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It's never too early to start planning earlier than Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) -- the largest shopping period in the entire year. Both of these shopping seasons have witnessed significant growth year-over-year which means you'll need to prepare yourself to anticipate more website traffic as well as more advertisement competition as compared with prior years.

It doesn't matter if this is your first time conducting Black Friday Cyber Monday sales or you've been there before then you'll need to start formulating your plan for the year today in advance, and you can use this Black Friday checklist to get started.

In order to help you prepare for the upcoming season, we've broken this ecommerce Black Friday checklist into two parts -- the customer engagement checklist as well as the list to help you manage your back-end systems.

Black Friday list of items: Customer engagement

Let's begin with the first customer engagement checklist.

Begin earlier

Really?

Start preparations early, so that you can begin implementing your strategies for marketing earlier to boost the sales.

Make an Black Friday counter-narrative

Black Friday sales will begin when you'd like them to. The public is beginning to realize this. Thus, create an anti-Black Friday throughout the days leading up to it.

"Why wait? It's time to buy now So, take advantage of these amazing deals and get your shopping completed early."

The marketing angle that is anti-Black Friday would push benefits like getting a jump on your holiday shopping, checking off your shopping list prior to the crowds, and laughing in your relaxed contentment through December with all the frantic shoppers since you've got it all done already.

Combine this with an assortment of constantly changing specials and bargains in the months leading up until Black Friday.

Make sure you reach your customers

It is possible to do this with different product lines and run multiple ads, including on Google as well as other social media platforms.

Imagine you own an online retailer that sells health foods.

One product category features protein-enriched breakfast bars. The other category offers gluten-free as well as dairy-free snack items. And another includes nutrient-rich all-natural products. They can be advertised with your primary brand language, of course.

What is the intended public for the products look like? What matters to them? Include that message into the content you create for your Black Friday marketing content and your customers will be more engaged and will boost sales.

Identify products to feature this year

If you're selling lots of products, don't do blanket Black Friday sales that will hurt your profits. Instead, feature select items with incredible deals to increase sales by using them to draw many more people to your doors.

If you are able to motivate additional orders beyond Black Friday discounts, you'll raise the value of average orders and profit net.

If you're in the market for overstocked, discontinued items, or items that are seasonal, they are great choices for extreme discounts because you'll need to sell them out anyway. Utilize items that you are able to produce at a high volume for a discounted arrangement with your supplier and products that are in high demand or earn larger profits.

Also, think about creating dedicated Black Friday sale landing pages to showcase your top items, rather than just your typical product page.

Which products can you feature that offer the most amazing Black Friday deals this year?

Create marketing strategies for multiple channels

Multichannel marketing tends to produce better results than focusing on only one channel. Choose at least three different sales channels that you plan to utilize this year as part of you Black Friday marketing strategy.

Channels can include, but aren't only

• SMS
• Social media - all possible platforms, including Facebook, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest
• Direct post
• TV and radio
• Online video like streaming and YouTube

Don't forget to design optimized landing pages and track the web traffic you get from each of your chosen channels.

Prepare follow-up marketing strategies for use

Another key element to making money from Black Friday, Cyber Monday as well as the remainder of the shopping holiday period is to communicate with potential customers who discover your website during the holiday season.

Sure, a lot of Black Friday shoppers will come, buy, go, and never be seen again. But you can win some of them and then turn these into loyal and repeat customers.

Create a welcome email series. Start sending consistent email marketing. You should try to categorize new clients based on the products they have already purchased, as well as any other details you've gathered regarding them based on their initial buying experiences. Engage them by providing new and relevant content throughout the new year.

Have you a follow-up strategy for marketing in place to Black Friday?

Make use of email to get the message out early and often

To prepare for Black Friday this year, develop email marketing campaigns in order to target your different customer segments prior to the rush of holiday shopping. You want them thinking about your business before the many competitors on the internet start to compete for attention. It is important that they buy from you, while others with small businesses are simply waking up and realizing that they haven't planned in advance for Black Friday.

