Black Friday 2021 is around the corner, and while it will be marred by the economic effects of the pandemic, it’s still considered an important feature in the retail calendar. Consumers might be more conservative in their spending, but that doesn’t mean the day can’t be a success for your small business. In fact, South Africa was found to rank the highest amongst 12 countries for the percentage of consumers who are enticed by Black Friday deals.
Despite it being a smaller feature in the pre-Christmas season than in the United States, it’s become a popular trend in South Africa that shoppers look forward to. And while our deals aren’t so crazy that people camp outside of stores in order to get certain products before they run out, SMEs can still offer customers value on Black Friday.
One vital way to get involved and make your costumes aware of your involvement is to spruce up your website design and content. These are simple changes you can make to get shoppers interested in what you have to offer, whether you’re getting involved for one day, a weekend or an entire week.
Create a landing page
If you’re making a full go of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday hype and offering a massively reduced price or putting up a host of products at a discounted price, it’s worth designing a landing page dedicated to the offer/s. By creating a page dedicated to Black Friday, you’re helping your audience identify your brand and specials easier during their search by using related search terms in your copy.
If you get your landing page live in time, it will start to rank for relevant keywords, and give your business the edge over your competitors. Give your page a clear Black Friday title, an enticing page description and a simple page design with clear call-to-actions, you’ll win over all those existing and new customers during their Google search. If you’re not sure where to start, chat with a web design expert to get the ball rolling.
Take a look at major retailers, Makro and Superbalist. By creating landing pages specifically for the event, Google is able to index and serve these pages to searchers. Additionally, they’ve made use of particular words to get readers excited to click through to their websites. Makro has made use of capitals on words related to their discounts such as “MASSIVE”, whereas Superbalist has gone for mentioning popular brand names that will have items available on sale.
Add homepage banners
Nothing gets existing customers excited for an approaching sale like home page sneak peeks. Place a banner or two on your website leading up to the sale, and you’ll create awareness for it every time someone lands on your site.
From the top page “hero” banners to smaller side banners – whichever suits your website – you can bring attention to your upcoming deals with striking imagery and clear, bold copy to minimise bounce rate and increase clicks to your product pages.
Major retailer, Game has recently added a home page banner to their website to build up anticipation for their Black Friday deals. Despite being simple, the bold, brand colours of pink and white, plus the simple call to action will encourage browsers to click through to find out what might be coming.
Try out widgets
A widget is a small and unobtrusive element that can be added to a home page or any other relevant landing page to create awareness about a product or promotion. Widgets are easy to install and easy to implement on your website and are able to provide an audience with clear information and a call to action without them having to navigate to another landing page.
They’re particularly useful for promoting additional product promotions that you don’t have space to mention in your website banners, but they’re effective because they don’t get pushed into a consumer’s face like a traditional pop-up. If you’ve got numerous deals you want to make people aware of, try out a widget on relevant landing pages to spread the word.
Optimise your mobile design
According to 1-grid CEO, Thomas Vollrath, mobile is king in Southern Africa. “If your website doesn’t have a mobile-first approach yet, it’s time to play catch-up. Nothing turns an audience away quicker than a slow to load a mobile website that is difficult to navigate”, he emphasizes. Your website design needs to dynamically suit any device a browser might use instantly, to give them the simplest and easiest experience possible during this busy season.
Navigate to your website on your mobile phone or tablet, and if the design doesn’t fit or the copy has become displaced, it’s time to chat to your development team or an external pro to optimise your mobile web design.
Once the Black Friday/Cyber Monday season is over, it’s the perfect time to look at what worked and what didn’t. Even if a certain banner design didn’t reap in all the clicks you expected it to, or more people dropped off while navigating your deals than you thought they would, you can use the time to assess what your design was and how it can be improved for the next year.
