Prepare for Black Friday is a huge chance for e-commerce business owners to make more sales and spread the word about their brand. But if you want to really make the most of this busy shopping season, you need to plan ahead.

Don’t worry! Our thorough guide explains 27 steps for the success of your stores in Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) in 2024.

• Start planning to prepare for Black Friday.
• Optimize your website for traffic surges.
• Enhance the mobile experience.
• Audit your product listings.
• Stock up on inventory.
• Craft a strategic marketing plan.
• Create exclusive Black Friday & Cyber Monday offers.
• Optimize for search engine optimization (SEO) in advance.
• Segment your email list.
• Create a sense of urgency.
• Set up abandoned cart reminders.
• Offer flexible payment options.
• Simplify your checkout process.
• Build a dedicated landing page for BFCM.
• Leverage social proof.
• Enable live chat and customer support.
• Prioritize free shipping.
• Prepare your returns process.
• Analyze your competitors.
• Run A/B tests on your campaigns.
• Prepare for post-BFCM engagement.
• Ensure your shipping partners are ready.
• Offer exclusive VIP deals.
• Partner with influencers.
• Ensure compliance with data privacy laws.
• Prepare for a surge in customer service inquiries.
• Monitor campaign performance and make adjustments.

1. Start planning to prepare for Black Friday

Set clear goals for BFCM campaign planning

We both know how exciting it is to shop on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But did you know that more and more shoppers are starting their holiday shopping even earlier? An NRF study found that 56% of US buyers took advantage of sales before the holiday shopping season.

But what exactly should you be aiming for? Let’s break it down.

BFCM sales goals:

• Overall revenue. 
• Product focus. 
• Average Order Value (AOV). 

Customer acquisition goals:

• Number of new customers. 
• Customer lifetime value (CLTV). 
• Acquisition cost. 

If you’ve already had a Cyber Weekend, looking at how much traffic rose last year as a percentage will help you guess how much it will rise this year.

Create a detailed BFCM marketing calendar to prepare for Black Friday

You know it’s time to start preparing for Black Friday strategies. Don’t save it till the last minute. For optimal execution of your strategy, we advise starting at least three months prior to Black Friday. 

Inventory management is key. You should set deadlines to keep yourself on track. Also, set dates for activities such as the BFCM marketing campaigns. Our BFCM checklist can help you stay organized.

And don’t forget about email marketing campaigns. Look at our example to get inspired for your holiday email flows.

2. Optimize your website for traffic surges

Test website speed & performance

You can use website speed test tools to find out what’s wrong with your site’s performance and how to fix it.

Google PageSpeed Insights is a great place to start. You get information and chances straight from the source, all in a free test of how fast your site is. This tool also plans for mobile and desktop performance enhancements.

GTMetrix is another valuable tool. It’s like a detective digging deep into your website’s performance and uncovering hidden problems. The scores you get are somewhat useful:

When we need more tests than what Google Pagespeeds gives us, we usually use GTMetrix. Like, when we find great apps for caching, we’ll also use GTMetrix to test them.

Ensure website security

Your clients’ first concern is security. They seek assurances about the security of their credit card information and personal data. 

Another layer of security is two-factor authentication. Even if someone has your password, they’ll still need a second piece of information, like a code sent to your phone.

3. Enhance the mobile experience

Implement mobile-friendly design

In today’s world, mobile is king. In a round-up of web design statistics, eight out of ten visitors will leave a website that doesn’t look good on their phone.

Here are tips for mobile optimization to prepare for Black Friday:

First, make sure your website is mobile-friendly. When designing for mobile, remember that people are holding their phones in their hands. That means it should look and work great on all devices, from smartphones to tablets. 

You can check your responsive design with BrowserStack. You don’t have to buy multiple devices; just type the URL into the checker and see how it looks on different real devices, all online.

Simplify mobile checkout

Keeping up with mobile commerce trends, making your site easier to use and faster, and letting mobile-first customers buy with just one click can all help your mobile shopping efforts.

People can buy things with just one click if the buying process is one-click. Not only that, but their payment information is safe in a mobile wallet. Payment and shipping information for a customer is already filled in when they add an item to their cart. 

