If you are willing to stay ahead of the competition, you must step up your game. Black Friday is considerably the most celebrated shopping season worldwide.
From physical stores to online shops, this season is loved by enthusiastic shoppers and all-level sellers.
It’s not enough to apply some discounts on your products because the competition is real. Every shop owner wants to get the attention, so you may fall behind the competition.
Let’s win the hurdle with some exclusive tips and make this Black Friday memorable with handsome revenue.
Black Friday marketing – an introduction
The Friday following Thanksgiving in the United States is called Black Friday, which is usually the beginning of Christmas shopping.
Many stores offer highly promoted sales at discounted prices and often open early, sometimes as early as midnight, or even on Thanksgiving.
Various stores offer discounted products and grab customer’s attention by starting early. Even sometimes shops start their offer on the eve of Thanksgiving.
However, the highly hyped sales season is now also celebrated online and makes a huge turnout. Around 200 million people shopped on last year’s Black Friday season over a 5-day weekend with an average of $321 expenditure.
And 44% of shoppers plan to spend their major portion of budget online, making the online business more significant to care about.
Now you understand how important is the Black Friday. You can also guess the competition since it fuels a large amount for the upcoming year.
That’s why it’s important to plan your Black Friday earlier with strategic approach. This post will help you with powerful tips and tricks to get the most out of the season.
Amazing Black Friday marketing strategies to increase sales
Here are some great tricks you can apply to increase your sales during Black Friday. If you haven’t adapted them to your plan, do now.
Start marketing campaigns early
Black Friday is celebrated at the end of November. Does it mean you have to wait until November? Not necessarily.
The early bird catches the worm. Start your Black Friday early. Share teasers on social media, and stay connected with your users by letting them know the deal season is coming.
You can even offer early access to deals to your subscribers, that way they will feel well-treated and you will start earning before the main event comes.
Either go exclusive for your subscribers only or give offers for everyone. Since customers have more budget in the early season, you can expect a better income if you start before everyone else.
Include some sort of gamification
Yes, the more creativity there is the better engagement you’re going to receive. People love to be entertained. So do it in an interesting way.
Spin a wheel: People will spin the wheel and they will get something based on the options included there. It might be percent or money-based discounts, free shipping, lifetime access, and more.
Leaderboard: If you’re familiar with the Duolingo language learning app, you must have a clear idea of the leaderboard.
Points: Point-based rewards can also be added to your promotional strategy. Customers will earn more rewards if they buy more products. At the end of the deal, you’ll offer something special for the top earners.
Gift: You can announce some kind of gift or gift box for an occasion.
Add personalization to your campaigns
This one is for email marketing. When you’re addressing your customers, don’t just leave with “Hello there”. People have a name and you should include that at the starting of your email.
Segmentation is another brilliant way to personalize your campaign. Here you’ll keep your customers on different segments based on filters you’ve set.
If you can properly segment your targeted customers, you can deliver the right message to the right person. Eventually, you’ll get a higher success rate.
Harness the power of social media
All your customers are there. Almost!
A global data report shows that 4.88 billion people use social media which equates to 60.6% of the world’s population. This is a year-old data, so there must be some hike.
So be present everywhere. Or, at the ones where you can be.
Make content according to the platform you’re working for. TikTok is for video, Instagram is for reels and images, and LinkedIn is for text.
Also, consider your niche. Though you can play at any platform with your creativity, it’s better to check out which platform is best for which industry.
For instance, we’re a software company that builds tools for WordPress. We don’t find Instagram useful for our business.
Build an email marketing list
“Give me an email list and I’ll give you a ton of revenue.”
A famous thinker said that (is it me?)
However, an email list means a bunch of potential customers.
There are a lot of customers who are interested in your Black Friday offers. Target them and connect them with your email list.
At first, you can create an email signup form with a powerful tool like Fluent Forms. Then, connect FluentCRM or your favorite email marketing tool with the form.
You also need to put the form in a good place on your website so that it grabs the user’s attention. Make sure to add a powerful CTA.
