Black Friday and Cyber Monday are coming soon. How are you preparing for the big day?

Don’t wait too long before you start planning your Black Friday promotion. More than half of customers start doing their research on Black Friday sales in early October.

So, if you want to maximize your sales for Black Friday, now’s the best time to get started. Here are some of the best tactics you can use to build your list before Black Friday comes:

Use Email Popups on Your Homepage

When visitors first land on your website, you can get their attention with an email pop-up that includes your exciting Black Friday offer. It’s a great way to optimize your traffic and supercharge your list.

For example, if you’re offering a special 20% discount on all orders for Black Friday, you can create a pop-up with your special offer and ask the customer to opt in. Here’s an example of how that can look like:

Stores can use a tool like Privy to set this up for their website. The platform comes with countless templates to choose from, along with A/B testing to help you create high-converting pop-ups.

Add a Promotional Bar on Top of Your Website

Another way to inform visitors of upcoming sales is through an action bar near your navigation. It’s an excellent tactic to leverage the holiday season and win more sign-ups.

Ensure your short action bar includes an exciting offer and a deadline. An extra tip to make your bar more effective is to add a countdown timer to emphasize that time is running out.

Optimize Your Social Media Pages for Black Friday Sales

Social media is one of the channels for generating leads during the holiday season.

For example, you can add a sign-up button on your Facebook page so they can join your list. They’ll be led to a landing page where they’ll have to sign up with their information, just like Dollar Shave Club in this example:

Something else you can do on social media pages is to include banners that announce your upcoming Black Friday sales. Consider pinning posts on Twitter and Facebook that provide all the information customers need about your promotion.

Run Segmented Ads on Facebook and Instagram

Another tactic to use on social media to generate leads is running ads.

The first and most vital step of running a successful social ad campaign is to use previous customer data to segment your ads. It ensures your message is getting in front of the right people.

Make sure to include engaging imagery and copywriting in your ad. Since you don’t have a lot of characters to write, keep the ad as straightforward as possible with a clear CTA.

Here’s a great example from top retailer Target:

In this ad, they’re giving customers a preview of the deals they expect to launch during Black Friday.

Provide Loyal Customers With VIP Access to Pre-Sales

Your loyal customers are vital to your success. 41% of a company’s revenue comes from only 8% of its customers. On top of that, it’s around 2-3X more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one.

This Black Friday, something you can do to grow your leads is to offer loyal customers early access to sales. It’s your way of rewarding them, making them feel valued, and getting them excited to make more purchases once the big day comes.

Create a Referral Program for Black Friday

A referral program is perfect for spreading the word about your Black Friday sales and boosting your list. Each time a subscriber refers your brand to one of their friends and family, they get to win a special prize for their efforts.

Here’s an example of how you can set this up during Black Friday:

You start by providing subscribers with a 10% discount and encourage them to share it with the people around them. Each time one of their friends redeems the coupon, they win another discount for 20% off on their orders.

Boux Avenue is a top lingerie brand that uses referral programs to promote their sales. In the example below, customers have the opportunity to receive some loyalty points if they refer a friend:

Collect Customer Data During Checkout

Customer checkout is the perfect time to collect leads for the upcoming Black Friday season.

As they’re about to finish their purchase, you can ask customers to sign up for your email/push notification list or SMS number so they can be up-to-date with the latest Black Friday sales.

For example, you can offer them a Black Friday coupon in exchange for their information. Avoid being too pushy, and make sure to emphasize the benefits that come with signing up for your list.

Host Special Black Friday Contests and Giveaways

A classic tactic for Black Friday is to run contests. It builds excitement around future Black Friday sales and drives more subscribers to your email, SMS, or push notification list.

What’s also great about contests is the many ways to style it. Some of the different giveaways can include:

Here’s how Shein Organized a Black Friday Contest to promote their brand last year:

Use Traditional Marketing Methods to Promote Your Sales

Do you have a physical store on top of running an eCommerce business as well? If so, you can use traditional tactics to grow your list for Black Friday.