4. Audit your product listings

Optimize product descriptions for SEO

People start searching for deals as early as October, looking for generic keywords like “smartphone discounts” or “toy offers.” But as Thanksgiving gets closer, searches become more specific, like“Black Friday deals” or “Cyber Monday sales.”

If you want to know what people are searching for, check out Ahrefs Keyword Explorer. It shows you how many people are searching for different terms each month. The higher the number, the more popular the search.

Update product images and videos

The days of relying solely on deep discounts are over. To stand out in the crowded BFCM landscape, you need to create unforgettable shopping experiences. One way to do that is with 360-degree product videos.

But it’s not just about the visuals. With Shoppable videos, you can add extra information like price, color, and size right on the video.

5. Stock up on inventory

Analyze sales data from previous years

The last thing you want is to be stuck with a warehouse full of unsold products after Black Friday. To avoid overstocking, you need to carefully estimate demand and adjust your inventory accordingly.

You can get ready for Black Friday with Shopify reports if you use Shopify. If you want to see which items sell well around this time last year, you can sort the sales by product report by the BFCM dates.  

Coordinate with suppliers early

The holiday shipping season is going to be a nightmare. Carriers are overwhelmed, and millions of packages are going to get stuck. That means your customers might not get their orders on time. It’s a bummer, but it’s the reality.

Be ready for delays if you choose cheap shipping choices like USPS or FedEx Smartpost. During the Christmas season, these services will be the busiest. 

So what can you do? Plan ahead to prepare for Black Friday and avoid using slower shipping methods during the busiest time of year.

6. Craft a strategic marketing plan

Leverage BFCM social media content

Social networking is an effective technique for connecting with potential customer. Social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are excellent tools for publicizing your BFCM sales and discounts to niche audiences. 

Madewell is a great example of how to use social media effectively. They use retargeting ads to remind people about products they’ve viewed or added to their cart.

If your target customers use short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, try using trending sounds and videos as Black Friday social media contest ideas. These will help your content be seen by more people.

Plan a multi-channel marketing approach

Email marketing, social media, influencer marketing, and paid ads are like the Black Friday preparation. The best part is that you can combine these four marketing strategies.

For example, you can use content from influencers to make ads. Influencers can still help you a lot when you’re making your paid advertising plan and design, even if you don’t work with them directly to make ads.

7. Create exclusive Black Friday & Cyber Monday offers

Introduce limited-time discounts

We highly create a sense of urgency with flash sales and countdown timers. People are more likely to buy when they know a deal is about to end. The sound of the clock makes you want to move quickly. 

Bed Threads is a great example of how flash sales can work. They offered different deals for their most popular products, and they included a countdown timer in their emails. This created a sense of urgency and encouraged people to buy before the deals were gone.

Offer bundles & free gifts

Bundling products and offering free products is a great way to increase sales. This is because customers feel like they’re getting a good deal.

This is a truly clean example of a mixed package from Promix, a company that makes healthy snacks and vitamins for sports.

8. Optimize for SEO in advance

Get your website ready early to grab all the attention. Search engines take a while to find and understand new content, so give yourself a head start.

The good news is you can reuse your Black Friday, Black Week, and Cyber Monday landing pages year after year. Just remember to keep them fresh and relevant.

9. Segment your email list

Personalize offers based on purchase history

Your clients will get an overwhelming number of emails throughout the Christmas season. Now is the moment to make your tailored and targeted emails stand out from the sea of communications that is invading their inboxes. 

Schedule early-bird promotions

You should give your loyal customers early access to deals before Black Friday as a reward. This will not only help you get more sales, but it will also cut down on the overstock we talked about in plan #5 above.

10. Creating a sense of urgency for BFCM sales

Use countdown timers

For a sense of urgency, you should use countdown clocks on your product page. People are more likely to buy when they know a deal is about to end. 

To make your timers even more effective, use a consistent color scheme as the image example below. Too many colors can be overwhelming and distracting. Keep it simple and use one color throughout the page to signify the flash sale.

Highlight limited quantities

Highlighting the words “moving fast” and “almost sold out” is another way to create a sense of FOMO, or fear of missing out. It is a smart move. People are more likely to buy when they think they might miss out on a good deal.

