With many brick-and-mortar stores closed this Black Friday, businesses are gearing up for a digital shopping weekend unlike any in previous years. 

Black Friday holds additional pressure—and opportunity—this year after the challenges many small businesses have experienced due to the pandemic. Traffic to the top 100 shopping sites increased by 137 percent on 2019 Black Friday and companies will be looking to capitalise on this surge in traffic and convert customers to make a sale.

To help firms make the most of Black Friday this year, Andy Bojko, director at Hidepark Leather, shares five tips for how businesses can convert customers to a sale for the all-important Black Friday on Friday 27 November. 

1. Identify your unique selling point—and then amplify it

Your business must have a unique selling point to set your brand apart from competitors and retailing giants like Amazon. For smaller firms, Black Friday is a fantastic opportunity to remind your customers that you have a unique ability to directly serve the local community and are more in tune with their needs and wants.

As a smaller business, you have the ability to meet the local needs of customers, a factor that helps your business to stand out. With the pandemic putting many businesses at risk, consumers are looking to help out local firms so you should ensure that your business is on the radar of the local community.

Providing vouchers or discounts to these customers can be a great way to ensure you are instilling loyalty and can help convert this audience to make a sale.

If you’re short on time before the big day, do this today: Assess your landing page to make certain it features language about your local connection and your unique selling point. 

2. Analyse historic data to make decisions

Analyse analytics data from previous years. Doing so will provide insight into which of your product pages are particularly popular amongst customers.

This data can be used to feed your stock forecasting but also contribute to planning your Black Friday marketing campaigns. Understanding which products your customers were most interested in during previous years will allow you to focus resources into these areas and maximise sales for these categories.

3. Target your marketing efforts to suit your target audience

Many businesses fail to prepare in advance for Black Friday and will simply send out an email to their customer base the day before the event. 

Although Black Friday itself is the main event, activity and preparation for this day must begin for businesses in advance. Inboxes will become crowded in the days leading up to the event, so businesses need to successfully capture and maintain the attention of customers with valuable information in order to stand out from the sea of emails they are receiving.

Using email marketing is a great way to build anticipation with customers, offering sneak-peaks, VIP discounts, limited-time offers—all designed to drum up interest and encourage consumers to seek out your emails.

You must take the time to personalise your content to the customer base you are targeting rather than sending a generic email to every customer. Using browsing and purchasing history information can be an effective way to target customers in time for Black Friday, providing insight into what these customers are particularly interested in from your brand.

If you’re short on time before the big day, do this today: Review any email marketing scheduled to deliver in the next few days. Does it market your unique, local assets? Is it laser focused to your ideal consumer?

4. Make your customers’ journey as easy as possible

If customers find your website difficult to use, they will quickly move to another site. The user’s journey should be at the core of your website design. When businesses prioritise the user journey in their content and design, their website automatically becomes more user-friendly. To ensure your business is in the best position to secure sales on Black Friday—and every day—your website must provide an easy user experience for consumers in order to persuade them to convert to a sale.

Having strong calls to action on your site can also ensure users are not lost along their journey and that they can check out efficiently. Your website should also have clear contact details or a contact form so that customers can easily get in touch with any queries.

If you’re short on time before the big day, do this today: Sit down with a friend who is not familiar with your site. Walk through your site’s buying process. Are there any glitches or obstacles in the process? 

5. Focus on supporting trust payment methods

Consumers need to feel safe with their online security when shopping on your website, especially if your business is new to them. To ensure customers feel comfortable when using your site, make certain you have the latest secure financial technology to help reassure customers that their payment details will be safe.

Also consider adding a section to the site, perhaps in the header or footer which shows the payment options available to consumers. This can act as a trust signal and help users to feel comfortable proceeding to the checkout to convert to that all-important sale.

If you’re short on time before the big day, do this today: If you don’t yet have it, add a footer that lists payment options and highlights your security tech.

For more insights and inspiration from today’s leading entrepreneurs, check out EO on Inc. and more articles from the EO blog.