Bloggers and small business owners loves shoppers holidays like Black Friday, the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale, and Prime Day. It’s a great opportunity to bring in new customers, convert sales, and drive massive revenues.
But how do you stand out from the crowd and ensure people are shopping your site?
We’re running down three foolproof strategies that will help you maximize conversions during huge shopping events.
1 // Build authentic connections.
What sets your site or shop apart is you. Take advantage of that by developing a unique brand identity.
Outline your differentiators – What can you offer that others can’t? This might be a specific style, perspective, unique expertise you have, a specific focus area for your content or products, etc. Write that down.
Now list at least 5 characteristics of your target customer. Ask:
- How old are they?
- Do they live in a specific geographic location?
- What do they do for a living?
- What hobbies do they have?
- What are their favorite TV shows?
It’s okay to ask yourself some pretty specific questions. At the end of this exercise, you should be able to define your ideal customer or reader as if we had asked you to describe your best friend.
Then create a list of what they care about. What are their top priorities, personally and professionally? What would prevent them from purchasing the products you’re promoting (e.g., cost, they don’t know how to use it/style it, they don’t see your posts, they don’t see its value)?
Now look at what you’ve written in response to these three questions. How can you provide unique value for the target customer you’ve described, and what they care about? Craft your brand description from this information. Keep referencing this as we talk about the content you want to promote, to help you stand out and draw in that target customer.
2 // Create unique value
Don’t just push the sale! Seek out opportunities to educate your customers about the things they care about.
Go back to that list of what your target audience cares about. How can you help them achieve their goals or solve a problem, through the content you use to promote the sale?
Brainstorm:
- What knowledge do you have that you could share (about materials, fit, etc.)?
- Is there a how-to that would help the customer put the item to good use (styling or use tips)?
- How can you help them justify the cost (e.g., how long will this last, will it replace other items they own)?
- How do they know this is the best the deal is going to get? Customers will wait to buy, even when something’s on sale, if they think the price will get lower later.
For example, if your customer might be apprehensive about purchasing a high dollar jacket because they’re not sure how they would wear it, share styling tips for 4 different occasions. They’re more likely to buy the jacket if you’ve disarmed their apprehensions.
Then plan your posts. Come up with short value pieces for social media posts, and longer value through blog posts or website pages.
It may seem like more work up front than just posting the price of the item but trust me, focus your content on delivering value, and the customers will follow!
3 // Promote, promote, promote
Ensure you’re sharing unique content regularly, across all available channels. Follow these steps to ensure you’re maximizing the value of all that content you’ve brainstormed.
- Build long format content to generate value, based on the list you brainstormed earlier. Draft blog posts or film YouTube videos to communicate key items in the sale and enumerate that value. These long format posts will create recurring links back to your content going forward, and share more value than you could in a single static social media post.
- Create social media content on the same theme, with links back to the long-format content. Ensure you’re planning across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, even if one platform generates more traffic for you. Use everything at your disposal! Again, go back to your target customer and what they care about. Are there different messages you can send to meet different needs or add different value?Leverage a tool like HootSuite to schedule your posts to go out over time.
- Create an email blast to also share. This will reach your audience right where they are, and ensure they see your content even if the algorithms don’t distribute it on social.
- Pin, pin, pin! Pinterest is your best tool for reaching a new audience. As you’re creating content, create a rich pin with different text overlays and load them into a service like Tailwind to schedule them over time.
- Promote on stories as the content goes live.
Read Essential Pinterest Strategies Every Blogger Needs to Master and Using Tailwind to Drive Sales
Try out these strategies and let us know – did they work for you? What would you do again or do differently in the future?