Boosting sales during Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday season is crucial for brick-and-mortar stores
Boosting sales during Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday season is crucial for brick-and-mortar stores as well as ecommerce, but the methods for both business models vary greatly. Today with Amazon.com, Walmart.com, plus a plethora of shopping apps and online competition, loyalty is harder to garner than ever before. You’re competing with convenience, free shipping, trackability on the status of orders, customer-friendly returns, and competitive pricing. Regardless there are pitfalls to shopping online including inconsistencies of size and quality, the inability to touch, feel or try on items, etc… This is the brick & mortar business’ area of opportunity for success.
Here are 30 tips to help you achieve strong sales during this festive period:
1. Plan Early:
Start preparing well in advance, at least a couple of months before the holiday season begins.
2. Create a Festive Atmosphere:
Decorate your store with holiday-themed displays, music, and lighting to get customers in the holiday spirit. Hanukkah, Christmas – we’re an international area. Set the stage for the holidays where everyone feels welcome.
3. Offer Exclusive Discounts:
Provide special discounts and promotions that are exclusive to in-store shoppers, or exclusively to your most loyal and frequent customers.
4. Train Your Staff to Be Amazing:
Ensure your employees are knowledgeable, friendly, and prepared to handle increased customer traffic. Your people are just as big of a part of the holiday spirit as your decor and offerings.
5. Extended Hours:
Consider extending your store hours to accommodate working people and late-night shoppers. It can be numerous nights or specific nights. Remember to add that to your Google Business, Yelp, website, social media and post it on your front door or website. If you have an email or text list – share it with your customer base.
6. Preview Shopping Events:
Create opportunities for your biggest customers and most loyal shoppers to “shop first” this season for the newest merchandise and trends.
7. Mobile Payment Options:
Implement mobile payment options to speed up the checkout process. Part of the appeal of online shopping is no wait / no lines. Try to minimize or eliminate long lines with alternative payment methods.
8. Gift Wrapping & Delivery Service:
Again, preserve your business before they opt for the mall or online, by offering free or low-cost gift wrapping services to make shopping more convenient for customers in addition to local and national shipping service. Make it easy for them to shop, select, buy and ship.
9. Stock Up on Popular Items:
Make sure you have enough inventory of high-demand products and show them off well in your store windows, marketing and in-store displays. Stock your register with “cant’ resist” easy grab and go items to add to their purchase. Beauty-product lovers — I call this the “Sephora method”.
10. Leverage Social Media:
Promote your in-store sales and events through social media channels to attract customers. Also use your social media platforms as an extension of customer service by sharing details on great gift items and responding to questions. Also host live fashion or gift giving shows that you invite your followers in advance to partake in and make purchases.
11. Email Marketing:
Send out targeted email campaigns with exclusive in-store offers. Remember during the holiday season, email marketing is at its peak so you have to create a plan and email often (suggestion 2x per week minimum). For shopping “events” in store or online, plan to email 2 – 3x to save the date for the best attendance.
12. Reward Loyalty:
Encourage repeat business by offering loyalty rewards, discounts, gifts with purchase, private shopping, free shipping or sneak previews. In addition, for your top 5, 15, or 50 customers, send a personal invitation (personal card via mail or call) to shop with you this season (offering private shopping or gift ideas that match their buying behavior).
13. Cross-Promotions & Referrals:
Partner with nearby or complementary businesses for cross-promotions and co-marketing efforts. This can be co-hosted shopping events or gift incentives (when you purchase $_____ or more, receive a gift from ____________) Market your cross promotions via collaborative social media, dual email distribution, on your website, in ad campaigns, etc.
14. Limited-Time Offers:
Create a sense of urgency by offering limited-time deals and flash sales. This will incentivize your customers, reward them with great pricing while not diminishing the value of your products, brand or business.
15. In-Store Entertainment:
Host live music, demonstrations, tastings, hands-on interactives, invite special guests or create other forms of activations to draw in existing and new customers.
16. Visual Merchandising:
Optimize your window displays, store layout and displays to highlight featured products. Avoid clutter to beautifully showcase your top sellers, staff picks and new offerings. Add a QR code in your store windows and strategic locations in your store to scan & view the products live on a model or in a real setting (via produced video and images hosted on your website or in your social media).
17. Clear Signage:
Ensure that your store has clear signage to direct customers to the inventory or actions you desire: Sale items, key areas, newest arrivals, new services, share a review, follow on social media, sign up for email.
18. Gift Guides:
Create holiday gift guides to help customers find the perfect presents. Share across all your marketing channels to draw them to shop with you in store or online.