Let’s say that SMS is a big part of your Black Friday strategy. You can add signs to your store and have business cards with your text number so customers can contact you. If you can, billboards can work, too.

Conclusion

The main takeaway is not to put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to building your list. By using a diverse choice of tactics, such as social ads, referral programs, and contests, you can build a solid list of customers that are going to be ready to purchase on Black Friday. Now, it’s up to you to get out there and start promoting your sales!

There are over 3 billion people today who use social media. That’s almost half of the world’s population at your fingertips!

Social media is accessible to the individual, but getting started as a brand isn’t always straightforward. What platform is the right fit? What kind of content should you post for your audience?

So, to help you, we’ve compiled a list of the 16 best social media steps to grow social. Let’s dive in:

Develop a Strategy for Content

Not planning is the equivalent of planning to fail. To deliver the best posts on social media, you need to develop a game plan for the type of content you’ll be sharing. Here are some of our best recommendations:

1. Research Your Target Audience

Before you even get started with social media, do some research on your audience. No single channel fits everyone: what platforms do your customers use the most? What are their demographics (gender, age, location, etc)?

This tells you where to find your audience. But what kind of content do they consume? Memes? Blogs? Podcasts? Do they love infographics or informal posts?

Answering these questions gives you a solid idea of what type of content will resonate the most with your audience.

2. Take a Look at The Competition

A crucial next step in creating a strategy for content is to take a look at your competition. Go through other brands’ social media pages and get an idea of what content they’re putting out there.

Now, we’re not encouraging you to copy whatever your competition is doing. Instead, try to understand what’s working for them and see how to apply some of the same concepts to your social media.

Suppose you can see that specific posts get good engagement and others do not; learn from what is (or isn’t working) for that brand. Looking beyond competitors, you can find other brands that do social media really well and copy their practices into your space/industry.

3. Create a Posting Schedule

Consistency is critical to growing your follower base. Social media algorithms tend to favor accounts that publish frequently.

The best way to stay consistent is to use a social media calendar that keeps track of your content. Check out platforms like Sprout or Hootsuite.

You must outline which channels you want to use (Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc) and how much you plan to post. We recommend that you post 4 – 6 times per week for the best results.

Wow With Photos

It’s not enough to post pictures of your products on social media. You need content that will stop customers and grab their attention.

That’s where optimizing your brand photos comes in. By making your pictures eye-catching and engaging, you’ll spike the customer’s interest and drive traffic to your website.

Here are some of our best tips to make sure your pictures look on point:

4. Include a White Background

A white background on your Instagram pictures is an excellent way to showcase your products. It does a great job of highlighting the colors and details of your products.

5. Use Apps to Style Your Photos

Sometimes, the filters that come with Instagram aren’t enough to style your photos the way you’d like. Thankfully, there are various apps you can use to improve the quality of your photos, such as:

6. Hire a Professional Photographer

Lastly, If you have the budget, consider hiring a professional photographer for your social media pictures. Not only will it help create a steady flow of posts, but it also makes sure you’re posting the highest quality content possible.

Focus on Branding

To stand out on social media, you want your accounts to reflect the look and feel of your brand. There are various tactics you can use to make your online presence feel unique, which include:

7. Use Hashtags

Don’t underestimate the power of a hashtag—social media posts with hashtags average more engagement than posts lacking them. An excellent tactic to give your social media presence a unique feel is to use branded hashtags. They help followers find content created by you and build a community around your business.

Hashtags are another way for people to find your brand. Use hashtags that are on-brand and resonate with your audience, product, and message. Don’t just add them in to throw a wider net; be specific and purposeful in what you use.

To stand out on social media, you want your accounts to reflect the look and feel of your brand

8. Keep Your Visuals Consistent

To excel at branding on social media, you want to make sure that the visuals on your page are consistent. On Instagram, for example, select a theme you want to use for your page and stick it to it throughout your feed.

