Unlocking Black Friday and Cyber Monday success: Your essential checklist

Marketing & sales

Analyse your customer data
This will help you discover who might respond best to earlier campaigns.

Create and finalise your sale messaging and visuals
Think about how you want your campaigns to look and feel. Consider consistency.

Build your lists
From email to SMS, use your chosen channels to offer exclusive, early access to sales.
Decide on the products and offers you want to promote.
Consider what would resonate best with your target audience.
Start marketing at the right time
Generally, the earlier, the better but it depends on the individual customer.
Have a cart abandonment plan
Investigate what causes your customers to abandon their baskets and have a strategy that brings them back e.g. an SMS alert or a special discount code.
Tailor offers to individual customers
Personalisation works! Know what makes your customers tick and tailor offers to suit their needs.
Analyse the marketing channels available to you
Consider which marketing channels you want to use to reach customers.
Set up data analytics
To continuously improve on your peak season strategy, use business intelligence software to better understand your customer behaviour.

Optimise your website for search engines
Learn what your customers are searching for and use that intel to maximise your visibility.
Check your website’s SSL
Your website’s SSL certification should be valid and work well so you can offer customers a safe and secure shopping experience.
Ensure your CMS is on the latest version
An up-to-date content management system helps to reduce the likelihood of glitches caused by bugs.
Check for broken links and faulty pages
404s can disrupt the customer experience so sweep your website for any broken links.
Test your website navigation
User experience can make or break your customer experience. So in addition to broken links, ensure your nav is user friendly.
Backup your website
Make sure you’ve created a backup every time you make any changes to your website.
Test on different devices and browsers
Optimise your website for various devices (e.g. mobile!) and browsers.
Ensure website can handle increase in traffic
An influx of traffic can easily bring a website down if you’re not prepared for it. So, update your web hosting plan in advance.
Simplify the checkout process
Make it easy for your customers to complete their purchases, whether that’s a clear ‘buy now’ button or a short checkout process – or both!

Make it easy for customers to reach out
If your customers require assistance, make it easy and convenient for them to find answers, whether that’s via a self-serve channel or a customer service rep.
Check your customer support channels are active
Ensure that your main channels of contact e.g. email, social media, phone, text are ready for the potential influx of customer queries.
Ensure customer support teams are aware of the news
Whatever you decide to run for peak trading season (eg promotions, sales, offers), make sure your support team is aware.
Offer proactive customer support
Chatbots and FAQ pages allow your customers to self-serve, lifting the pressure off your customer support team so they can focus on more complex cases.
Make it easy for your customer support team to get the info they need
Whether it’s your return policy or T&Cs of a specific promotion, make it easy for your customer-facing teams to quickly and easily find the info they need.
Keep customers in the loop
From order confirmations to delivery updates, keep your customers informed.

Prepare your stock
Avoid being short on stock and disappointing your customers when you stock up and can manage stock levels in real time.
Expand your courier network
Reduce the likelihood of delays and backlog when you work with multiple couriers for peak trading season.
Ensure your fulfillment team know about your promotions
Let your fulfillment team know what promotions are running, how long for and the T&Cs.
Ensure your returns policy is clear
Reduce strain on your customer support team when your returns policy is clear and easy to find.
Have additional staff to handle returns
Returns are inevitable. So, ensure you have enough staff to manage the influx of returns during this period.

Download the checklist here, or start your free trial with TextAnywhere today.