How to prepare for Black Friday & Cyber Monday with live shopping

Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the annual shopping frenzies, is just around the corner. To stand out in the crowd and maximize your sales, it's time to consider a game-changing strategy: live shopping events.

Live shopping has reshaped the way businesses engage with customers and how to prepare for Black Friday. It's not merely about discounts; it's about crafting an immersive shopping experience that drives excitement and conversions.

In this guide, we'll explore the essential steps to prepare for Black Friday with live shopping. From event timing to analyzing outcomes, we'll cover the critical factors to ensure your Black Friday sales soar. Whether you're a seasoned retailer or a newcomer, these nine key considerations will help you make a lasting impact and boost your Black Friday success.

1. When to create your Black Friday event

Planning the timing of your Black Friday live shopping event is crucial to its success. One of the primary considerations is deciding when to create your event and start promoting your enticing Black Friday deals. Here are two key aspects to consider:

How long in advance should you create the event?

Starting early is often the key to building anticipation and driving excitement for your Black Friday event. Depending on your audience and industry, consider creating your event at least a few weeks before the big day. This allows you ample time to promote it effectively and generate buzz around your exclusive deals.

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Are you going live multiple times during Black Friday?

As you prepare for your Black Friday live shopping event, it's essential to think beyond just the day itself. Consider extending your live sessions throughout the entire Black Month, encompassing the days leading up to Black Friday, the big day itself, and even extending into Cyber Monday.

By strategically going live multiple times during this extended period, you can maintain a consistent presence and engage with your audience over a more extended timeframe. This approach not only allows you to capture the excitement of Black Friday but also leverages the growing popularity of Cyber Monday, giving your audience even more opportunities to explore and grab your irresistible Black Friday deals.

2. Where do you want to go live

Your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing strategy should also include where you want to go live with your live shopping events. You should consider which platforms you have the strongest presence on. Whether it's Facebook, Instagram, or your website, you have the opportunity to reach tons of new customers during Black Friday, especially if you choose to go live on all of them at once.

Influencers

Preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday also means that you have to figure out if you want to use influencers. Influencers are great for having an extra expert onboard, and it also gives you the opportunity to tap into customers from another community.

Collaborations

But collaborations don't only have to be with influencers. Preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday also means that collaborating with other brands can be a great way to boost your sales.

3. What Black Friday deals do you want

Black Friday is synonymous with incredible deals and discounts that draw throngs of eager shoppers both in physical stores and online. In a live shopping setting, businesses can take advantage of various deal types to engage their audience and boost sales.

You can use deals such as:

- Bundle deals

- Special discounts

- Buy-one-get-one

- ... and much more!

You can even use different deals that you already prepared for the holiday shopping season. Just change the wording so it fits Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

4. How to promote your Black Friday sales online

Promoting your Black Friday and Cyber Monday events is essential to succeed. That's also why you want to create these events well in advance. This gives you the necessary time to promote on social media, in newsletters, and even on your website. Remember, these are the most important retail days of the year, so we want to get the edge over our competitors when we can.

Social media platforms

nto your live shopping event and stay for the entire duration.

Email marketing campaigns

Email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to reach your existing customer base. Craft engaging and personalized email campaigns that highlight your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, special offers, and exclusive discounts. Consider sending teaser emails before the event to build anticipation and hype, and maybe start your email marketing campaigns early.

Black Friday ads

Invest in paid ads campaigns on platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Instagram Ads. These platforms allow you to target specific demographics and interests, ensuring your promotions reach the right audience. Craft compelling ad copy and visuals to capture attention and make sure your event is ready to go!

5. What's the best way to show your products

Finding the best Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday offers is what everyone is looking for. That means you have to come up with a product plan that showcases the products you think will be the best sellers. Starting your live shopping event with a product you know is popular can be a great idea. Having a high-selling product as the first one gets people to comment a lot, which gives your livestream a wider reach.

But what if you can't fit all your great deals into a Black Friday and Cyber Monday show? Go live multiple times during this time! It sure is worth it.

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6. Should the event follow a theme

The decision to incorporate a theme into a live shopping event can have a profound impact on its overall success and engagement level. Themes can add an extra layer of excitement, cohesion, and memorability to the experience, and for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it really does make sense to create a theme around your live shopping event.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are flooded with opportunities to buy from companies with great offers. If you can create a great theme for your live shopping events during this period of time, you can be the company customers are choosing when shopping online.

7. How long should the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events be

Determining the optimal duration for Black Friday and Cyber Monday live shopping events is a critical decision for retailers and e-commerce businesses. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, several factors must be considered to strike the right balance between customer engagement, sales maximization, and operational efficiency.

Think about factors like how long you normally go live during your live shopping events and when your customers seem to leave the events. It could be a good idea to make your events a bit longer on these major retail days to try and sell even more. And if you hosted a live shopping event last year, take a look at the data and see what works and what doesn't.

8. What features do you need to boost online sales

Live shopping with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales doesn't only increase sales online. It is also a perfect way to drive customers to your physical stores and generally increase sales as a whole.

Using different features during your live shopping events can be the difference maker in creating successful Black Friday and Cyber Monday events. With Sprii, you get tons of different features to choose from to help you stay within your brand identity, boost engagements, elevate sales, and reduce administration.

Customized branded overlays

Using customized branded overlays gives you the opportunity to create a themed live shopping event during Black Friday and Cyber Monday that still fits your brand identity. The overlays make it easy for your target audience to see what products are on sale, what they cost, and what they have to comment to buy them.

Gamification

Another great feature for live shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday is gamification. Many businesses will be hosting live shopping events during this time, and if you make your live shopping event more entertaining, you have a winning formula. Gamification doesn't only make your event more exciting but also gives an incredible boost to your engagement, which is one of the key factors in the world of live shopping.

9. What's the result of the live shopping event

Hosting live shopping events and boosting sales is what we all want. Even though you might experience great numbers right out of the gate, make sure you always look back on your events and analyze them. This is your way to get better at hosting these events, and that can make a big difference for the holiday season or the next Black Friday.

Abandoned cart

While retailers witness a surge in traffic and sales, they also encounter a significant challenge – abandoned shopping carts. As people shop across multiple platforms, many tend to leave their carts behind, potentially costing businesses valuable revenue. However, Sprii offers a solution to this problem with automatic abandoned cart messages, helping retailers recapture these lost opportunities.

Analyze and learn

As the popularity of live shopping continues to soar, it becomes increasingly essential to analyze and learn from these events to drive growth and success. With Sprii, you get an advanced dashboard that gives you all the numbers you need to know if you have to make changes during your shows.

Wrapping up

Hosting live shopping events during Black Friday and Cyber Monday is now more important than ever. Live shopping is the biggest retail movement right now, and utilizing the many benefits during Black Friday and Cyber Monday is a sure way to increase sales and elevate customer growth.

In this article, we gave you the answers on how to prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you go through each of these sections, you'll be more than ready to beat your competitors with captivating live shopping events.