ColumnistsNov 01, 2022
10 Sales Tips for the Holiday SeasonColumnistsNov 08, 2022
The Smart Lab: Last-Minute Tips to Boost Black Friday Jewelry Sales
It’s not too late to market Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals to kick off a fabulous holiday season, writes Emmanuel Raheb.
Emmanuel Raheb is the CEO of Smart Age Solutions, a digital ad agency. Contact him at eraheb@smartagesolutions.com.
Black Friday is one of the craziest times of the year, and for good reason. The holiday period from Thanksgiving to New Year’s is one of the most profitable time periods, accounting for up to 30 percent of retail sales.
In fact, for many businesses the holidays can mean the difference between having a stellar year or closing your doors permanently. It’s just that important.
Whether you prefer to sell online or in store, the hunger for a good deal is what drives many consumers to buy. Remember, people have many options for gifts, and jewelry is just one they can consider.
Here are five tips to boost your Black Friday jewelry sales.
1. Consider running last-minute ads.
Experienced jewelers have their marketing campaigns planned well ahead of time, but it’s never too late to run a last-minute ad. Even if you’ve neglected your promotions, with digital media it’s easy to craft a compelling campaign quickly.
When you partner with an experienced agency, your window can be as short as a few days (or even hours), depending on the nature of what you want to do. A good agency will know which jewelry styles to feature, what types of offers appeal to people, and which audiences to go after.
Remember, it’s best to start early in the season as costs rise the closer you get to Black Friday. You want to keep expenses low and your spirits high. Success can come quickly when everything is in alignment.
Last minute campaigns can help you salvage the holiday season before it’s too late!
2. Optimize all your email marketing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Email marketing should be done regularly throughout the year. Your email marketing calendar should start in January and go all the way through December,with everything planned out ahead of time.
Of course, there are certain holiday periods you’ll want to focus on more than others. Among them are Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s.
The closer you get to each date, the more frequent your email marketing should become.
Because Black Friday is one of the most popular times to buy, many consumers have been “trained” to wait for this time to get the best deals. Your email marketing strategy should take this into account and offer promo codes and special offers to everyone who follows your email list. Make your emails stand out with incredible jewelry offers that other stores simply can’t match.
This is the perfect time to not only make more sales but build your reputation as a jewelry store that has the best deals. Consider the lifetime value of a customer because a happy customer will come back to purchase from you again and again.
3. Use flash sales.
Flash sales are a unique strategy that many jewelers haven’t tried. A flash sale is a very time-sensitive offer that is extremely limited either in time (a few hours) or until inventory of the item has been exhausted. Once the time ends or you sell out, that’s it—the offer is over, never to be seen again!
A good flash sale combines the excitement of “being first” with the allure of grabbing a great jewelry deal. You want the customer to brag about it to all their friends. This builds buzz around your jewelry store and is one of the best ways to create word-of-mouth marketing.
You can bet that every time that customer wears your jewelry, they’ll tell everyone about the fantastic deal they just got!
4. Use promo codes at checkout.
Promo codes are always a good sales strategy, but they can sometimes backfire. How many times have you been on a website, ready to make your purchase, then saw a promo code box and left? I bet you started searching for a discount or other deal.
Most people who leave a site never come back. They abandon their shopping cart, even if they had intended to complete their purchase. Life gets in the way.
A better strategy is to pre-fill the promotion code box within the checkout page itself. This not only helps prevent the person from leaving your site but also instills trust in the transaction since you’re giving the customer the discount automatically. It’s already there so why search?
Yes, you’ll have more people taking advantage of your offer but your overall sales volume should go up, meaning you’ll come out ahead. Your abandoned cart rate will decline.
5. Create different offers for different days.
In the time leading into Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you should use each day to push a special offer. You’ll want to tease an offer right before Black Friday, have another offer on the day of Black Friday itself, and yet another offer for Cyber Monday.
For example, you could offer 20 percent off one day and a free necklace deal the next day. Black Friday becomes the starting day to a whole weekend of incredible offers, ending with Cyber Monday.
While some jewelers run one long offer covering the entire weekend, this can be a disastrous strategy.
Consumers get bored easily, and if your headline and content are the same every day, they think they’ve already seen your offer and won’t pay attention. They’ll quickly move onto another deal.
Time is of the essence as your marketing is competing with dozens of other stores (and not just jewelers) all enticing the customer to buy.
Take the opportunity to craft a unique offer for each day. You’ll not only generate more excitement but encourage repeat sales—sometimes people come back and buy again even during the same weekend!
Remember, it’s never too late to start marketing. Use these last-minute tips to help boost your Black Friday jewelry sales.
The holiday season comes but once a year. Take advantage of it. Invest the time, energy, and effort it takes to succeed. Your best chance of success always starts with the opportunities you create for yourself.
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