Your first email marketing campaign is likely to be sent out by October. Email inboxes start to overflow by the end of November. Therefore, if you use email to begin with the seeds, and offer the best deals before the rush, you'll improve sales as well as build the brand's reputation and build customer loyalty.

Create eye-catching visuals

On your product pages as well as the landing pages or pages that you'll design for items you've decided to showcase, you'll need some high resolution images to grab attention and allow your audience to experience the product within their fingers.

Make abandoned cart email addresses

Setting up these in advance of Black Friday will give you the chance to try out your campaigns and see what marketing strategies and offers are most effective for your online store.

Your ad campaign can be broken down into three pieces

There's a number of items to check off on your Black Friday checklist, and it can get overwhelming. For help in organizing your efforts and know what to prioritize You can divide the entire campaign into three basic components.

It's the first step in the run-up prior to Black Friday. It begins when you wish it to begin, it ends on Black Friday.

Next comes the actual day. This could be all weekend, or even next week, if you're taking on the entire Cyber Week. The definition of the 'day'.

Everything that follows following the Black Friday period is the next stage of your marketing plan.

Black Friday is just one single day. Your strategy for marketing should cover the whole period.

Did you break into the Black Friday promotions campaign into three segments?

Create or update your return policy

If you've run your e-commerce company for some time, you probably already have this. If not then now is the perfect right time to make one. In the event that you already have one, maybe you've realized from experience the one you have is outdated.

• The process of return of items that have been shipped. Do you need the original packaging, in perfect item condition, etc. ?
• The policy of refund. Do customers get their money back, store credit, or something else?
• Clear deadlines. How long can they be returned to receive full refunds or credit?
• The shipping address. What address will they use to send back articles?
• Contact information. What is the best way for customers to get in touch with additional concerns?

And, your return policy must be made public as often as relevant. It should be within the order confirmation email that goes out after the purchase is made. It must be printed and included as part of the product that is shipped. The information should be posted on your website and be simple to locate for example, in the footer of your website, on the FAQ page and on product pages.

Do you have an updated Return policy?

Offer faster shipping alternatives

Shipping times can increase in the holiday shopping time, when customers typically expect speedy shipping services.

Based on an 2021 Baymard study in 2021, 19% of carts that are abandoned are due to delivery times getting too long. Offering faster shipping options can lower the number of lost sales. It can be a particularly effective approach during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Fast delivery methods incentivize customers, they ensure that the products are delivered on time during a season when delivery times might be longer due to the huge volume carriers are processing.

You might consider offering the option to buy Now or Pay Later

This option can be made accessible on the checkout page. But you can also mention it on the product page, the home page, on your landing page or wherever else you think it might assist customers in overcoming an objection to price and stay purchasing.

Make use of the chatbot

Chatbots assist with customer support and can increase sales. A lot of times clients have questions that a chatbot can solve. If they are able to have a couple of issues clarified, they'll complete their purchase.

If they are forced to search for the email address of a person, scroll through help forums, or wait for live chat representatives to get back in touch, they're likely to leave the whole process and look elsewhere.

If you're able to achieve it the chatbot can help reduce buying friction without requiring additional customer service personnel.

Take a look at the the previous calendar year's Black Friday sales data

The tendency is to view every year like a fresh venture. We start from scratch and reinvent the wheel with no advantage of hindsight.

However, if you've been operating an online store for any length of time and have run Black Friday marketing campaigns before then you've got some knowledge. There's some data you've gathered previously. Some of what you've done previously may have worked very well.

So before you get to far in your plans for this year, revisit your results from last year. What went well? What wasn't?

Do you have the potential to repeat your success from the previous year? Can you improve the areas that fell short?

Black Friday checklist Black Friday checklist: Backend systems

Now, let's move on into our Black Friday checklist items that consumers don't see every day, yet you count on for customers to make purchases, and to have an enjoyable Black Friday shopping experience.

Make your website faster

90% of visitors are likely to leave a website if it loads slowly. Site speed should be the top priority any time of the year however it is especially crucial for those who anticipate an increase in volume of traffic. There are a few simple things to do if you have a slow website.

