How To Turn One-off Black Friday Sales Into Repeat Purchases

We’re in the middle of a global pandemic, but that doesn’t mean that customers aren’t hunting for bargains — and Black Friday is the best day of the year to snag them. Want to know how you can turn the one-off shoppers into repeat customers that stay forever? Well, then you should continue reading this blog!

Black Friday is breaking the internet – and Nordic post offices

Black Friday fever has undoubtedly swept the globe. From the States to Europe and the Nordics, this frenzied shopping bonanza has been a prime opportunity for business to break records and attract new customers.

Between 2018 and 2019, Swedish Black Friday sales increased from €634.78 million to a whopping €672 million. To add fuel to the fire: Postnord predicts that 2020 will break any previous record by a landslide. 

COVID-19 might have gripped the world economy, but there’s still plenty of spare change in circulation and it’s up to you to go and get it. So, how can you use a short-term event to cash in on the long-term?

Post offices have been overflowing, websites have crashed and there is potential for Black Friday to turn from a dream into a nightmare. But even though the one-day turned full-week event is breaking the internet, plenty of preparation is the remedy to turn a potential nightmare into a wonderful sales opportunity.

Make the most out of Black Friday: Why repeat purchases matter

According to one Bluecore report, 54% of Black Friday 2019 purchases were made by first-time buyers. These one-off purchases are fantastic, but the Holy Grail lies in recruiting those people and turning them into repeat customers.

Just like the Holy Grail, these people can be difficult to find. But it's far from impossible. And it all comes down to striking while the iron is hot.

The key to turning one-off bargain hunters into repeat customers trickles down to one thing: communicating while you have their precious attention at bay. So, you need to find a way to break through to bargain hunters and convert them into full-price heroes. 

We want to turn customer loyalty into repeat purchases, and for that communication and personal messaging is so, so important. Make them feel like more than just a number. Everyone wants to feel wanted, so make your customers feel wanted.

But how can you make the most of it? Let’s look at six ways to turn one-off Black Friday sales into repeat purchases!

Black Friday tip 1: Communicate smoothly to beat post-purchase expectations

If something goes wrong in the supply chain, with communication, with delivery then your brand will be negatively impacted. It could cost money and brand loyalty.

If you can get this right (and you can, we believe in you!), then it’ll be a lot easier for your markets to facilitate that all-important post-purchase engagement.

After-sales action is really important and it’s a good idea to take advantage of automated communications and automated follow-ups. One easy way to do this is to send triggered transactional emails. 

These emails, which are anticipated by the customer, have excellent engagement and open rates and tend to include key information such as a tracking number, the shipping company you’ve sent their order with and some contact details.

Triggered transactional emails are good because you can program your CRM to send them out when a certain trigger is hit, and as they can be highly personalised, you can design them in a way that boosts relevance and engagement.  Remember, make your customer feel valued as an individual.

Sometimes it’s just the little things that make a difference.

Black Friday tip 2: Ask for feedback to improve the purchase experience

You could also ask for feedback from the customers a few days after the order arrives. This should show your customers that you care about them, their thoughts and concerns, which is always something that helps build brand loyalty and trust.

Black Friday tip 3: Relevant recommendations that act to upsell and cross-sell

You can use customer data to create product recommendations that are actually useful to your customer, based on purchase data and their behaviour on your site. 

It might sound rather complex, but it doesn’t have to be. If you have a marketing platform that aggregates all interactions into unique customer profiles, it’s easy to dictate what products should be displayed to which customer. 

Let’s illustrate it with an example:

Carol purchased a TV on Black Friday. Before the purchase, she browsed through the site and spent a lot of time browsing through soundbars and gaming consoles.

A recommendation void of purchase data would display the TV as well as a selection of soundbars and gaming consoles. But when you merge purchase data with behavioural data,  you can choose to exclude the television from your product recommendations. 

So, rather than taking up important space promoting what she’s already purchased, you can turn the ship around and display products that act to upsell, cross-sell and improve her TV experience. A win for the customer, and a win for you too.

Here’s the thing: customers are far more likely to interact with relevant recommendations than some off-the-shelf, cookie-cutter effort that is clearly mass-produced and not personalised in any way.

Make sure they're relevant because the more relevant the recommendation the more clicks you’ll get.

Psst! Did you know that we’ve recently released an integration with Magento that makes it easy to use e-commerce data in your product recommendations – and more? Now you do!

Black Friday tip 4: Ask for reviews to gain social proof

78% of shoppers trust reviews from other shoppers, and it does make sense. People tend to trust other people, not big companies telling them what to think. That’s what makes reviews and social proofing so important, and they are vital if you want to inspire brand loyalty and find repeat purchases.

Reviews are used to facilitate trust in customers and potential customers because it makes them feel:

1. Reassured
2. Relaxed

Automated SMS systems can be a really handy way to gather quick, positive reviews from customers who’ve had a great experience shopping from you.

If you can get potential shoppers feeling good about your business before they’ve even stepped through the (digital) door, you’re already off to a good start and it’ll make it much easier to market yourself to these individuals.

Black Friday tip 5: Loyalty programmes are an easy win

Consider throwing in a little sweetener as well. A 10% discount off their next shop can kill two birds with one stone: a repeat purchase and a good review!

Audience insight tools that streamline the process of sending post-purchase emails and analyse cart abandonment can make the real difference in circumstances like this.

You could also offer a discount if customers sign up to your newsletter, which brings another sale through the door and fattens out your wallet.

Black Friday tip 6: Use marketing solutions that make it easy to leverage engagement

While this does sound like a lot of hard yards, most of these best practices can be set up and then just allowed to run by themselves - which leaves more time for you to focus on the bigger picture.

There are marketing platforms with campaign tools out there that create intelligent marketing flows, conduct large-scale campaigns or conduct a highly personalised SMS campaign to keep customers coming back. These are worth their weight in gold, so hop to it!
 

Want to turn your Black Friday campaigns into an engagement machine? Sign up for a FREE APSIS One trial today!