Black Friday is projected to be the biggest shopping day ever, but if you're hoping to get a piece of this year's earnings, you'll need to do more than just offer a few discounts.
Today we’re going to help you optimize an important piece of the Black Friday puzzle—your Facebook page or Facebook Business page.
This post will teach you some of the most effective ways to build hype for your Black Friday sale on Facebook. By the time we’re done, you’ll not only have a highly-optimized page, but you'll have a Shop section and Messenger channel that are ready to rake in additional sales.
Step 1: Activate the Messenger channel to turn conversations into sales
With the Shopify Messenger channel, your customers have the power to browse, and even buy your products directly through Messenger. To shop in Messenger, your customers will simply start a conversation with you, and then tap Shop Now to view your product catalog. When they discover something they love, they can buy it with just a few taps using Shopify’s checkout.
With Shopify and Messenger, you can connect with your customers in real-time while your Black Friday promotions are running. This can help you build the same strong, one-to-one relationships neighborhood store owners once built with their customers. Establishing these deep, personal relationships is how you build brand loyalty that keeps customers coming back long after Black Friday has ended.
Step 2: Activate the new Shop section of your Facebook page
The new Shop section makes it easy for desktop and mobile users to browse and buy products from your Facebook page. Since it’s mobile-friendly, you’ll be able to capture sales from people using the Facebook app or mobile site on Black Friday. Here’s what it looks like on MVMT’s page:
If you’ve already installed the Shop section, move on to step 2. If you haven’t, now’s the time (don’t worry—it only takes a minute). Our guide to setting up your Facebook Shop section makes it easy.
Step 3: Create a custom Facebook cover image to promote your sale
Now that your Facebook Shop section and Messenger channel are set up, it’s time to focus on marketing.
An eye-tracking study conducted by EyeTrackShop found that participants spent more time looking at Facebook cover photos than wall posts or ads. If you want Facebook users to know about your Black Friday sale, customizing your cover photo is the place to start.
Let’s go over what a Black Friday Facebook cover photo should include by examining a good example I found on Creative Market:
Image via Cooledition
First, you’ll notice that the phrase “Black Friday Specials” is dead centre and impossible to miss. The creator has also included a few key photos of compelling sale products (makeup and brushes), the maximum discount (75%), what’s on sale (selected cosmetics), and the store’s URL. When combined, all of these details create a cover image that’s attractive, informative, and attention-grabbing.
You can purchase the Photoshop template above for $2 or contact the creator to design a custom version for an additional fee. If you decide to make your cover photo from scratch, keep these 3 awesome ecommerce design trends in mind.
Step 4: Set up your page’s Call to Action button
Your new Facebook Shop section will make it easy for Facebook users to browse and purchase items from your Black Friday collection, but you should also give them a simple way to visit your online store. Facebook’s Call to Action buttons are the answer.
Image via Facebook
Here’s what Dollar Shave Club had to say about theirs:
“Over the course of a three-week test, the Sign Up Call to Action button delivered a 2.5x higher conversion rate versus other comparable social placements aimed to drive new user acquisition.” — Brian Kim, Director of Acquisition, Dollar Shave Club.
Here’s a quick walkthrough of how to set up your own:
- Click the Create Call to Action button on your cover photo.
- Choose the Shop Now button and add your link in the website field.
- Click Create.
The link you include can either be to your store’s homepage or a direct link to your dedicated Black Friday landing page. While Facebook provides its own stats for page owners, you can also add a UTM code to your call-to-action button to better track its performance in Google Analytics.
Step 5: Pin a post announcing the sale
Pinning a post is perhaps the simplest way to highlight an offer or event on your Facebook pages. By pinning a post, you’ll ensure it stays at the top of your timeline even after you make additional posts. You can access the Pin to Top button by clicking the dropdown menu arrow on any post, as seen below:
Image via Facebook
Our friends over at Buffer shared the results of pinning one of their updates:
“For pinned updates on Facebook, we noticed 30 extra views, three extra likes, and three extra shares in a 24-hour period. This would mean an extra 150 views, 15 likes, and 15 shares were a post to be pinned throughout the workweek.” - Buffer
To get the most out of your pinned post on Black Friday, pin an image that features the same key points as your new Facebook cover image. A Hubspot study found that Facebook status updates containing images saw 104% more comments, 54% more likes, and 84% more click-throughs than those that didn’t.
Bonus: Earn yourself the “Very responsive to messages” badge
Whether you’re responding to tweets on Twitter, replying to messages on Facebook, or quickly answering emails, good customer service has the power to ease a buyer’s mind.
Good customer service takes many forms, but according to Digital's Customer Service Benchmark, live chat has a 73% satisfaction rate, compared with email at 61% and phone at 44%.
To help brands better demonstrate their dedication to fast, attentive customer service, Facebook introduced the “Very responsive to messages” badge that appears on profile sidebars. Here’s what it might look like on your page:
Image via Facebook
According to Facebook, your Shop section on your Facebook pages need to achieve a 90% response rate and median response time of 5 minutes over 7 consecutive days to become eligible to receive the badge. You’ve got plenty of time between now and Black Friday to earn one, so start making customer service a priority and do your best to speed up response times. To make it easier to reply to questions on-the-go, install the Facebook pages app for Android and iPhone.
Congratulations!
Easier than it sounded, right? If you followed the steps outlined above, your business is now armed with killer Facebook pages that’s heavily optimized to help you increase sales on Black Friday.
About the Author
Jordan Simas is a writer at Shopify, all-you-can-eat sushi fiend, and lover of sidechained supersaws.
Note: This article is curated from Shopify Blog.