Black Friday is arguably one of the biggest consumer holidays in America. During that one day, people go all out on their shopping spree, grabbing all the on-sale items they can get. And for a startup company like yours, this is also a great opportunity to earn a lot of profit.
But while it is an anticipated day, mounting a Black Friday promotion is no easy walk. There are a lot of preparations involved. And you might find yourself needing some help to make the promotions successful. Let’s explore how you can pull this off with Virtua Solutions’ help.
The Challenges That Black Friday Brings To Your Startup Company
Despite it being an annual event, Black Friday is still something that many businesses may find themselves struggling with. The sudden increase in customer volume creates several challenges you have to contend with.
Response Time
Image from Katana.
With the volume of customers expected, you need to be ready to respond to each inquiry faster than usual. That becomes more apparent when handling online sales. After all, people expect even speedier responses here. The large volume can overwhelm both your system and the employees processing the incoming orders.
Managing Multiple Branches
The problem above becomes more challenging when you are dealing with multiple branches. Your biggest challenge is overcoming the logistical issues associated with handling orders from different areas. There is also the challenge of managing stock across these branches to ensure you can fulfill all orders.
Issues With Promotions
Being a popular holiday, Black Friday can also be a highly competitive day for businesses. You will find yourself competing with other brands for customer attention. Another challenge here is ensuring that any promotions you run on the day would go smoothly. That creates another layer of management work for the business.
Data management
One great thing about Black Friday is that it offers you a wealth of customer data you can use for planning other marketing ventures. But you should be ready to process and store all this data reliably. That might require you to expand your data processing capabilities just for the occasion.
How Your Startup Company Can Succeed On Black Friday
While the above challenges are recurring, each Black Friday season comes in differently. As such, your startup company needs to adapt readily to new developments. Here are some useful strategies to help you get more from the effort.
Creating A Sense Of Urgency
Okay, so everyone is already anticipating Black Friday months before the event. However, this creates a sense of complacency in customers. After all, they expect that there would be a lot of promotions during the day itself and that they don’t have to worry about missing out. That would sadly make them less encouraged to jump on your offers.
Thus, you should build up that sense of urgency and anticipation for your promotions. There are many ways that you can go here. For instance, you can create a copy highlighting the limited nature of the promo. Here, you want to emphasize not just what they are missing. Highlight as well why these should matter to them.
Creating a countdown is also a good reminder for them to act fast so as not to miss out. Take advantage of various channels like in-app notifications to remind them about the upcoming promo. But you want to time these notifications properly to avoid bombarding your customers with too many adverts.
Use Other Direct Selling Routes
As mentioned earlier, you can expect a significant increase in order inquiries during Black Friday. That can overwhelm your website. One effective way to lessen that burden is by offering other direct selling routes.
Social media is a popular one here. Most platforms now offer a shop feature that lets you accept and fulfill orders without having to direct people to your site. It also lets you put your products more prominently in people’s sights. You do need to set aside a dedicated team to process the orders.
Be Ready To Follow Up
While the goal of any Black Friday promotion is to rack up as many sales as possible for that day, it also gives you the opportunity for future marketing. and sales. Thus, you should have a follow-up strategy to capture these potential return customers.
Start by sending a quick thank you message for their Black Friday purchase. Here, you can opt to provide them with additional information on some other products they might be interested in. Don’t push hard on the possible sales here but instead offer these as suggestions.
Image from Socital.
Additionally, you want to use this follow-up to get customer feedback. Include simple surveys and review requests. As always, make it easy to execute for the convenience of your customers.
Getting Black Friday Support For Your Startup Company
Of course, with all of the above things you need to do, your startup company will need additional help. Virtua Solutions is ready to provide you with all the Black Friday support you need. Here are some of the areas in which we can assist you.
Customer Engagement And Order Fulfillment
The first area that we will lend a hand with is order processing and fulfillment. Our agents can handle the different selling channels that you have. In particular, we can manage your social media portals, including shops on these platforms. Our team will respond to customer inquiries and assist them in placing orders.
Furthermore, we can respond to customer service requests. You can expect plenty of these during this time of the year, as people will likely have a ton of questions about their new purchase. Our agents can handle support for the following channels:
- Live chat
- Email
- Phone
- Social media
We can fully customize our support service based on your startup company needs. That ensures you can fully cover all the customer traffic.
Startup Company Back Office Management
But it’s not only the customer-facing areas that Virtua Solutions can assist you in. We are also ready to help you with all the back-office work associated with running your Black Friday promotions.
Our virtual assistance can help you with inventory management. They will keep track of the flow of products through your different branches. That ensures that each branch can fulfill the orders they have.
We can also help you with administrative tasks like coordinating with suppliers and other vital services. You can get this service long before the actual season, which helps you better prepare for the season.
And of course, Black Friday is just the start of the long holiday shopping season. If your startup company wants to have a successful run this season, then you need the right support. Contact us today and let us get you ready to serve MORE customers.