[This article is part of a 3 part series on preparing your business to crush Black Friday weekend.]

Part I: 4 Easy Ways to Prep Your Business For the Biggest Sale Opportunity of the Year, Black Friday

Part II: If You’re Not Doing These 5 Things For Black Friday, You’re Already Behind  (You are here)

Part III: 3 Tactics to Guarantee the Best Black Friday Your Business Has Ever Seen

Now that you know the importance of taking advantage of Black Friday weekend, it’s time to strategize just how you’ll do it.

How will you raise your hand high enough for new and existing customers to pick your products and services to buy next month over everyone else’s?

Again, Black Friday weekend is the one time of year where people are intentionally looking to buy something and it’s your job to make sure your business gets picked.

In other words, they’re looking to spend money.

And I want them to pick you to spend it with.

I’m here to make sure you make money this Black Friday Weekend.

To get sneak peak of my best Black Friday tips, download my FREE checklist here.

The 5 ways I’ve listed below to create buzz and build a community are the same strategies I use in business to capitalize on the biggest money-making weekend of the year.

Check them out below.

1. Pump your Black Friday sales via social media

Black Friday weekend is the perfect time to maximize your social media platforms and get your community excited about your offers.

Just last year social media sales during this time of year sky rocketed.

But the key to using social media to your advantage is to work smarter not harder with it.

Craft a social media calendar out, plan out your posts on your best platforms and use a scheduling tool like Hootsuite, Buffer or Sendible to automatically send out your content each day.

You can also create Facebook ads, video sales letters, or live streams that all point to what your business is selling next month.

Quick tip for live streaming: schedule a few in advance and let your audience know when you’ll be online to help increase your reach and attendance.

Be sure to make your messages clear and concise with call-to-actions that point your audience back to what you’re offering for Black Friday weekend.

2. Use scarcity

The fear of missing out (FOMO) is real.

People are more inclined to buy when they know it’s only available for a limited time, so it’s your job to give them a subtle push into buying.

As you’re promoting your sales, drive the point home that your offers won’t be available for long and are exclusive deals for Black Friday weekend only.

You can even add countdown timers to your landing pages or online stores for an even greater effect.

3. Send emails to your lists

Your audience needs to know what you’re selling ahead of time, before Black Friday gets here.

Over 25% of Black Friday sales come from email, making it the biggest method of promo during the weekend.

Start communicating with your lists now about what you’re selling and how they can gain access to it.

Include testimonials from the previous years, ( if applicable) corresponding graphics or images and promo codes to separate returning versus new customers.

Be sure to mention all the details of the sale including its start and end times in your emails too, including your FOMO piece.

4. Offer deep discounts or doorbusters

Deep discounts and doorbusters are consumer favorites during Black Friday weekend.

Most retailers offer their regular products and services at hugely discounted prices all for the sake of gaining more customers during the biggest sale day of the year.

They give deep discounts in return for more sales. They accomplish this through upsell offers or by getting those same customers back into their stores to purchase again in upcoming months.

If you don’t offer deep discounts during this time of year, I can guarantee you that someone else in your niche or industry is and they’ll be the ones making the bigger profit too.

5. Host contests leading up to Black Friday

If you really want to give your online community a boost before Black Friday, try hosting a few contests leading up to Black Friday.

Use some of my ideas above, like email, social media and scarcity to spread the word about your contest.

To get people to enter, offer a product give-a-way (something that they’d have to pay for during BFW) for FREE.

Hosting a few contests will not only get people talking in your community but will also help spread the word about what’s in store for them during Black Friday Weekend.

These are my best recommendations for building your community and traffic before Black Friday Weekend hits.

Have another idea to get your community excited about your business next month? Post them in the comments section below.