can benefit them the most.

5. Referral Programs: Encourage your current customers to refer friends and family by offering them a special gift for a certain amount of customers successfully recommended to you, offer them a chance to win something that they would actually want… consider how you can get your customers doing some of the marketing for you and talk about your business to their friends and family, who are likely to like similar things as they do.

These strategies will help you reach more people and get them excited about shopping with you.

Enhancing the Customer Experience

Okay, so now let’s talk about customer experience. Your customer experience that is tailored exactly to what your perfect customer is expecting from you… A smooth shopping experience can really make a difference:

1. Streamlined Checkout: Make sure your checkout process is quick and easy. Fewer steps mean fewer chances for customers to abandon their carts. Offer multiple payment options too.

2. Clear Return Policy: Have a simple, easy-to-find and understand return policy. This builds trust and encourages people to buy, knowing they can return items if needed.

3. Personalised Recommendations: Use data to personalise product recommendations. This can lead to more sales as customers see items they’re more likely to buy.

4. Fast Shipping: Offer fast shipping options and clearly communicate delivery times. Consider free shipping for orders over a certain amount to encourage further spending.

5. Post-Purchase Engagement: Follow up with customers after their purchase. Send a series of 3 emails post-purchase to thank-you your customer for their purchase, provide order tracking, provide top tips, how to’s and create even more benefit for your customers, and encourage them to leave a review.

A great shopping experience can turn first-time buyers into loyal customers.

After Black Friday

Don’t forget, the work doesn’t stop after Black Friday. Here’s what you should do next:

1. Analyse Sales Data: Look at your sales data to see what worked, what didn’t and why… every detail you can look at here will help you plan for future promotions and make them better and better each time.

2. Get Customer Feedback: Ask your customers about their shopping experience. Don’t take anything personally and find out how you can use this feedback to make improvements.

3. Nurture New Customers: Engage with the new customers you gained. Show them how much benefit you provide to your customers, why they are now a part of something special and how your community is there to help them have as much value as possible.

4. Prepare for Cyber Monday: The shopping frenzy continues through the weekend, peaking on Cyber Monday. Keep the momentum going with new promotions or extended offers.

5. Restock: Check your inventory and restock popular items if possible. Update your customers as quickly as possible when stocks are running low and update your website and marketing materials to reflect current stock levels to prevent customers from getting disappointed and encourage those customers who were sitting on the fence to act now.

By following these steps, you’ll be ready to build on your Black Friday success and keep growing your business.

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