What is your best tip for making the most out of Black Friday sales (on or offline)?
The following answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Send Multiple Emails
Often companies only send one email announcing their Black Friday sales. I always recommend planning out multiple different email campaigns for the day to maximize results. If you do event-based marketing using tools like customer.io, those are even better. – Syed Balkhi, OptinMonster
2. Offer Extended Customer Support
People have questions on Black Friday. Make sure you offer extended customer support so you can be there to answer their questions and make the sale. Install the free trial version of LiveChat on your site and chat in real time with customers. Clearly communicate a no-hassle refund policy. Offer other assurances that increase the possibility of a customer purchase. – Brett Farmiloe, Markitors
3. Limit Your Promotional Window
Creating a sense of urgency is key to generating successful sales during the Black Friday shopping season. The more time you give shoppers to think, the more time they have to price compare and possibly forget you even existed. Plus, you’ll get them before they have time to blow their shopping budget elsewhere. – Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep
4. Go Big or Go Home
Go big or go home applies here. With so much buzz and so many people competing for attention, go all in or don’t go in at all. Either way is fine, just commit to one or the other and recognize which fits best with your business model. – Brooke Bergman, Allied Business Network Inc.
5. Be Ready When They Are
The best tip for making the most of out of Black Friday (or Cyber Monday) is to plan ahead: know where your consumers are looking for sales, know when they’re starting to look and make sure you’re present and ready when they are. – Basha Rubin, Priori Legal
6. Clean Your Inventory
Don’t think of Black Friday as a day that you have to offer huge price cuts just to get people to buy. Take some of your products that have high weeks of cover or are otherwise not as successful as you would hope and put them up for sale with a huge discount. This will help you clear the inventory of products that matter to you as a business and that you’ll be OK with losing margins on. – Andy Karuza, SpotSurvey
7. Don’t Rey on One Medium
Many businesses rely on sales for a huge portion of their revenue. Black Friday is the day many retailers generate more revenue than they do in a typical month. To maximize effectiveness you need a truly unique deal and a comprehensive promotional strategy. Don’t rely on one medium to get the word out. Work with partners, leverage paid channels, be aggressive and be creative. – Carlo Cisco, SELECT
8. Stand Out
Everyone will be running big discounts and promotions, so you have to figure out how not to be “just another sale.” Sit down with yourteam and develop an angle that will resonate with your target audience and start working on it early. The earlier you can start, the more prepared you’ll be. Leverage other like-minded, complementary partners or stores to make your offer as compelling as possible. – Josh Payne, StackCommerce
9. Get a Head Start
Most shoppers tend to flock to their favorite (big name) stores during Black Friday. So get their attention beforehand by starting yoursales and marketing a little earlier. Reach out to your customers as frequently as you can in advance to stay fresh in their minds. Don’t be shy; this is one of those rare times during the year that people really look forward to hearing about your sales! – Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net
10. Fire on All Cylinders for Social Media
Sure, you don’t want to completely blast your customer’s Inbox — but you want to get the message out. Playing round-robin with yoursocial media platforms as well as email to reach your customers could be just the thing to push you over the edge. Make sure you mix up your message, but keeping the point strong: there are one-time benefits to be had and they don’t want to miss out. – Rob Fulton, Exponential Black
Image Credit: Shutterstock.com
Updated: October 2021