• Test your website performance. Find what areas that need to be improved through a speed test. Software such as Pingdom and Page Speed Insights will tell you how quickly it loads and its performance in particular zones.
• Implement a content delivery network (CDN). A CDN serves your site's files from high-speed, dedicated, and geographically-distributed data centers. Users will receive caching content from the CDN server nearest them that reduces load times and reduces bandwidth and load the server. Jetpack comes with the option of a no-cost CDN as well, and in contrast to other providers, you are able to setup and install the Jetpack CDN in just one click.
• Optimize your images. Even if you're making use of the CDN that optimizes your files for you, it's good procedure to upload the least amount of files you need while maintaining a high-quality resolution. Exporting for web with Photoshop as well as using the free images resizing tools and optimization software like ImageOptim are easy ways to make your images ready for use on the internet.
• Change the hosting service you use. If you're on shared servers the site could experience slower load times, especially when other websites that are on the server experience high volumes of traffic. You should consider a virtual server (VPS) or dedicated server.

There are many more ways to speed up the speed of your store.

Are your eCommerce websites running at the speed it should be?

Synchronize inventory and product pages

Speed up and simplify your checkout procedure

The checkout procedure may be working, but is it efficient and user-friendly? Your goal is to make your checkout form as simple as is possible with minimal distractions in order to motivate customers to complete their purchase. A few things you can do to improve include:

• Remove visually cluttered. Eliminate header and menus for footers, widgets in the sidebar and any other distractions on your checkout page so your customers remain focused on completing their purchase.

You must be prepared to fill orders and have them shipped on time

Are your suppliers and dropshippers equipped to handle the increased demand? Do you have the capacity to increase production when demand surpasses estimates?

Although this can be a great issue to be faced with but you shouldn't waste the chance to grow your revenue and win new clients because the supply chain becomes overloaded.

If you're looking to expand production prior to the holiday season, make sure you place your orders with your material suppliers early. This is especially true for your products are manufactured by another company -- especially when the products are manufactured overseas. Other companies will be taking orders from sellers in preparation in preparation for Black Friday sales as well, so make sure you secure your order prior to the date. If you don't, you may be faced with higher prices or be out of stock things.

If you're working with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) to ship your goods, review historic sales and shipping trends for your products and ask for them to transfer your inventory to warehouses that are near the locations where you tend to do the most business. This will speed delivery for customers. If speedy delivery is essential to your company Ask your 3PL to deliver frequent shipments and choose companies that provide the fastest delivery times.

Also, you may have to recruit more workers or extend hours in order to accommodate the anticipated increase in production over the Christmas season. This is particularly important in the case of hand-crafted goods or producing products in-house. But even if your production is outsourced, you may still have more demand for customer services and ordering fulfillment, marketing and more.

Collect customer data in order to follow-up with marketing

In the past, we talked about preparing to follow up should you attract customers this year that haven't previously visited your e-commerce store in the past.

But you can't follow up without collecting the information of your customers.

If you're shipping products, it is likely that they'll give you their mailing address. But direct mail marketing as well as follow-up cost much more than digital marketing and follow-up, therefore you should be able to follow up with email, and perhaps SMS as well.

In order to do this, the customer should be offered the option to choose whether or not they want to. The most effective place to make this happen is on the checkout page. There, you can solicit their email address as well as telephone number. Make certain to obtain consent to contact the customer via email or text. But make the phone number optional in order that those who aren't opted-in for messages via text won't be confused.

Not everyone will consent however, which is fine as some might. If they do, you can now start your follow-up marketing strategy.

Are you prepared to collect emails and numbers?

Convert tracking can be set up

It's important to track customer behavior and how well your marketing strategies perform over Black Friday and the rest of the festive season to make adjustments next year.