It does help to experiment with different types of posts and visuals from time to time. Optimizing your feed over time means you try different things and do what works the best!

9. Find Your Voice and Tone

Lastly, you want to find your brand voice to spice up your social pages with personality. What’s your type of humor? What are your brand’s qualities? Next, think about how you can express these features in your captions.

Messaging is extremely important in marketing and social media especially. Will you talk about products directly? Talk about life? How you speak to your audience will be the key to keeping or losing them.

Offer an Experience to The User

To create epic content for social media, you want to focus on delivering an experience to your followers. This way, they won’t feel like just another prospect and will be encouraged to engage with your brand.

Here are some of our best tips to make your social media more memorable:

10. Share User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-generated content (UGC) consists of any form of content that you create for your customers.

If you have any pictures of customers using your product or testimonials, consider publishing them on your social media pages. Not only does it humanize your brand, but it also allows the customer to share their experience.

11. Organize Contests and Giveaways

Another way to engage your audience on social media is through contests and giveaways. You can also use these to leverage existing customers into bringing new followers to your brand.

You have many options, from simple comment-to-win contests to asking followers to ask users to drop a caption in exchange for a prize.

Promote Your Products

As an e-commerce brand, you don’t want to settle with just engaging content for your audience. You need to also think about how you can promote your products to drive more sales.

On Instagram, it’s possible to add product links to your images. That way, as customers browse your feed, they can also click on the picture to land on your store and purchase the product that interests them.

You can also include product links as part of product links on Instagram. Since its algorithm heavily favors stories, it’s a great way to boost your reach and drive more traffic.

14. Run Targeted Social Media Ads

Another great tactic with an excellent ROI is running ads on social platforms. You can run ads that target anyone who’s liked your page, follows you, has visited your site, or even go after new customers that match your existing base.

You can also structure your ads based on where the customer is in the sales funnel. For example, you can run a retargeting campaign whenever a customer abandons their cart and doesn’t follow through with their purchase.

Build a Relationship With Your Audience

Lastly, long-term success on social media consists of building a relationship with your audience. Here are small things you can do to engage them and form a bond:

15. Respond Fast to Your Audience

Customers want you to respond quickly to their requests on social media. For example, Twitter users expect to receive a brand response within a few hours.

If you cannot address their needs quickly, you risk losing them forever. It’s why you want to make sure to reply fast and get their issues solved quickly.

Most of the platforms have automated responses you can enable. Facebook Messenger, for example, has a host of options for answering common questions.

16. Engage With Your Followers’ Posts and Comments

To build a relationship with customers and show that you care, you can reply to their comments and engage with their content.

Customers love receiving personal messages from their favorite brands. It makes your brand feel more human and encourages a conversation between you and the customer.

Final Thoughts: Best 16 Social Media Practices for E-commerce Brands

There you have it! These tips should give you a roadmap of where to go with social media. It will take a bit of time, but by applying these sixteen tactics consistently, you’ll see your following on social media grow exponentially.

So what are you waiting for? Go out there and take action!

It goes without saying that Amazon is the undisputed king of e-commerce. The platform is currently taking almost half of the e-commerce market.

There are many good reasons to seek website sales from Amazon. The platform provides access to more than 300 million users worldwide. You’re selling on a website that has a good reputation and that consumers trust.

When people shop from your Amazon store, they’re not really your customers. They belong to Amazon. While there are definitely a lot of benefits, however, there are also some disadvantages that come your way.

This comes with many drawbacks. First, you lack control and must comply with the company’s rules. If Amazon decides to drop you, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Second, not owning the customer means you can’t communicate with them. Upsell them. Find additional ways to add value and interact with them.

While we aren’t discouraging you from selling on Amazon, what we do recommend is that you have a strategy for directing Amazon customers to your store – without breaking any rules.

