It’s that time of the year. When the starting gun of the holiday shopping season is about to go off and shoppers amass shoulder-to-shoulder on the starting line. Most e-commerce brands are on their toes—and those who aren’t, should hurry up. That’s because 2023 promises to be hotter than 2022, and this year more stores will participate than ever before. Here’re some stats: in Brazil¹, 68% of store owners expect to sell more in 2023 than 2022. And since 24% did not participate in 2022, there’s a huge opportunity for new store sales.
To start with, Black Friday isn’t just a frenzied day. It’s actually a frenzied couple of weeks. With millions of consumers being more price-driven than ever, brands need to spread their offers like wildfire—and do it for longer—in order to increase their revenue. Last year, 20% of our clients started their offers at the beginning of November, while 40% started the Monday before Black Friday. Lesson learned: the earlier, the better.
There’re many ways to boost Black Friday sales. And some are hotter than others.
1. SMS Marketing – The gold standard of right now.
When it comes to Black Friday, good ole SMS Marketing works a treat. With hundreds of campaigns airing during this period, SMS Marketing is a surefire way to grab a customer’s attention faster than any other channel. Text messages are immediate, open instantly and, according to our own findings, collecting mobile numbers is 6 times faster than gathering email addresses.
2. Contacts Collection – Build your base, start early, stay strong.
Increasing your customers’ anticipation by starting an on-site campaign early is also a great way to collect contacts and increase your opted-in user base. During Black Friday, shoppers are even keener on grabbing offers, so they’re even more willing to share their personal data. And if you send them a welcoming message right after they subscribe, you’ll experience sky-rocketing engagement rates. Our own findings from 2022 showed that Black Friday campaigns resulted in 2x higher opt-in rates when compared to a regular period.
3. Broadcast Campaigns – Put your message out there.
Broadcast Campaigns are essential. With early-bird offers you can get their attention, while frequent reminders will keep their interest peaked for longer. Don’t be surprised if a quarter of your revenue comes as a result of such campaigns; in 2022, during Black Friday in Brazil, our own data from 16 participating brands showed exactly that.
5. Cart Recovery – Get that cart rolling again.
A sorry sight on any site is a cart that just sits there with nowhere to go. With almost 70% of shoppers leaving their carts², reducing cart abandonment is a must. Luckily, it’s mostly due to absentmindedness, so reminding customers of their carts’ contents goes a long way to fixing the problem. With Grow, Upstream’s mobile platform, you can send real-time text messages effortlessly, and get customers to complete their orders. In fact, last year, we got more customers to complete their orders by introducing two real-time triggered text reminders. The first brought a 2.21% conversion rate, and the second one, which was sent one day later, brought a 2.6% CR.
5. Upsell and Cross-sell – Get busy with some product matchmaking.
Black Friday is about promotions, so make sure yours go the distance by upselling and cross-selling. By bundling complementary products, companies can not only offer a discount, but also boost the average ticket. After all, customers love bundle deals like, for example, a smartphone that comes with a discounted charger.
6. Transactional Texts – Show them that you care.
With real-time transactional messages you can keep them updated on their orders, from confirmation to shipping. With offers this hot, customers are even more eager to receive their packages.
7. Post Black Friday Campaigns – A great end marks an even greater beginning.
When Black Friday ends, that doesn’t mean that your effort is over. Now’s the time to make the most of the engagement you generated by launching a Post Black Friday Campaign. And with your newly added, opted-in base, this is a great way to keep the excitement alive with targeted promotions and offers.
Upstream can help you turn Black Friday into one of this year’s greatest shopping events. In fact, in 2022, we achieved an 8% higher average order value for our clients within 5 days, when compared to the rest of the orders our ecommerce clients received. And we’re sure 2023 will be even better. That’s because we’ll spread offers fast and furiously, engage customers with on-site and broadcast campaigns, and make sure the cash register keeps ringing. Ready for a red-hot Black Friday? Talk to us.
