Hey Everyone,
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner, which means it’s time to put the finishing touches on your campaign. You’ve nailed down your promotion, you’ve cued up all your major website updates, and your customers are getting excited. But you might still be wondering what MORE you can do to reach those targets. My advice? Take some time to refine your customer experience using Shopify apps. The most profitable online stores treat the customer journey as a round trip, from acquisition, to purchase, to delivery, to review, and back to repeat purchasing. Every detail counts, and it’s often the behind the scenes work that make an online store truly great. Today, I’ll share my top 5 apps that you should always have installed to maximize sales for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond.
The customer journey is nowhere near over once the customer hits that checkout button. In fact, the time between a customer’s order confirmation and receiving their package can be the deciding factor for how a customer feels about your store. That can be a little scary. Especially when most of that time is spent out of your control and in the hands of the postal service. Route guarantees a smooth journey from you to your customer by offering advanced tracking and premium insurance. So both you and your customers have peace of mind.
How to use: Integrate Route as an upsell for clients to purchase at checkout, or add it to your pricing model so clients receive the premium insurance without opting in.
Email is still the reigning champ when it comes to reaching your customers. It’s the best way to keep them engaged and in-the-know. Full stop. If you aren’t collecting emails through an online sign-up form on your site, you're missing out on a huge opportunity. Klaviyo is an email service specifically tailored to e-commerce stores. While that first sale is important, repeat purchases often come directly from email campaigns. And unlike Mailchimp, who has a one-size-fits-all approach, Klaviyo has custom tools designed specifically for online stores. Start measuring lifetime value, targeting campaigns to your VIP customer groups, and designing email flows optimized for sales. It’s all directly built into the dashboard!
How to use: Create a sign-up form before Black Friday so that when you launch your sale, you can instantly let your customer know with a direct link to purchase. Make sure to send reminder emails throughout the sale, and think about offering an early-access sale to your best customers.
Data security is a hot topic with store owners and consumers alike. And while Shopify protects your store’s data from external sources, it may not be safe from you and your team! An accidental click of that ‘delete’ key and all your hard work could be gone. Somebody on your team changes some inputs? Your old ones could be lost forever. Rewind backs up your hard work and lets you turn back time if you make a mistake. I like to think of it as a Shopify store’s life raft.
How to use: It’s always best practice to back up your work. But it’s even more crucial during peak periods when any downtime could lead to a huge loss in sales. If you do one thing on this list, make sure it's this one! Take some of the stress out of Black Friday in knowing that your website data is protected.
Understanding how your customers got to your online store and what led them to purchase has never been more challenging. With so many touchpoints from Instagram to Facebook to Google, how do you figure out which networks to invest your time and money in? And which ones to cut? ThoughtMetric connects all your marketing channels in one place and shows you which are bringing you sales.
How to use: I’d recommend installing ThoughtMetric before Black Friday to get a better idea of which marketing platforms are performing for you. Then, you can use that data to make better investments for your Black Friday advertising spend.
Sezzle
Sezzle is a US-based "Buy Now Pay Later" solution, that enables shoppers to split their online purchases into 4 equal, interest-free installments over 6 weeks. Sezzle's solution has proven to increase Average Order Values and Conversion Rates, and decrease Cart Abandonment and Return Rates, while Sezzle assumes all fraud risk. Sezzle serves over 3 million shoppers, and partners with over 20,000 brands in the US and Canada, including Untuckit, Ministry of Supply, Knix, Altitude Sports, Touch of Modern, Kappa, and Target. Sezzle is also a Public Benefit Corporation on a mission to enable shoppers to take control of their financial futures, spend responsibly, and achieve financial freedom.
How to use: Since Sezzle has a native integration with Shopify, I'd recommend installing their app before Black Friday to leverage the incremental sales and basket size increase their solution provides. Sezzle's sign up process, from entering your store's basic information to installing the app, can take less than 30 minutes, and with no sign up fee or monthly fee, Sezzle can prove to be a value-added solution for your store this Holiday Season.
Subscribe
The last (and easiest) one to install actually doesn’t require any installing at all! With the click of a button, you can subscribe to my channel for Shopify tips, updates, and how-tos. Make the most out of your online store with my easy to follow guides for both new and seasoned store owners.
Good luck with your upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales! As always, the Sunbowl team is ready to help with any questions. Until next time — catch you later.