Let the countdown to Black Friday begin. As of this post, there are just over two weeks until we encounter what might be the biggest online shopping day ever (November 27th). Yes, they call the following Monday “Cyber Monday”, but thanks to mobile shopping, Black Friday is just as “cyber” as its Monday counterpart.
Why are we talking today only about Facebook? Hold onto your pants: in 2014 Adobe and IBM found that the social platform that led to the highest average order value was Facebook. According to the two, the average order value for Facebook driven customers was between $109.94 and $114.45!
In order to make sure that you capitalize on the rush to buy on Black Friday (and even Thursday) through Monday, we’ve put together a handy five point guide that can do wonders to help you break your own previous sales records.
1. Identify Your Goals
First things first, you need to know what you want to achieve this coming Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Setting as a goal “more sales” is not specific enough, and odds are that you won’t maximize your potential.
By setting a realistic goal, you’ll be able to focus your mind and energy on implementing the right tactics to hit and eclipse your goals.
- What is your average conversion rate? What is the conversion rate on your best and worst product?
- How have your conversion rates changed throughout the year?
- How much did you sell, and what were conversion rates this time last year?
- Ideally, by how much can you improve conversion rates?
Once you have answered these questions for yourself, you can create a low and high range for what you expect your total sales revenue to be this holiday season. Is the high-end of your goal attainable? You want it to be a challenge that is in reach.
Steve Jobs’ goal for Apple was to “domesticate” computers so that they could be used just like any other household appliance. By knowing what he wanted the company to achieve, he was then able to make the right hires and implement the right strategy and tactics. Now it’s your turn.
2. Know What to Post and When
We all know that the holiday season is a busy one, and being an eCommerce business, you’re going to be even busier. Last year online sales jumped 12.6% for the entire Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday holiday (IBM)!
People follow your brand’s Facebook page, above all, to both learn about new products/services as well as to keep up with recent brand activities. If you want that those followers to convert into paying customers you have to engage them into being firm believers in what you do and stand for.
1. Look back at the last couple of months and via Facebook’s page insights discover what has been working for you. What time are your posts most effective? Which posts got the most clicks? The most shares, likes, and comments? See what is the common factor with these posts.
2. What are the most innovative brands doing this holiday season? For example, there is plenty to take away from what Kohl’s did last year, aside from the great design.
3. When do you start promoting holiday deals? You definitely don’t want to wait until Black Friday to announce your special offers. That’s too late, and on the other hand announcing the Black Friday deal two weeks in advance is too early. Take a look at engagement rates during the week of Black Friday, via YesWare.
Want a tip from us? Build up the urgency by building up your deals starting now. Today is the 12th of November.
- 14th-15th: 48 hour sale on a product/line or even store-wide. To create more buzz around this event, you could create what’s known as a group deal – as long as “X” people sign up for the deal, it will be available. Check out our Group Deal app.
- 19th-20th (one week before Thanksgiving & Black Friday): create a more attractive sale, but still leave room for a good surprise on Black Friday.
- 21st-25th: start giving clues and notifications on your Black Friday deals!
To make your Facebook posts truly remarkable, make sure to add Facebook videos that start playing automatically. These posts have the highest engagement rate and reach the highest percentage of your followers.
Pro Tip: Add a call to action to all of your posts, and make sure to be consistent with the call to actions. Don’t use a different one for each post. Have your go-to CTA.
Recommended: 11 Tips for Creating the Perfect Call to Action
3. Get More Facebook Page Likes
As you saw in the intro, Facebook was home to the highest average order value for purchases made via social media in 2014. Not only is the buying power greatest on Facebook, but it’s also the platform on which a brand’s action are most likely to influence followers to make a purchase.
Full infographic on SocialTimes
In order to capitalize on Facebook’s power, you want to make sure you’ve got as many interested customers following you on Facebook. Start to maximize your reach now.
The cost-effective strategy is using your presence on other social media profiles and your web store to promote your Facebook page. Hint: don’t just say “Hey, we’re on Facebook too”.
Create valuable tweets and statuses to drive more fans to Facebook. The link in the below tweet went directly to the Facebook post.
