Black Friday is right around the corner, and retailers are gearing up for that annual shopping frenzy. This holiday season holds immense potential for reaching untapped customer bases and generating substantial profits. However, with so much competition from other businesses also chasing those dollars, having an effective successful Black Friday marketing strategy is more crucial than ever.
In this guide, we explore the world of Black Friday marketing with the eCommerce strategies best practices for this occasion, including:
- Utilize social media marketing for Black Friday promotion
- Create an email marketing campaign
- Make a holiday marketing calendar
- Optimize your website performance – UI/UX
- Combine cross-sell and up-sell strategy
- Make use of a chatbot on your website
- Offer long-time exclusive deals for buyers
- Tightly follow up with customers after the Black Friday sale
- Don’t forget the abandoned cart rates
We also provide you with some examples of the best Black Friday marketing ideas last year for more references. Hence, Wait no more! Let’s check this article now to learn how to make money during Black Friday with effective Black Friday marketing strategies.
What is Black Friday?
Black Friday is a highly anticipated holiday sales event in November. It is traditionally observed after American Thanksgiving Day and marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season. During this retail extravaganza, companies from diverse industries present enticing promotions and significant price cuts to entice customers.
Over time, this occasion has evolved from a single-day affair into a month-long shopping season. Starting from Black Friday week and culminating with “Cyber Monday,” businesses seize this opportunity to clear their inventory and drive sales.
Black Friday is an essential event of the year for both customers and retailers. This is a crucial period for businesses to increase profits and draw in a fresh wave of customers with effective Black Friday marketing strategies. This is because during this time, shopping online surges, and consumers tend to spend more because of irresistible deals and offers.
In 2022, shoppers spent a staggering $6.3 million per minute online during Black Friday, with an average of $27.50 spent per person. Amazon experienced an 8% increase in product views and an 18% increase in purchases compared to the previous year. Plus, smartphone purchases accounted for 40% of all online spending.
Hence, if you consider following this Black Friday trends prediction highlighting the growth of virtual shopping, you better prioritize your online presence and plan a solid Black Friday marketing strategy.
All-in-One Black Friday Marketing Strategy – Tried and True
If you want to succeed during the Black Friday sale, you should implement a thorough Black Friday marketing strategy. This approach will guide you on how to prepare for Black Friday season sale to ensure the best results.
#1. Utilize social media marketing for Black Friday promotion
Social media wields excellent marketing power, influencing 71% of consumer decisions. For eCommerce firms, it enables direct audience engagement. If you are devising a marketing strategy, start with Black Friday social media campaigns. Below are tips for Black Friday strategy using social media.
Use hashtags to reach new audiences
Hashtags are essential in social media, connecting like-minded users in a virtual community. They help users find Black Friday deals, especially for popular items like clothing and electronics. Utilize hashtags like #blackfriday, #blackfridayshopping, and #blackfridaydeals to target bargain seekers. Plus, you can combine Black Friday hashtags with your trending niche hashtags to broaden your reach and make your posts more discoverable.
Try selling directly on social media
Besides promoting products on social media, you consider selling your goods directly on popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. They have store creation features like other best selling platforms and enable sellers to use built-in advertising tools, livestream functions, and vast customer bases to promote products widely.
Have a social media contest
During Black Friday, organizing a social media contest is one of the ways to boost customer engagement. Simply request participants to share pictures of their purchases or write product testimonials in exchange for freebies or vouchers. To expand your contest’s reach, you can run Black Friday advertising. Following that, you can feature the contest entries on your social media feed as social proof, boosting trust and attracting potential buyers.
#2. Create a Black Friday email marketing campaign
In the digital world today, email marketing is a helpful tool that helps businesses connect with their crowd and expand gains. Everyone loves receiving exciting discounts and deals in their inbox regularly. However, before setting up enticing offers for your subscribers well in advance, you should know how to build an email list.
Making an engaged email list contributes to the success of your email marketing campaign. It is a practical Black Friday marketing strategy to generate excitement and anticipation among your buyers. The process includes capturing potential customers’ email addresses and updating your customers with upcoming Black Friday deals. Here are some effective methods to achieve this:
- Use pop-up forms on your website to collect email addresses;
- Offer incentives like special discount codes or free gift cards to encourage sign-ups;
- Use plugins for email subscriptions and newsletters in WordPress;
- Leverage social media to promote email sign-ups and exclusive offers;
- Use landing pages with sign-up forms for specific Black Friday marketing campaigns.
For more details about the email marketing campaign for Black Friday, you can check the articles about how to create Black Friday email marketing strategy and how to craft attractive Black Friday email subject lines.
#3. Make a holiday marketing calendar
Creating a holiday marketing calendar for Black Friday is valuable to navigate the busy holiday season and effectively plan your marketing strategies. You can separate calendars for different marketing channels to streamline and organize timelines effectively.