Take advantage of paid ads
PPC has an average of 200% ROI which means if people invest $1 they can earn $2 via Google Ads.
Facebook is an ideal place to target any demographic for almost any niche. With 188,050,000 users, Facebook has the largest audience, making it the best platform to advertise.
Similar to Facebook, Instagram also has a great audience with 161,700,000 users which makes it the second largest social platform. More than 200 million businesses utilize Instagram’s advertising platform, and 83% of users share that they explore new products and services on this popular platform.
Let’s talk about TikTok, the place for the viral things, with 150,000,000 users. TikTok is the third largest platform to utilize for your brand promotion.
Stats show that TikTok users are 1.5x more likely to buy instantly when they find something on the platform, compared to other social media users.
Extend your Black Friday deals
Brands usually offer discounts for a limited time. That’s okay if you don’t want to be known as a discount brand. It especially works for the premium brands that give discounts rarely.
But hey, extending a few days before and after Black Friday doesn’t harm. It will give you more opportunity to get a few extra bucks.
And it’s not about money always. Your customers may miss the offer on time, and they deserve some extension. Someone may discover your brand a bit later than Black Friday; giving them a discount offer will make them happy.
Leverage SMS marketing
When marketing locally, SMS marketing works really well. From announcing the offer to creating the FOMO before the offer ends, you can communicate through SMS.
It’s easier to reach customers via mobile phones since they carry the device with them all the time. However, sending the message at the right time can increase your sales.
SMS marketing also has high open rates, making it an ideal option for instant connection. Unlike emails and other forms of communication, people tend to check their phone inboxes quickly.
If you want to know what to include in your SMS, let’s start with sending them offers like discounts and promos. Let them know when the offer starts and ends.
Send messages on top of your online campaigns. Try to be direct and short on texts to keep relevance with social media and email marketing.
SMS really works for local markets and physical stores. So, try to utilize this channel as an additional option for your holiday marketing strategy.
Organize a contest
Organizing contests is a brilliant way to promote your Black Friday deals while creating excitement in users’ minds.
Not necessary, the contest would have to be very extensive – you can start by making it very simple.
You may offer a special money-back prize for some lucky winners. Or, having a gift hamper for one user who will be chosen from social sharing.
Keep the contest active during the whole Black Friday season to boost engagement. And promise users to announce the result after the season ends.
Invest in influencer marketing
Influencers are ruling the world. Technically, they own your customers. Because people follow them, you can easily reach those people by reaching the influencers they follow.
So, find out influencers from your niche. There are influencers in every niche, be it fashion or software. Sometimes it’s hard to collab with the top influencers since they have a packed schedule. On top of that, they charge you more.
In that case, find out ten micro-influencers instead of one big influencer. That’s how you can save up on a budget while getting a diverse audience.
Excite users by sharing sneak peeks
To celebrate big days, we start planning early. Right?
Let’s get your users excited by sharing teasers of upcoming offers and discounts. Well, it doesn’t have to be discounts always. You may offer gifts.
Whatever your offers, start sharing with your audience before the season begins.
Don’t display the whole picture. Just show a little so they get curious.
Upsell and cross-sell
When you’re promoting Black Friday deals, consider upselling and cross-selling to add into your sales strategies.
And as a quick note, upselling is when customers come to buy a $2 pen and sell them a $5 notebook. When customers want to order only a pizza and you suggest they order mojitos too, that’s cross-selling.
Make sure you’re smartly making the suggestions. Suggest the products that are complementary to each other.
The ball is in your court
It’s time to apply these practical strategies to your marketing plan. Yes, not all of the ideas will be good for your business. Pick your favorite ones wisely and don’t dare to experiment.
Eventually, you’ll enjoy a brilliant sales season with higher customer engagement. And who doesn’t know, customer engagement is also as important as sales? It’s because who’s watching you today will be your customer the other day.
That’s why it’s necessary to make a whole marketing plan for Black Friday. It will bring you extra revenue and additional attention.