So, without further ado, here are the best tactics you can use on Amazon to get more sales on your own website:

5 Tips for Success

1. Sell Product Bundles on Amazon While Offering Individual Products on Your Website

A great way to combine the best of both worlds is to offer bundles on Amazon but make individual products only available on your website.

For example, let’s say that you’re a company that sells razor blades and shaving accessories for men. On Amazon, you could sell bundles that consist of blades, cream, and gel.

If the customer wants to buy one of the products individually, such as the razor blade, they must go directly to your website.

2. Make Your Username on Amazon Your Website Name

A simple way of driving more traffic to your website via Amazon is to make your username on the platform the same as on your website.

For example, your website’s name is “coolsocks.com.” You can use the same name for your Amazon username if available. If not, you should do your best to make sure your username approximately resembles it.

Along with making the username the same, make sure to frequently refer to your company’s name on your Amazon profile’s different pages. That way, if the customer were to research your name on Google, they’ll easily land on your website.

3. Include Inserts into Your Amazon Package

It’s worth noting that Amazon has strict rules against inviting customers to visit other sites. However, there’s still a way you can get around this while remaining compliant with Amazon.

As part of your package, for example, you can include a thank you note with some info that connects the buyer with your customer service team.

Another tactic you can use is to encourage customers to register their products on your website. When doing this, however, don’t give a direct link to your store. Instead, create a separate landing page and link to it on your card.

If you link directly to your website, Amazon can close your business on its platform. You can always include a link to your home page on the product registration site.

4. Encourage Customers to Follow You on Social Media

As an e-commerce business, you’re likely marketing your brand on social media. While you can’t link Amazon customers to other sales channels, you can still invite them to follow and like your business on social.

For example, you can include your Instagram or Twitter username on your package. Even better, if branding is part of your packaging strategy, you can encourage customers to share a picture of their box on social media.

To get the best results with this tactic, you want first to make sure that your social media pages are on point. Check out our blog post on how e-commerce brands can get the most out of social media.

5. Use Amazon Buyer Data to Run Facebook Ads

Amazon’s platform comes with buyer data that shows you which type of customer has purchased from you before. Brands can use the same data to run Facebook ads for their target audience and win more sales on their website.

With Custom Audiences, you can target users with similar demographics. As a result, you’ll be reaching people with the same interests and attributes as your Amazon buyers.

Wrapping Things Up

Directing your Amazon customers to your website can be like walking through a minefield. A straightforward misstep and boom, Amazon could take down your store in a second. With these five tactics above, however, you can still get the best of both worlds and leverage website sales from Amazon for your site.

Instagram is a must-have for e-commerce brands.

The highly visual platform makes it the perfect place to promote your products and spread the word about your brand. And there are currently one billion users active on the app.

To make the most of Instagram, you need to be doing more than just posting pictures of products. You need a strategy that promotes your brand and attracts followers.

In this blog, we’ll dive into nine tactics you can use to engage your followers and successfully grow your audience on Instagram:

Switch to an Instagram Business Account

To get the most out of Instagram, the first thing you should do is switch to a business account.

Making the switch will make your Instagram account look more professional. It can pull your contact information from Facebook while keeping Instagram shoppable links.

The business account also comes with advanced analytics on your page, such as:

The additional perks don’t stop there. With a business account, you can promote posts as ads and add links to products on Instagram stories. However, you won’t be able to set your account to private.

Apply for a Verification Badge

Next, to take your credibility even further, your business should consider applying for a verification badge. It assures your customers that you’re the real deal and not some bogus account.

Here’s an example of what a verification badge on your profile looks like from Peak Design’s Instagram page:

Collect User-Generated-Content from Customers

Collecting user-generated content (UGC) is one of the best ways to promote your brand on Instagram.

The reason why you want to do this is that UGC is considered 2.5X more authentic than branded content. After all, who’s better to judge your products than your own customers?

Check out this great example from top beauty brand Glossier:

They often feature pictures from their own customers on their Instagram page. It’s a great way to boost social proof and invite customers to become brand advocates for your business.

