
Welcome to the course! My name is Tony and I'll be your instructor. After this course, you'll have all of the information you need to have your best BFCM yet. I'm talkin' campaigns, images, copy, and everything planned months in advanced. In this course, we tell you what to do and when to do it so that all of your Black Friday efforts are ready to go when the time comes to press live.
Speaking of "when" you'll need to do things, we've laid out every action explained in this course on an easy-to-read calendar. Now, we know not everybody is starting this course in September, but we do have recommended dates you ought to aim for to make this time pf preparation as smooth as possible. If you catch this a little late, no biggie, just catch up as soon as you can!
If you'd like to access the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar, you can access it in the resources section.
The first thing we recommend you focus on in preparation for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is List Growth, because in marketing your store, you need people to market TO. We recommend starting this step in September.
Remember, to get access to the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar, you can access it in the resources section.
Sending emails and text regularly is a huge part of priming your audience for the busiest holiday of the year. Establish trust and loyalty with these tips to knock it out of the park this year. We recommend starting this step in September.
Remember, to get access to the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar, you can access it in the resources section.
Not a goal setter? It's time to become one. How was your last Black Friday? Do you have any stats or benchmarks to compare it to? Learn the importance of setting goals and how it can drastically improve your ability to strive for more ambitious ones (and hit them). We recommend starting this step in September.
To get access to the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar, you can access it in the resources section.
There are a dozen holidays coming up in the next 3 months. For most stores, doing them all is just too much. This lesson will walk you through how to choose them best holidays to lean into for you, your business, and your customer. We recommend starting this step in September.
To get access to the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar, you can access it in the resources section.
You've chosen which holidays you're going to lean into, now what? It's time to choose your offers. Are you promoting a discount? site-wide coupon? free shipping? What is it that you plan to promote that will bring shoppers through the doors this BFCM? We recommend starting this step in September.
To get access to the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar, you can access it in the resources section.
Now that you have your goals, offers, and a strong foundation for success, it’s time to think about everything from segmentation, to your email and SMS schedule, to the experience on your site. Which is exactly what this next phase is all about. Just a little time every week is going to pay off in a big way as Black Friday gets closer, so if you haven’t already, try blocking an hour or two once a week to continue preparing for the holidays.
Now, today’s focus is Segmentation.
The more relevant your messaging is, the better performance will be. But that doesn’t mean you need to go crazy. Your segmentation can be as simple as VIPs on one list and everyone else on the other.
We recommend starting this step on October 4 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
Your email and SMS schedule is going to depend on how you segment your audience and which holidays you are leaning into. To keep it simple, you can start out with 2 segments: VIPs and everyone else.
To make it easier on you, we’ll pull up the calendar linked below and lay out a sample schedule of emails and texts to help guide you as you plan for BFCM. You don’t have to use these exact dates, but it’s a great place to start.
Monday, November 14th: first email to non-VIPs
Friday, November 18th: first email/text to VIPs
Sunday, November 20th: second email /text to VIPs
Monday, November 21st: Send your first Black Friday Email to non-VIP members
Thursday, November 25th, the day before Black Friday: send Emails and texts to your entire list (segmented or not).
We recommend starting this step on October 13 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
Images have the power to help your store recreate shopping in person. Ecommerce photo expert and founder of soona, Liz Giorgi, encourages brands to think of their homepage as the equivalent of a store window, but there is nothing more stressful than getting to December 20th and trying to pull together a full on photoshoot for some of your holiday items.
If you start this process today and, say, okay, I’ve decided to create offers for Halloween, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, And Christmas, you’ll have the time to not only imagine what you want your photos to look like, but since you’ve actually created your offers, you can make them super specific.
We recommend starting this step on October 17 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
Testing your checkout flow may seem like a small step, but one issue in the process could stop all orders from beings processed, trust me, I’ve seen it, so go through it as a customer would so you can trust it will all go as planned on the day of the sale.
And be sure to test out options like Shop Pay, PayPal, and the ability to pay in installments. Each can be critical for boosting conversion in the checkout process.
If you’d like to learn more about Optimizing conversion rates for your Store, check out our free Masterclass on Conversion Rate Optimization or C-R-O, from the CRO expert herself, Ashley Ismailovski. You can find that masterclass as well as ones on Product Photography, Influencer Marketing, and more, all for free, linked in the resources section.
We recommend starting this step on October 26 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
In 2021, 71% of BFCM purchases were made from mobile devices, compared to 29% on desktops. That’s up from 67% in 2020. And while this shouldn’t be surprising, it should encourage you to make sure the mobile experience on your site is killer. Similar to your checkout flow, you can test the experience on your own device, but if you can ask for feedback from others, that’s even better.
As you go through it, Make sure your popups display properly, your formatting looks correct, your menu shows up where it’s supposed to, and all of those details.