19. Customer Experience:
Focus on providing an exceptional in-store shopping experience, including clean and organized spaces with an individualized level of customer interaction and minimal lines at the register. When shopping with a spouse, offer seating and water or refreshments so they too are comfortable and feel welcome.
20. Sample Products:
Offer samples or demos of products to encourage purchases. Particularly samples you can taste, see or feel the benefits from. If it’s a sample from a third party (such as if your store is B’s Botanicals and you have samples from some of the wellness brands you carry, insert the samples in a nice envelope, pouch or similar with your branding so they remember if they like it to buy it from you.
21. Bundle Deals:
Create bundled product packages at a discounted price. Everyone appreciates the “the more you buy, the more you save” incentive.
22. Price Matching & Guarantees:
Consider offering price-matching guarantees, low-cost local delivery or free ground shipping to compete with online prices and Amazon. And back all sales with a customer-friendly guarantee return policy.
23. Gift Cards:
Promote the sale of gift cards for customers who may be unsure of what to buy. Make the amounts customizable for any budget. Incentives gift card purchases with dual gifting (such as a small bonus store credit or second gift card with purchase. An example is: Buy a $100 gift card, get a $20 gift card). Remember, the more attractive your gift cards are, the more likely they are to buy them. It’s all about presentation. No one wants their gift card purchase to look like a lazy fallback to selecting a gift.
24. Charity Initiatives:
Partner with a local charity for a holiday giving campaign to attract socially conscious shoppers. Ask your customers or staff what causes mean the most to them and select one to partner with. Whether it’s a portion of proceeds dedicated to their cause, or hosting a shopping night benefit, etc. customers are 92% more likely to shop from brands that give back.
25. Post-Holiday Sales:
Extend your promotions into the post-holiday period to capture shoppers redeeming gift cards and making returns.
26. Plan for Black Friday and Cyber Monday:
Grant early access to sales or new merchandise. Tease or share details with your customers of what’s coming so they look forward to it. This will reward your loyal customers, as well as increase participation and sales. If you have an ecommerce store, promote that as another option for customer convenience and plan ahead by advertising and promoting your online offerings. IMPORTANT TO NOTE: The highest shopping and advertising days are Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The competition is at its highest as are the ad costs – this alone is a strong incentive to get ahead of the pack.
27. Reward Referrals and Reviews:
Encourage your happy customers to speak for you and share their positive experiences. Whether via reviews on Google, Facebook or Yelp; a social post you’re featured and tagged in, or by incentivizing them to refer a friend. Give a review or referral and receive a future store credit or small gift. Note: its against Google’s and Yelp’s bylaws to incentivize for good reviews – you can only reward the action in general without influencing the content. And remember to respond to all reviews in a timely manner online. People heavily rely on reviews to try new businesses.
28. Advertise, Advertise, Advertise:
No one knows a remote island exists unless it’s advertised. So naturally, no one will know what’s happening at your business unless you share it. For existing customers, email, text marketing, your website, social media and mailers will capture their attention. For new customers, lean on social advertising, search advertising, online, out of home and traditional advertising methods to introduce your brand’s products and services to new customers. This is especially important in South Florida where there’s a preponderance of seasonal and new residents as well as shopping-savvy tourists.
29. Influencers and UGC Marketing:
Social proof of your products, service and overall business converts to more sales than almost every other type of marketing today. But it’s also important to be authentic. Align with influencers that truly like your products and who have the right content and followers that compliment your brand. Encourage customers at the register or via inserts in gift bags and shipments to share their experiences on social media and tag you, or to post a review. Keep in mind, in certain business models, you can scale up your business by establishing a dedicated affiliate or ambassador network who have ongoing responsibilities to promote your brand and business.
30. Expertise:
Today marketing is more challenging than ever due to shortened attention spans (8 seconds or less) and the thousands of advertising messages consumers are flooded with each day. So if doing it on your own isn’t moving the needle when it comes to sales and new customers, rely on a marketing agency or professional to help achieve your goals. A true marketing agency has seen firsthand what works and what doesn’t across industries. Most importantly they’re focused on results, so consider it a wise investment in the growth of your business.
Remember to analyze sales data from previous years to fine-tune your strategies and adapt to changing consumer trends. By combining these tips with creativity and a customer-centric approach, you can boost sales during Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday season for your brick-and-mortar store. Let our amazing team at Into The Blue Agency help you with the best approach to boosting your sales bottomline. Contact us at 561-299-3381 or visit our website https://intotheblueagency.com