What else can you do to get more of your interested fans following you on Facebook?
Aside from social media cross-promotion, using some type of lead generation tool for your eCommerce business is a must (unfortunately many sites still haven’t gotten themselves up to date). Now is the time to direct your website visitors to “like” your Facebook page.
Angelus knows that, for their brand, value comes from their Instagram and Facebook followers. Create an offer that your site’s visitors will be hard pressed to turn down for just liking your page.
Pro Tip: People love free shipping, so consider adding a coupon code that when used enables the buyer to get products shipped for free! Participants in a study were asked, “Would you be more likely to purchase online if you were offered….”
Last on this list of growth tips for your Facebook page, but not least, is the use of emails. How can you use emails to grow on Facebook?
- Order confirmation emails → add a call to action to follow you on Facebook
- Newsletter → add a noticeable call to action to follow you on Facebook
- Welcome email to new subscribers → add a call to action to follow you on Facebook
4. Let Your Page Do the Talking
I’m sure you have heard the outcry over Starbucks’ non-Christmas coffee cups. Is it really a big deal? It depends who you ask, but what is for sure is that there is a lesson for us all: holiday spice is important to people.
What does that mean for us? It means that it’s time for a new Facebook cover image. Your cover image is the first thing people see when they land on your page, and it’s also where the built-in Facebook call to action is.
Both of the following brands (the first is Target) will probably edit their cover images hours or at most a day or two before Black Friday to reflect the big deals they offer. What they have now is a step in the right direction, and something you should follow.
Have you set up a call to action for your Facebook page? See that AllPosters.com has there CTA ready to go.
Pro Tip: Keep the cover image clean, but make sure it reflects the deals you’ll be offering, it has some holiday spice, and your brand name on it.
Recommended: 9 Facebook Mistakes You Can’t Keep Making (and How To Fix Them)
The next step in making your page feel right and give off the right vibes when someone visits is by pinning your Black Friday announcement as a “pinned post”.
Don’t know how to? Just select, “Pin to Top”.
5. Sell directly on Facebook
Minimizing the number of steps between selecting a product and actually the checkout itself is always a wise move (and something that minimizes cart abandonment rate). According to the 2015 Digital Consumer Preferences Survey, online shoppers want buying online to be simpler! Did you need a survey to tell you that?
Full read on ConversionXL
Selling products on Facebook falls is right on par with simplifying the buying process. You provide the resources with engaging post, and make the process simple by adding the products to your Facebook page. Say goodbye to lagging loading times, and unnecessary aspects of your web store.
Everything up to this point in this post builds up to making this strategy an effective resource for more sales.
The steps to selling on Facebook:
- Based on the goals you’ve set, either import all of your products or certain ones to your Facebook page now!
- Create a Facebook photo album of product images. If you want to go the extra mile, spice up the images with special effects to add holiday spice. Add links to the image description directing fans to your Facebook store.
- Promote your Facebook store and consider giving it a boost so all of your fans know.
- Share relevant coupons for your store on your Facebook page. Nearly 50% of people that follow brands on Facebook do so to get the latest deals!
Get your products on Facebook now: Facebook Store
Over to You
We’ve set out before you a road map to create a more profitable Black Friday weekend (and Monday). Now it is your turn to act on our tips, and master them so that it brings the optimal results for your brand.
Before you start taking your Facebook work up another level, first put into action steps to grow the number of page likes that you have. Then, take a look at your page, and those of competitors and innovative businesses to get a better sense of what will engage your followers. There’s no denying the correlation between the ability to engage your followers and make more sales.
Build up buzz to the big discounts you’ll be offering on Black Friday by creating smaller flash-sales in the weeks leading up. Finally, import your products (all or a selection) to your Facebook page and let everyone know about it!
If you have got any questions or advice of your own, the comment section below is waiting for you.
Ty is a digital marketing enthusiast that can't get enough social media marketing and content marketing. He is the inbound marketing manager at StoreYa where he spends his days searching for the newest social marketing scoop and creating amazingly awesome content. If you’d like to chat with him, feel free to connect with him on any social platform.
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