While offering discounts is a common practice during Black Friday, it is crucial to go beyond simple price reductions to maximize sales. Your holiday marketing calendar should incorporate strategies that compel customers to purchase immediately. This can be achieved by implementing limited-time discounts or providing exclusive access to sale items. By emphasizing the time-sensitivity of your Black Friday deals, customers will feel motivated to take advantage of the offers before they expire.
Another effective Black Friday marketing strategy to generate excitement before the main sale event is to launch a flash sale. Flash sales typically offer significant discounts and deals for a short duration, ranging from a few hours to a day. When planning your holiday marketing calendar:
- Consider scheduling a flash sale before the main Black Friday event;
- Mark the start and end dates of the flash sale;
- And create a sense of urgency by displaying a countdown timer on your website.
This will encourage shoppers to make immediate purchases, knowing that the opportunity is time-limited.
#4. Optimize your website performance – UI/UX
When you update your website for Black Friday, design is one of the first elements to prioritize for optimization. By using Black Friday colors and elements that create a festive shopping vibe, visitors can feel excited and tempted to explore what you offer.
Alongside optimizing the design of your website for Black Friday, it is essential to pay attention to optimizing your product pages. Product pages are where customers spend most of their time on your site. So, updating these pages can significantly impact the shopping experience of your shoppers. Here are some key factors to consider when optimizing your product pages for Black Friday:
- Compelling product descriptions: Craft engaging and detailed product descriptions that highlight the key features, benefits, and unique selling points of your products. You can also incorporate relevant keywords to improve search engine visibility and optimize your pages for SEO.
- Multiple product pictures: Display six to eight high-quality product images from different angles and use cases. This gives customers a comprehensive visualization of the item, aiding their purchase decision.
- Clear pricing and discounts: Display the regular and discounted prices or special offers. Highlighting the savings customers can have during the Black Friday sale drives more sales. If applicable, use strikethrough pricing to show the difference between regular and discounted prices, further emphasizing the deal’s value.
- Add-to-cart and checkout process: Use prominent and visible “Add to Cart” buttons, and provide a clear path for customers to proceed to checkout. Minimizing the number of steps required to complete the purchase can reduce friction and cart abandonment.
Don’t forget to optimize websites for mobile as well. This is because it helps you offer a seamless user experience and improve search engine rankings, particularly on Google. Google takes into account whether a website is designed with mobile devices in mind, and it tends to favor such mobile-friendly websites in its search results.
#5. Combine cross-sell and up-sell strategy
This Black Friday marketing strategy aims to encourage customers to spend more during the promotion time, thereby increasing the average order value. It offers a valuable opportunity to augment profits without allocating additional resources toward acquiring new customers.
Here are some Black Friday marketing ideas to boost the average order value:
- Offer free shipping when customers reach a certain minimum order amount: For instance, you can set a minimum order threshold of $50 for free shipping. This can motivate them to add more items to their shopping cart to qualify for the free shipping promotion.
- Recommend related items on the product page or before checkout: For instance, if a customer buys a t-shirt, suggest pants or accessories that would go well with it. If you’re using WooCommerce, you can use the product recommendations extension to implement this strategy.
- Provide bundle deals: By bundling products together, you can motivate customers to make additional purchases to benefit from the enticing offer. For example, you can offer three items for the price of two or buy one, get one 50% off discount.
- Offer a free gift card to customers who spend a certain amount of money: This can make customers more likely to make another purchase in the future. Ensure that the gift card’s value is reasonable so that it doesn’t result in a significant loss for your business.
#6. Make use of a chatbot on your website
During the Black Friday period, the number of shoppers increases, leading to an increasing volume of customer support inquiries. At that time, customers will ask sellers various questions about their orders, shipping, returns, and more.
You can install a chatbot on your website to simplify and automate your customer support services. The chatbot software can handle common and straightforward, frequently asked questions. When a more complex issue arises, a customer support representative can step in and continue the conversation. This Black Friday marketing strategy helps reduce the repetitive tasks that weigh down your team and gives them more time to focus on important matters.
#7. Offer long-time exclusive deals for buyers
Offering discounts for an extended period is a clever Black Friday marketing strategy to foster customer loyalty and drive repeat sales. It helps you encourage buyers to keep shopping beyond Black Friday.
Here are some Black Friday promotion ideas to reward and show love to your loyal customers:
- Referral codes: Send referral codes to your email subscribers, providing them with incentives like gift cards or deeper discounts. When they refer new customers, it not only brings in new business but also shows appreciation to your loyal customers.
- Minimum spend rewards: Minimum spend rewards can boost conversion rates and encourage customers to spend more. Consider implementing tiered rewards, such as a 10% discount for a $50 purchase and a 20% discount for a $100 purchase.
