One often reads articles suggesting "best practices" to optimize advertising efforts specifically for Black Friday. But do they work if all the rest of the year the brand does not take care of its overall strategy and communication?
The answer is no: this is precisely why Black Friday often brings false hope to entrepreneurs, who expect that a budget allocated in an ad hoc, stand-alone campaign will magically bring incredible numbers to their e-commerce. Certainly, with certain types of products it is easier for even a specific campaign to be successful, but when product prices rise, the niche shrinks, or the service becomes less and less concrete? In that case, everything becomes more complex, especially if the brand does not have an established name in the common imagination and a circle of loyal customers.
How to get around this by coming to Black Friday with a strategy that will really bring results? By starting early, with 3 long-term strategies that will make a difference not only during Cyber Week, but in overall brand performance:
#1 Optimize your website and e-commerce.
Perfecting your website and e-commerce and making sure they deliver an optimal User Experience is definitely the initial step in improving a company's bottom line. Imagine wanting a certain product so badly and finding a company online that offers it at a super-competitive price, but landing on a complex, confusing site or disorganized e-commerce where you cannot easily proceed with your purchase. You'd probably pass up the desire to buy from that brand-that's the experience you don't want your potential customers to have. To monitor the overall performance of your website and e-commerce, some key metrics are bounce rate, which is the percentage of people who left your website immediately after viewing a page, the time visitors spend on your site per visit, and the abandonment rate, particularly with regard to your e-commerce shopping cart.
#2 Build a defined Brand Identity.
Competition these days is fierce, and there are a good number of companies covering almost every industry. Hardly will the product sold by a business be unique; you need to focus on other aspects to differentiate yourself and position your brand appropriately. This is precisely the role played by Brand Identity: the identity of the company consisting of values, mission, vision. Everything that makes the brand recognizable and communicates its essence to the public.
#3 Structure a Brand Awareness Strategy.
Sure a discount appeals to everyone, but who are you to the consumer beyond price? Having a good Brand Awareness strategy helps you arrive at recurrences by positioning yourself in the eyes of the potential customer as someone they already know, almost like a friend or a well-known personality, whom they trust and feel ready to buy from. Building a base of trust helps you not only benefit from the full potential of the hot times of the year, but also consistently expand your customer base and your brand'sattractiveness to your audience.
#4 Bring forth ongoing communication.
The Customer Journey is increasingly complex: as much as the price of a product or service remains one of the main drivers of purchase, consumers are increasingly looking for anoverall experience, for certain qualities to be found not so much in the good they want to buy, but in the brand itself. In order to be able to establish in the user the belief that they are a valuable brand worth buying from, it is very important to offer anomnichannel, long-lasting and consistentexperience, taking advantage of all the available touchpoints. Today, it is no longer conceivable to offer a discount code to increase one's sales: buying and the choice to buy have become a real journey in which the brand must accompany the potential customer.
#5 Leverage Referral Marketing.
Nothing is as valuable to the user as the opinion of their peers. To be trustworthy and appealing in the eyes of the potential customer, a good strategy is to benefit from positive opinions, User Generated Contents related to your brand, product or service. There is no corporate communication that holds as much as the communication of a satisfied user.
Surely, combining these 5 strategies with an investment specifically for Black Friday can bring a significant increase in ROI during Cyber Week, converting not only into increased sales, but also more website visits and the ability to get new customers.
Starting early and structuring a long-term strategy means you can also make the most of every optimal time of year for sales. If you don't want to miss the opportunity to improve your business performance, the Ander Group Team can help you build a strategy tailored to your needs and goals.