11. Set up abandoned cart reminders

Automate email reminders

As we ramp up towards BFCM and the holiday season, you should have a cart abandonment email series to remarket to prospective customers. In our opinion, it is just as important as dialing in your campaign/promotional strategy. 

Use SMS follow-ups

Even though email marketing is an important way to prepare for Black Friday. Still, we think you should text your customers about your Cyber Monday deals too! You can get in touch with them directly and get them excited about your deals. 

You can use Shopify reports and Facebook Messenger data to personalize your SMS messages. We suggest making them fit the hobbies and past actions of each customer. They’ll feel more important and unique after this.

12. Offer flexible payment options

Integrate Buy Now, Pay Later Services

According to Investopedia’s article, holiday shoppers are using more buy-now-pay-later services. That’s why we highly recommend you partner with payment providers like Klarna or Afterpay to appeal to budget-conscious customers. Then, show it on your product page, just like Charlotte Tilbury did.

Accept multiple payment methods

The right payment gateway can make it easy for your customers to pay. So, offer a variety of payment options, like credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

If you sell to customers in different countries, make sure you can accept local payments. In Spain, for example, Bizum is the popular choice. In Portugal, it’s MB WAY.

13. Simplify your checkout process

Enable guest checkout

Guest checkouts are another preparation for Black Friday marketing, which we want you to consider. People don’t want to spend time filling out long forms. Guest checkouts let them quickly enter the necessary information and get on with their shopping.

Minimize form fields

People are busy. They don’t want to spend a lot of time checking out online.

So, make it easy for people to buy. Streamline your checkout process and remove any unnecessary steps. You want to focus on getting them to click the “buy” button, not distracting them with other stuff.

14. Build a dedicated landing page for BFCM

Highlight top deals

A simple discount popup can get people’s attention, but why not go a step further? Personalized product recommendations are a great way to guide customers to the best Black Friday deals. Instead of just telling them there’s a sale, show them exactly what they can save on.

Use social proof

As we said, people start planning their holiday shopping early. By the time Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around, they know exactly what they want and where to find it. They’ve done their research, read reviews, and even checked out customer photos.

So, make sure your landing page is packed with information. Show off customer reviews, ratings, and user-generated content on your BFCM landing page. This will help potential buyers feel more confident in their purchase decisions.

15. Leverage social proof

Showcase customer testimonials

Aside from the BFCM landing page, don’t forget to let customers leave reviews on your ads and product pages. Customers use social proof, such as scores and reviews, to decide what to buy and how good a product is, especially during big sales days like Black Friday.

Want to learn more about getting customer reviews? Check out our article 14 Ways To Get More Customer Reviews.

Leveraging user-generated content for BFCM

The second strategy is to give your customers a reason to review your business on social media. You can do this by giving people rewards, discounts, coupons, or free stuff if they tell others about good experiences. You could also hold content to get people to leave comments on social media.

If you want to promote your product or service like La Croix, you may urge your customers to share photos or videos of themselves enjoying it. Then, tag your brand with a hashtag (#livelacroix, for example).

16. Enable live chat and customer support

AI-powered apps can help with that 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If they help you, you can help them more quickly and better. Use AI-run apps to answer common questions and give your team more time. 

17. Prioritize free shipping

Setting a minimum order amount to get free shipping is a good idea. For example, if a buyer spends USD 40, you could say that shipping is free.

You can also use free shipping as a selling point in your promotional messages on your website, email marketing, etc.

18. Prepare your returns process

One thing you need to prepare for Black Friday is return policy. Writing a clear, straightforward return policy gives your customers a good experience when returning something, leaving them with a satisfied opinion of your store.

In our experiment, you may extend the return window from 1 week to 30 days or 90 days, depending on the products sold.

19. Analyze your competitors

Monitor their pricing strategies

Black Friday is a frantic shopping day. Everybody strives for the greatest offers. As the owner of a shop, you want to ensure your prices are the lowest.

A great way to stay competitive is to use a tool that checks prices. There are tools that can keep an eye on the prices of your competitors and let you know when they change. You can then change your prices to match or beat theirs.

Identify gaps in their marketing

Find out what your rivals don’t have enough of products, services, or quality. In this case, you might be able to offer customers a better option.