Again, just as we said with the checkout flow, the more seamless the experience is, the more likely you are to bring in sales. So don’t skip this. Especially because improving your mobile experience is going to have an impact on your sales all year long. So, find a couple friends or family members and have them scour your site from their mobile device and give you the most detailed feedback before any of these holidays. Have fun!
We recommend starting this step on October 31 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
Shipping deadlines are super important during the holiday season. And if the last couple years are any indication, delays are bound to happen. This means the sooner you share your holiday shipping deadlines, the better.
And if you’re not 100% sure what I’m talking about, we highly recommend that you share with you customers the deadlines they must order by, in order to get your products in time for the holidays. And it helps to call it out as much as possible. Don’t make visitors search your site high and low to find what they’re looking for.
We recommend starting this step on November 3 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
During BFCM, you’re probably going to see a lot more traffic than usual. But of course not everyone is going to buy. So you need to find a way to capture their emails and phone numbers so you can reach out to them even after they’re gone!
Ideally, try to accomplish this step in Early November. But this step is specifically focused on building your campaigns, and we’ll let you know when to flip the switch, so here are some ideas. And heads up, for every type of campaign I go over in the next couple minutes, you can find a video or article links below on exactly how to build one in Privy, here we go!
We recommend starting this step on November 7 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
Alright, we’re almost there. If you are following along with the calendar, then It’s the week before Black Friday. So it’s time to get your audience excited about Black Friday and what’s in store.
Now before you can get your audience excited about Black Friday, you have to know what you are offering. Now I know most of you already chose your Offers and promotions earlier in this series, but I wanted to point out that this is your last chance to do so. If you haven’t decided what you are offering for Black Friday, do it now and share it with your list.
We recommend starting this step on November 15 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
If you are following along in real time with the calendar, you’ll be seeing this on the Monday before Black Friday and it’s time to convert your site into a Black Friday shopping mall. At the beginning of the month, you prepped those onsite campaigns. So hopefully every banner, bar, display, popup, cart saver, abandoned cart email and text that you created is ready to go.
We recommend starting this step on November 21 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
This time of year is insane. But the most important thing you can do once your BFCM offer is live is to respond to support questions ASAP.
Whether you’re getting support emails or DMs, remember that it’s an opportunity to turn browsers into buyers and keep existing customers happy. And the faster you respond, the better. Because the longer you wait, the longer people have to talk themselves out of a purchase or turn to a competitor.
So make sure you’re setting aside time to get back to questions this weekend. You’ll win sales and loyalty.
We recommend starting this step on November 25 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
If you’re expecting inventory to sell out of all or some products this time of year, use it to your advantage. Keep track of how many items are in stock and be sure to send low stock alerts that highlight your BFCM offer. Because there’s no question. Urgency drives sales. And you don’t have to fake this urgency, So try out something like this!
We recommend starting this step on November 26 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
Black Friday is here and now you’re in the thick of it. It’s weird right? You’ve been preparing for months now building, scheduling, planning, and in one day, it all changes to managing orders, emailing customers, monitoring social channels, shipping orders, and all of the things you need to to run your business as efficiently as you can during possibly the busiest weekend of the year. Here are some tips to help your customers get the most out of today.
We recommend starting this step on November 28 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
Today is Giving Tuesday, and while for a full blown Giving Tuesday Campaign, you would’ve wanted to start months ago, there are still ways to participate, support organizations or causes that you love, and get ideas for next year. Here are some ideas to make the most out of Giving Tuesday for you and your business.
We recommend starting this step on November 29 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
It’s time to make sure all the campaigns on your site aren’t showing outdated information. So anything you changed that was specific to your BFCM campaigns should be turned off. Now, that’s popups, banners, images, cart savers, automated emails, texts, everything having to do with BFCM should be removed.
We recommend starting this step on November 30 in the Ultimate Black Friday Calendar. Get free access in the resources section!
Ready to have your best Black Friday and Cyber Monday yet? The Ultimate Black Friday Ecommerce Masterclass was designed to prepare you for your most successful BFCM as an online business owner.
You'll get an in-depth guide with specific dates to pay attention to and advice to keep you on track and have a record-breaking holiday season. We tell you exactly WHAT to do and exactly WHEN to do it so that this year is your most prepared BFCM yet.
Everything growing your list and creating campaigns to segmentation and drafting emails and money-making texts, this course will tell you every thing you need to know to be prepared and stress-free this BFCM season.
Not only do we cover you through Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday, but we'll also support you through the end of the year to help make your holiday season just as successful.
We label each lesson with a recommended date you start each task from September to December, but if you start later, there is plenty of time to catch up.
This course is brought to you by Privy, the leading Ecommerce tool for online businesses. We've helped over 800,000 merchants make over $8 billion dollars in revenue. We know what makes a successful online business and we know where most entrepreneurs get stuck. So, are you ready for your best BFCM yet? Join us for this free course to get started!