- Free gift with purchase: People enjoy feeling rewarded for their purchases. When you offer a small freebie in every order package, you can increase customer satisfaction and boost the chances of repurchases.
#8. Tightly follow up with customers after the Black Friday sale
While it’s exciting to make a lot of sales on Black Friday, the real value of a customer lies in their long-term loyalty. Do you want those customers who made a one-time purchase to become lifelong supporters of your brand?
You can do this by sending a quick thank-you email, a customer service survey, or a follow-up SMS. Have no idea what to say in your SMS, get inspired with our article about how to create Black Friday SMS marketing strategy.
#9. Don’t forget your abandoned cart rates
Have you ever been shopping online and decided not to buy something, but then a pop-up appears on your screen? These pop-ups, sometimes, will annoy you, but they have a role to play.
Sellers often use them to get your attention and prevent you from leaving your shopping cart behind. These pop-ups may ask for your feedback or give you a big discount that encourages you to complete your order. Hence, as a seller, by using pop-ups, you can reduce the number of abandoned carts and increase the chances of people actually buying the items.
Make sure to use pop-ups during Black Friday to show exclusive deals that are only available for a limited time. This way creates a sense of urgency and motivates shoppers to use the special discounts before they expire.
3 Black Friday Marketing Strategy Examples
We hope the Black Friday marketing tips aforementioned have given you some guidance for the upcoming sales event. If you’re looking for inspiration on how to put everything into action, here are some Black Friday marketing strategy examples from previous years that you can consider:
Hostinger
Last year, Hostinger had one of the best Black Friday marketing campaigns. They gave big discounts, up to 90% off, on web hosting and domains. This key marketing strategy included
- Having Special deals for new customers and existing ones;
- Starting an early November soft launch featuring a special offer of a $0.89/year domain;
- Making a cool Black Friday website that matched their style but also had Black Friday colors;
- Using a timer to make people feel like they had to buy right away.
Gymshark
If your goal is to attract younger customers, like Gen Z and Millennials, Gymshark’s 2020 Black Friday marketing strategy is a great example to follow.
They teamed up with popular YouTube influencers such as KSI, Behzinga, and Calfreezy to grab attention online. This Black Friday marketing strategy example cleverly used the meme term BDE and incorporated elements from the 1980s-1990s, which appealed to the preferences of Gen Z and Millennials.
In their promotional video, Gymshark displayed their workout clothes and highlighted the benefits of wearing their products in an enjoyable and exaggerated manner. That strongly connected with the intended audience.
Allbirds
In the past few years, many businesses have utilized Black Friday to champion causes they hold dear. This is especially popular among sustainable brands. According to Sprout Social, almost half of customers like it when brands take a stand on social or political issues. 36% of customers are also more likely to buy from a brand if they agree with their beliefs.
Allbirds, a shoe company, joined this trend by raising their product prices by $1 on Black Friday and donating the extra money to an environmental charity.
Black Friday Marketing Strategy – FAQs
- How do you market on Black Friday?
To market on Black Friday, you can:
- Create enticing deals and discounts, such as limited-time offers.
- Utilize various channels like social media, and email marketing to reach your target audience.
- Leverage eye-catching visuals and compelling copy to grab attention.
- Engage with customers through interactive content and contests.
- Encourage early shopping by starting promotions a week or two before Black Friday.
- How to promote your business on Black Friday?
If you want to promote your business on Black Friday successfully, start by creating a solid marketing plan. This plan can include:
- Tailoring your offers to appeal to your target audience.
- Utilizing social media, email marketing, and your website to get the word out.
- Offering exclusive deals or time-limited promotions to capture customer interest.
- When should I start Black Friday marketing?
If you want to promote your business on Black Friday, start early by marketing your sales and discounts 2-3 weeks in advance. The early promotion gives people time to plan their shopping and budget for your products or services. Many big brands launch their Black Friday deals at the beginning of November, while others start on Thanksgiving Day and continue until Cyber Monday, which is an online-only sales event. Starting a Black Friday marketing strategy early ensures you capture the attention of early holiday shoppers and accommodate potential delivery delays.
Are You Ready to Create Your Own Black Friday Marketing Strategy?
Perhaps when you’re reading this article, Black Friday is just around the corner or already underway. To develop a successful Black Friday marketing strategy, remember to offer irresistible deals, utilize multiple marketing channels, and start early to capture the attention of eager shoppers. Following these Black Friday Best practices, retailers can increase their chances of driving sales during this highly anticipated shopping event.
You’ll find more similar articles on our Retailer Blog. If you want the most recent updates, let’s be a part of our vibrant Facebook community.
Moreover, don’t hesitate to explore the LitCommerce Multichannel Sync solution or contact us for a more detailed discussion. We are delighted to offer our assistance!