8 Marketing Tips For Black Friday Weekend

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In spite of being the celebrated spectacle that it is, planning a Black Friday marketing campaign is not that different from putting together any other advertising campaign. Perhaps the major difference is that during Black Friday, Sofa Sunday, and Cyber Monday, you get to exploit the hype that comes with this retail extravaganza.

As with any other marketing campaign, the key to success is to start with a well-planned and solid strategy. We’ve already laid out the ultimate Black Friday survival checklist for businesses. This time, we’ll give you some tips on how to have your most successful Black Friday weekend yet.

But first… should you really launch a Black Friday campaign?

You might be one of those small business owners who are hesitant on launching a Black Friday promotion. We get it—it can feel intimidating to “compete” with big brands during this season. But Black Friday (and Cyber Sunday and Monday) is, nonetheless, still a great opportunity for you to earn more than usual.

You never know, maybe one of your potential clients is just holding off on making a purchase because they’re waiting for a Black Friday deal from your brand.

And here are the tips, as promised

Once you’ve decided that you’re going to participate in this grand retail event, it’s time to plan ahead and plan smart. Use the following tips to help you shape the best possible strategy for your business. If you want, you can even extend these tips to take you all the way through the entire holiday season.

1.    Go after millennials

Research shows that 41% of millennials are planning to spend more during this year’s holiday season than last year’s. The expected total average amount that millennials will spend during this season is estimated at $1,212—way higher than the average of $1,153 across all age groups.

Go After Millennials

To put it simply, completely ignoring this statistic would be almost criminal (unless, of course, your products aren’t suited to this particular age group). Millennials make up a large and tech-savvy demographic of shoppers, so targeting them during your campaign has a high potential to pay off nicely.

You can tailor your campaign to attract millennials by:

  • Being active and experimenting with the most popular social media platforms
  • Being honest and authentic
  • Reaching out to micro-influencers
  • Going mobile
  • Allowing them to co-create content
  • Incorporating them into your company’s mission
  • Using videos to supplement your content

2.    Take time to send out special Black Friday emails

According to Adobe, email marketing drove almost a quarter of Cyber Monday sales in 2017. It’s not surprising why businesses are using this strategy to drive more sales during Black Friday season.

Take Time to Send Emails
In order for your campaign to stand out among the sea of marketing emails, you may want to look into the following suggestions:

  • This may sound counter-intuitive, but keeping things simple might actually help you stand out. A lot of times, getting right to the point—such as simply highlighting a discount and a CTA—pays off.
  • If you want to add a more flair to your emails, using GIFs and/or injecting humour are two easy solutions.
  • Announce a contest or a giveaway through email.
  • Extend your sale as a special treat to your newsletter subscribers.
  • Offer a gift with every purchase.

3.    Pay for Ads

While it’s true that you’d probably have to bid against dozens of other marketers on Black Friday weekend, launching a PPC of Facebook ad campaign can still be an effective way to market your special promotions to potential clients. After all, it’s one of those rare times of the year when almost everyone is actually looking to spend money.

Pay For Ads

When crafting your ads, don’t forget to customise them in such a way that they’re especially-tailored for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Implementing negative keywords and optimising your ads based on peak shopping times will help you maximise returns even more.

4.    Motivate your employees with incentives

Black Friday usually takes a toll on your employees. The sudden influx of customers can strain your manpower, more so if you’re a small business.

Motivate Your Employees

Before anything else, you must ensure that your people are well-trained and equipped to handle the frenzy that comes with Black Friday. However, don’t push them too far. Having your employees experience burnout at the onset of the holiday shopping season is the last thing you’d want to have to deal with.

Keep them motivated by offering incentives when they reach or exceed set goals. Whether it’s through a bonus program or merely throwing a pizza party at the end of the day, showing appreciation for your employees’ hard work is a must.

5.    #BlackFriday #CyberMonday

Exploiting social media should be an obvious strategy for this year’s Black Friday event. You can use various platforms to share coupons, run giveaways, and bring attention to your special Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.

Black Friday & Cyber Monday

You can also roll out more content that focuses on the impending shopping holidays that are about to happen. Take the opportunity to engage your audience with interactive content. For example, you can create shopping guides for different customer profiles while highlighting some of your products.

6.    Video is the way to go

We all know that video is carving its path to dominating the world of digital advertising. Start creating video content to tap into key markets. It doesn’t always have to be plain product showcasing videos. You can also try your hand in producing videos that tease Black Friday promotions or give a sneak peak of how your brand is prepping for the holiday season.

Video is the way to go

Get your creative juices flowing and don’t be afraid to have fun. Rolling out video content is one of the best ways to raise brand awareness and drive traffic for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

7.    Take note of key dates

One of the best things about Black Friday and Cyber Monday is that they bring lingering effects to your sales. It’s not like you’re suddenly going to experience an influx of spenders strictly on Friday and Monday only—you’re likely to enjoy more revenues throughout the immediate period surround the two dates.

Take Note of Key Dates

For example, many customers actually start shopping even a day or two before Thanksgiving. The Cyber Monday sale craze also lasts up until the middle of the week.

Knowing this, tailor your campaigns such that you can also take advantage of the rest of the days mentioned above. Follow-up sales or exclusive countdown deals are some great examples of implementing this strategy.

8.    Don’t forget abandoned carts!

Only 5% to 8% of people who visit your site actually convert. If you don’t do any retargeting, you’re basically saying goodbye to more than 92% of your leads.

Abandoned Carts

You can retarget potential customers with abandoned carts be emailing or even calling the. Offer some help or if possible, entice them to convert by offering a special discount.

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