Black Friday: 9 top tips to help small businesses boost sales

Until a few years ago, many of us would look forward to the post-Christmas sales starting on Boxing Day. But that’s no longer the case with the widespread adoption of the US Black Friday tradition. 

It’s become a day known for steep discounts, with businesses of all types jumping on the Black Friday bandwagon. Typically, Black Friday was held on the last Friday in November, but now it can extend across the whole month. 

Many businesses have been planning for Black Friday sales for quite a few months. 

What started as a one-day shopping extravaganza has now extended for some businesses to become a month of special offers and deals leading through the week up to Black Friday and through to  Cyber Monday. 

Stores having a landing page for Black Friday in place well in advance, with an email opt-in for consumers to subscribe to hear about the latest offers. 

From local sports centre offering customers Black Friday deals to entice people to invest in annual memberships, or even a local book store offering itself to shoppers as a place for peace and tranquillity while everyone else is frenetically shopping on the high street, there are ways to maximise the value of this time. 

Spikes in the search term “Black Friday” that begin weeks in advance will surface these landing pages as the retailers have already put their digital marketing plans in place. 

With online sales on the rise, expect to see a blended approach where retailers are selling both at their bricks and mortar stores and via e-commerce. 

It’s not too late to refine your plans for Black Friday success. Here are nine tips to help you boost your sales: 

1. Plan your finances carefully 

Black Friday is a great way to move stock, gain customers, and generate profit. However, a certain level of planning should be done in advance to make sure all the fantastic discounts have the right impact on your bottom line. 

If you give too much of a discount or spend too much on Black Friday advertising and marketing, you may find it reduces your profits so much that it’s hardly worth the effort. 

It’s easy to over or underestimate stock purchasing too, especially if you’re collecting purchasing data manually. 

Factor in any additional costs like store staffing, warehousing, shipping, and customer support staff, as well as additional ad or influencer marketing costs. 

Using AI-powered financial and inventory-management software can give you the insights you need to determine how much of a discount to give. It can also identify patterns in purchasing to steer you towards demand and even can see what stock needs moving, fast, for example, if storage costs are creeping up. 

If you rely on a complex supply chain for shipping items, it’s essential to look ahead to anything that might affect them during this period. Here, AI-forecasting software can give you a heads up for anything that might affect it, allowing you to plan adjustments in early. 

Ultimately, you want to find the balance between giving customers what they want (juicy discounts) and maximising the profit you can make. Taking the time to really understand your financial position and put the right offers on the table in advance will help ensure a successful Black Friday for you and your customers. 

2. Build anticipation for your offers through ads on social media and in person 

Once you have your financials locked in, it’s time to build anticipation and excitement. 

Your social media channels are the perfect place to post teasers in advance of Black Friday. 

Consider using targeted Facebook or search ads to reconnect the fans of your business and even re-activate past customers.  

Things like social media countdowns, competitions, and early access to the sales are a fun way to generate some shopper excitement. 

If you’re a local business, don’t forget the power of local advertising. Where can you position your ads so they’ll have maximum cut-through?  

If in doubt, listen to the customer. Consumers are posting about their Black Friday shopping plans well in advance of the day. 

You can set up a social listening centre tuning in to people in your local area, to see what you can learn about this potential customer base. 

You can then engage with them, offering help with their shopping pursuits and directing them to your own offers where appropriate. 

Think of your business becoming a local “Black Friday concierge service”. This will also help you boost the visibility of your products and services online. 

3. Pre-plan your social media posts and emails for Black Friday 

You may want to take care and not schedule your content in case you run out of stock (see the previous point to help you manage this). 

However, you can prepare your images, video content, emails, and posts that you plan to send on (and before) Black Friday. Adding the right hashtags and geolocators can help spread word quickly in a trackable way. 

AI tools can help with scheduling and wording here, because there can be a lot of content to organise. 

4. Do a virtual walkthrough of your online store 

Consider having a mystery shopper make a purchase from your site and explore how you can refine the online sales process to minimise shopping cart abandonment. 

Ensure you have direct links from your social posts showcasing any items or bundles to the correct page on the store, so that customers can switch from social, to webstore, to purchase, seamlessly. 

Optimising your store for mobile is essential for this. You are trying to catch the attention of shoppers wherever they might be, and you don’t want to frustrate them with a bad experience. 

Many website creation tools offer dynamic sizing of the website which adjusts the view depending on device so make sure your website is ready for an increase in customers. 

As Black Friday sales start, there can also be a rush of customers using your website. It is essential to have enough bandwidth built in to manage in increase in hits, so the site doesn’t crash. Run tests and ensure your webstore servers can handle the increase in traffic before you open your virtual doors. Factor this increase in server power into your overall costs for the season. 

5. Do a mail out to your loyal customers 

If you have a mailing list of clients and customers or a moderate social media following, give them a sneak peek and a first chance to reward them for their loyalty throughout the year. 

If they’ve opted into text or email messaging from you, use that as a way to remind them of some of the offers you’ll have available. 

Consider using AI tools to make their emails personal with offers tailored to past purchase history. Your loyal customers expect some level of personalisation from you, offer them your best deals or create exclusive deals just for them. 

How do you measure your Black Friday success? Read this article to get your reporting right.

6. Make sure your offers are unique and irresistible 

Consumers will be expecting steep discounts and a great shopping experience. 

Think about how you can package the offers you have so shoppers will feel they’re getting real value for money.  

AI in stock and inventory management software can pull data about shoppers’ habits. Use this to link items commonly bought together to create discounted bundles of things people buy often. 

Discounting best sellers that you know will be replaced soon, is a great way to use customers’ demand for a product to sell more inventory of it and clear the stock. 

7. Check your stock levels in advance 

Make sure you’ve got the right amount of stock, so your customers aren’t left disappointed. 

You’ll want to ensure you have enough of your top-selling products so you can meet demand and maximise profit. 

At the same time, having too much of a product that’s not going to sell will cost you in the long run, in terms of unwanted inventory. 

Use good accounting software to track your stock levels and generate insights so you have the right amount of products to sell at this busy time of year. 

One way of ensuring you get the most out of Black Friday demand is to extend your sales to the weekend, or even the whole month. This takes the pressure off moving a large amount of inventory in a single day and customers don’t miss out on great deals. 

8. Check your staffing 

Your stock isn’t the only consideration on Black Friday. Ensure you have the staff to pick, pack, and deliver it for a timely despatch and deal with any support queries afterwards.  

While customers love a discount, they are less keen if this isn’t followed up with the item as soon as possible, as it ruins the immediate reward of getting a bargain. 

You may need to hire more warehouse or customer service staff, or make specific arrangements with the post office if you expect to be sending in bulk. So, make sure you have all the infrastructure in place to deliver on time. 

Using flexible payroll management software can help keep your short-term hire process smooth and efficient. 

9. Encourage customers to share their purchases on social media 

Finally, the sale is complete. Your customers are happy. But to get the most out of this engagement, invite customers to post all about the fantastic bargains. It’s a bit of free advertising for you which will help expand your customer base for next year. 

You can also use this time to gather customer reviews and get valuable feedback that helps you improve their experience for next time. 

And remember, a happy customer is your best advocate. 

Final thoughts 

Remember, as well as Black Friday, you also have Cyber Monday  when you can look to boost sales. 

Take the time to evaluate what works this year so you can plan your next Black Friday campaign in advance and don’t forget there are plenty of tools to help you get the most out of your customer data. 

Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2017 and has been updated for relevance.