Make sure your website is secure

An easy and efficient way to enhance your website's security is to set up the security plugin. Jetpack offers free security against brute force attacks that will stop an attack that is one of the more common kinds of hacking techniques as well as 2-factor authentication to safeguard your login method. Additionally, Jetpack's WordPress security plugin includes regular backups, malware scanning and monitoring of downtime for spam prevention along with other features.

Make sure your site works on every device and all browsers.

Your online store must display correctly on desktop devices, tablets, mobile phones, and all leading browsers. You can check this with your devices easily, but you'll also need to check how your store displays on a device and browser emulator, such as LambdaTest.

Although you may not be able ensure that your website looks and performs flawlessly across every device and platforms, you can use tools like Google Analytics to find out which browsers and devices your visitors are using. Then, you can focus your energy to test and tweak your website to ensure it works on the platforms you have chosen.

Is your website mobile friendly and accessible on as many devices as is

Verify the key functions of your site

Set up your scheduled sales and coupons

It is possible to reduce the stress and stress that comes with the biggest shopping season of the year by doing everything you can in the months prior to.

It's easy to set up your coupons and sales in advance of the time. After you've determined which items are going to have sales and when you'll be able to offer particular flash sales or deals, as well as how the price will fluctuate over time, you can create coupons as well as other backend support systems that guarantee sales success. If you're offering a free product with purchase, be sure that the items are in stock.

Make sure you highlight Black Friday bargains in your online store

It is impossible for customers to benefit from sales without knowing about it. If your visitors come to your site naturally or bring them to your site through email marketing and paid advertising it is important to know about your sales quickly.

There are several methods to accomplish this:

• Create pop-ups that announce the sale, and a call to action and button that takes direct to the sales.
• Add a banner to your homepage promoting your sale.
• Add the "Black Friday Deals" menu item on the navigation of your website.
• Include sale items on the shop's sidebar.
• Show sale icon on the thumbnails of your products.

Prepare your customer service software

Although you might need to add more staff to support your sales and your customer service department in the days leading up to Black Friday, onboarding and the training of temporary employees can be difficult and lengthy. There are other ways to boost customer support as well as the hiring of temporary workers.

Below are three customer service strategies to implement this year.

Give a range of choices to support customers

Alongside direct line phone support -that you must provide in the event that you are able to provide it, there are different ways for customers to find answers to their questions.

• FAQs or knowledge base. Help customers help themselves by providing a quickly accessible and easy to navigate FAQ page or knowledge base
• Use a customer service contact form. Let people get in touch with the customer service team by email with a contact form. Use conditional logic that is based on a user's query type to route questions from customers to the right email address.
• You can put AI chatbots to work.Filter out some of the most frequently asked inquiries such as "How much does shipping cost?" or "Do you deliver to my country?" by using an AI chatbot. It will spare your customer service team valuable time as well as provide customers with rapid answers to the most basic of questions.

Make use of a customer relationship management tool (CRM)

CRMs help you keep track of the interactions of your customers with you and help deal with support requests, verify leads and increase sales to your clients.

Jetpack CRM is a compact and user-friendly tool that is able to integrate directly into your dashboard. There are no contact limits and it's one of the cheapest CRM choices to store owners.

Make sure your customer service procedures and FAQs are up-to-date

Review the procedures for customer service and be sure they're accurate. If there are any specific procedures or deals that your employees need to know about for Black Friday and Cyber Monday Document them, and make sure your team can access them. An informal meeting to go over your procedures about a week prior to the launch of your Black Friday deals may help keep these new processes top-of-mind to your employees.

When you've streamlined the customer support experience for both your visitors and your team It's possible you need additional staff to assist you during the holiday season. But maximizing your current staff's effectiveness will reduce the number of seasonal hires you'll have to hire.

Are you ready for Christmas shopping time?

It's a Black Friday checklist may seem to be a bit of a hassle to prepare for a sale that only lasts a few days. However, these guidelines aren't designed only for one weekend.

When you've put them in place, many of these systems and methods will continue to strengthen your business online every day. If you stay on top of these things on your checklist all through the year, you shouldn't need to put in a lot of effort as the time approaches for Christmas next year.