You can even include some of your UGC content from Instagram on your website homepage for instant credibility. It’s something that Onzie does on its homepage, under the “Styled On Insta” section:

Tap Into Influencer Marketing

Another tactic related to UGC is collaborating with an influencer to promote your products.

There’s a reason why some companies are willing to invest millions of dollars in celebrity endorsements. When people see someone they admire promote a product, they’re more likely to buy it themselves.

It’s something that Daniel Wellington does regularly with their hashtag #DWPickoftheDay. They select the best influencers that use their hashtag and republish their picture on their own Instagram profile:

When it comes to finding the right influencer, follower count isn’t everything. You also want to look at their engagement rate: if an account has 100K followers but only 100 likes per post, you can already know that something is suspicious.

You don’t need to spend much to find influencers willing to work with your business. The first step is to research and find those that align with your brand and have a similar audience you’re trying to reach.

Once you’ve targeted some people who fit that description, reach out and ask about their process for working with brands. Influencers who want to be paid upfront for promotions are common; if you’re considering one of these, ask for numbers about past posts and what kind of return you should expect.

The best kind of influencers only work with brands they believe they can sell – so they will ask for a commission or percentage of the sale. This is a great way to collaborate – they are motivated to move your product, and you are only out the cost of samples and pay when sales are made.

If you know the cost to acquire customers through Facebook or other sales channels, agreeing to a 10 or 15% commission will make sense if you usually pay more to run ads.

Most brands will want samples, so make sure you create a memorable unboxing experience for them as well! While it is a lot of work finding the right ones to work with, it can be very lucrative if you can cement a long-term relationship that works for you and them.

Set Up a Click-Able Storefront

With Instagram, you can integrate your product catalog seamlessly with Instagram Shop. Users can explore your products directly from your Instagram page without landing on your website.

Here’s an example of how it looks like from Watch company MVMT:

All the customer has to do is click on “shop” to get instant access to the various watches MVMT promotes. It makes shopping more accessible for customers and creates a better online experience overall.

To make things better, you can even tag your products in Instagram pictures. Customers can click on the product link right away as they browse through your posts.

Use Instagram Ads

Instagram is a great platform to run targeted ads to promote your products. According to recent statistics:

One thing that makes Instagram ads so effective is that they look just like any shared post on the platform. As a result, they come across as less spammy to the customer.

Instagram ads get run through the Facebook Ad platform. You can run ads for sales or to raise brand awareness – either way, you can leverage the options on Facebook Ads to match your goals. For example, you can ask Instagram to find people similar to your existing customers.

Use Broad and Unique Hashtags

Using broad hashtags that apply to your brand and industry will make you come up in more searches. Including hashtags means you want to be found for that particular keyword. But don’t just use anything – make sure the hashtag actually works for what you’re trying to post.

Unique hashtags mean that anyone looking at your posts will recognize your content for yours. Having a single, unique hashtag that no one else uses will pay off in the long run as your brand awareness grows.

Organize Contests and Giveaways

A fun way to grow your following and generate new leads is to run contests for your audience on Instagram.

Contests and giveaways have been a classic business tactic for a long time. Now, with social media, it’s never been easier to run competitions that engage followers and make you stand out from the crowd.

By making your offer exciting, you’ll be able to reach new people who’ve never heard of your brand before. Here are some of the different types of contests that you can run on the platform:

Keep Track of Analytics

Lastly, to make sure you’re getting the most out of Instagram, you want to keep track of how your page is growing over time. That includes keeping track of things such as follower base, likes, which photos get the most engagement, etc.

By keeping track of analytics, you’ll be able to identify which form of content works the best with your followers. You can then start publishing high-quality content consistently to boost your engagement.

Final Thoughts: How to Make the Most of Instagram

There you have it! With these nine tips, you should have a solid idea of where to go with your Instagram strategy. Now it’s up to you to try these tactics and see what works best for you.