For example, the big electronics shop Best Buy has a strong price-matching strategy on Black Friday. They use both automatic price tracking and a specialized team to monitor what their competitors are charging. 

By doing this, they were able to match or beat competitors’ prices on popular items, which brought them more customers and led to 15% more sales on Black Friday than the year before.

20. Run A/B tests on your campaigns

You can try out A/B testing different things, like titles, images, and buttons that tell people what to do. You can make changes that will help you get more people to buy by seeing what they like best. Then, you can use insights from your tests to refine your strategies ahead of Black Friday.

Then, you can use insights from your tests to refine your strategies ahead of Black Friday.

21. Prepare for post-BFCM engagement

Set up post-sale nurture campaigns

A thank-you email that is tailored to the customer can do a lot to keep them coming back. Plus, why not add a little extra motivation? They may be more likely to come back and shop again if you give them special deals or discounts. Everyone comes out ahead!

Encourage reviews and referrals

You might think it’s strange for someone to refer a product or service before they’ve even used it. But people love to be the first to know about something cool. And sometimes, purchases are repeat purchases, which shows that the customer really loves the product.

So, when you send a thank-you email, encourage customers to leave a review or refer friends. This is a great way to get more people to try your product and build your brand.

In our experiment, loyalty program is a good way to encourage reviews and referrals, especially post-BFCM customer retention strategies. We will talk more about loyalty programs in the strategy 23 below.

22. Ensure your shipping partners are ready

Let your customers know when they can expect their orders to arrive. The easiest way is to display the estimated delivery date (EDD) on your product page, as shown in the example below.

However, supply chain disruptions can happen. Reach out to your suppliers and manufacturers to get an idea of their inventory levels and shipping timelines. This will help you avoid delays and set realistic expectations for your customers.

You can also use package tracking to find out where your orders are at all times. This way, you can deal with any problems before they happen. 

23. Offer exclusive VIP deals

Reward your most loyal customers

Want your best customers to feel like VIPs? Give them coupon codes that are only good for them! This is a wonderful way to BFCM post-sale customer retention and get them to shop more. 

If you use Shopify, there are great tools like BON Loyalty that can help you manage your loyalty program. You can easily view reports and distribute discounts to your most loyal customers.

Promote VIP deals via email

Make your loyal customers feel like VIPs. Give them exclusive access to Black Friday deals before everyone else. This will show them your appreciation and encourage them to keep coming back.

A VIP access email is a great way to do this. Customers feel like they are one of a kind because of it.

24. Partner with influencers

Leverage influencers to reach new audiences

A great way to get new customers is to use influencer marketing. When you work with influencers, you can reach their loyal fans who are already interested and accept what they say.

This was a hard lesson for Fiji Water to learn. First, they tried a general method, but it didn’t work. That’s why they chose to work with Instagram stars. Danielle Bernstein, an exercise advocate, was one of their first big hits.

Use unique Black Friday promotion ideas

To prepare for Black Friday, give influencers exclusive discount codes to share with their followers. This is a great way to drive sales and track the performance of your partnerships.

Make the codes special. Offer slightly better deals through influencer codes than you do to the general public. This will make them more attractive to your followers.

25. Ensure compliance with data privacy laws

Ensure that your marketing and data collection efforts comply with applicable privacy regulations.

You should ask customers if they want to receive emails or text messages. Be clear about how you collect and store their personal information. This will help build trust and avoid any legal issues.

26. Prepare for a surge in customer service inquiries

If you expect a surge in customer support requests during the holiday season, you need to be prepared. One way to handle the increased workload is to hire temporary help.

Find people who can start right away and are open. They should already know about your goods or services, if possible. This means that less training will be needed. 

As another way to speed up the help process, you can use standard operating procedures (SOPs). SOPs can help your team answer common questions quickly and consistently, which will improve customer service. 

27. Monitor campaign performance and make adjustments

The day has come, and your ads are out. This is not the time to just sit back and post-BFCM analysis. It’s important that you watch your Google Analytics account to see how your tactics are working.

For example, you would use Google Analytics’ “Real-Time” reports to see how your website is doing right now. It shows traffic sources, content, location, events, and conversions. You should also be ready to change your plans quickly if certain methods aren’t working.