In the 2020 Black Friday promotion period, customer spending increased by nearly 22%. It’s no wonder that sales are predicted to surge in 2021, considering the convenience of the online shopping experience during the pandemic.
If you are a business owner who considers joining the Black Friday hype, you’ve come to the right place.
We’ll share how Black Friday can boost your business revenue, along with the marketing strategies to implement for your shopping campaign.
But first, grab one of Black Friday web hosting deals – your marketing efforts won’t matter if your eCommerce website doesn’t load.
Table of Contents
What Black Friday Means for Businesses
Initially, Black Friday was the Friday right after Thanksgiving in the US. Later, this annual shopping event, together with Cyber Monday, has become popular worldwide and usually lasts much longer.
Since it’s near the Christmas and New Year’s Day holiday season, people tend to buy gifts for their loved ones or get their desired items.
Many stores are offering special prices, discounts, and many other forms of promotions during the Black Friday period. Offline businesses start early and close late in the night during these biggest sales days.
Therefore, this promotional period can benefit your business in attracting new customers and increasing the number of sales from old ones. Moreover, this moment can also be a chance for a clearance sale. Although giant retailers’ discounts are the most anticipated during the Black Friday promotion, medium or small businesses can still gain revenue using the right marketing strategy.
Black Friday Campaign Strategies to Implement
We’ve compiled the list of actions to help you ace your Black Friday campaign and boost revenue.
1. Understand Your Audience
Do a thorough market analysis before planning the Black Friday campaign strategy.
Knowing your target audience and their specific needs can improve your promotional strategy. You will be able to implement personalized marketing where you don’t just advertise your product to a random audience.
Keep in mind that Black Friday marketing isn’t only about giving discounts but also about making your loyal or potential customers excited about the shopping experience itself.
For example, IKEA’s Black Friday campaign in 2020 was mashed up with the eco-living concept. They invited their customers to return used furniture to get a voucher for 50% of the item’s value.
This is an excellent example of a brand knowing how to attract its target customers since eco-friendly living is IKEA’s brand value.
Furthermore, it shows that understanding your audience can help create your own promotional offer on Black Friday instead of just price reductions.
Finally, decide your Black Friday campaign’s objective based on the market analysis result.
Inviting your loyal customers to shop as IKEA did will need a different strategic plan than attracting new customers.
2. Prepare Your Black Friday Marketing Budget
To get revenue from Black Friday marketing campaigns, you will have to invest in them first.
Luckily, preparing the budget doesn’t mean that you should spare thousands of dollars to create the campaign. You can start small according to your business’s risk profile.
Determine the budget needs based on your business’s readiness to join the most prominent shopping tradition. It’s also possible to create several budgeting plans according to the real-time conditions when the campaign is running.
3. Launch Early
Launching your business’s Black Friday campaign earlier helps create awareness and curiosity from your loyal and potential customers.
Creating a timeline can also help you make decisions and evaluate how your campaign is performing in the early launch.
You can separate the Black Friday period into creating awareness, Black Friday D-Day, and closing period phases as an example scheme.
Create and manage paid ads on social media or other platforms that match your needs during the early phase. It can cost you lower than doing it during the high season, too.
Insights from the ads can help understand whether your customers are excited about your business’s promotional event. If you don’t see a significant impact, modify your strategy.
Finally, after wrapping up on Black Friday, you still can give the last call for your customers to make their purchase on Cyber Monday, or provide some different offers.
4. Leverage Social Media
Social media can be beneficial using organic content and paid ads. Organic content is essential for your business’s account to make it active and engaging to visitors. It can also support your paid ads content.
In Black Friday marketing, you should make the most of paid social media ads. It is a helpful tool that allows you to run a campaign according to your budget and target audience. It’s even possible to modify the ads when they’re still running.
Collaborate with content creators, social media influencers, or your own customers to achieve a better impact.
Implement storytelling techniques while doing the campaign to make it more memorable. Also, try to leverage your brand’s social proofs using testimonials. It can be a great appeal to attract new customers during the campaign.
5. Optimize Website and Landing Pages
Before the big day, apply the best SEO principles to your website for generating organic traffic.
Prepare a backup plan for the worst-case website crash due to high traffic. You can try showcasing your product on another platform like Etsy or make a WhatsApp business account to handle the orders.
Moreover, optimize your website landing page to make people aware of the promotional event that you’re currently running.
Make a landing page that’s simple, concise, and straight to the point. Don’t use too many decorative elements that can distract people from the intended promotional point that you wish to deliver.
Consider using the scarcity technique by utilizing Limited Time – While Supplies Last sentence to create a sense of urgency.
6. Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
The number of people using mobile phones to shop on Black Friday is increasing. Therefore, pay attention to this aspect when preparing your eCommerce website for the promotional period.
Ensure that your website is responsive and mobile-friendly. Design a great online shopping experience for your customers and test it out before launching.
7. Evaluate Your Marketing Campaign
After implementing the points mentioned above, evaluate your campaign in a real-time situation.
Generally, paid social media ads will need time to learn your desired campaign before showing significant results. Therefore, it would be better to set the proper timeline according to the advertising media you choose.
Create real-time measurements to make changes and modifications to your design or campaign strategy. Also, observe your competitor’s design and running campaigns to see how you can improve or differ from them.
If your running campaigns show no significant changes, you can also try a drastic modification like not participating in Black Friday.
Take a look at Asket’s campaign during Black Friday. Stepping out from the crowd can also help your business.
However, you should deliver this type of campaign using a strong background story of your company values to validate the campaign. If not, your brand would just be sitting at the back of the Black Friday hype.
Lastly, make a documentation of your campaign to help your next year’s Black Friday campaign.
8. Collaborate With a Trusted Logistic Partner
When working on an online sales promotion, especially during the high season like Black Friday, choosing a trusted logistic partner for your business is crucial.
In some cases, delays in shipping can be inevitable. However, choosing a trusted shipping partner helps you retain customer loyalty and trust as part of a customer experience.
During this Black Friday marketing campaign, you might attract new customers to your store. Hence, you don’t want to leave a bad impression on them as you will lose them long-term sales potential.
9. Make the Most of Your Email List
A mailing list is an important element for communicating promotional discounts, events, or monthly newsletters.
If you haven’t created a mailing list, you can start collecting your customer’s emails by asking them when making purchases. If it’s too late for you to build your own, you can buy or rent it.
Try giving special promotions for your valuable customers using email marketing or send them cart recovery emails with some promotional offers.
There are many reasons why people abandon their shopping carts. Sending them an email can be a reminder for them to complete the purchase. You don’t have to send them one by one personally, as you can use tools for sending cart recovery emails.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Black Friday is still effective in boosting a business’s revenue with the proper calculation and strategy.
However, creating a Black Friday campaign will cost you money. So, weigh carefully whether your business is ready to join the hype.
Giant retailers will also participate in this mass marketing campaign, so make sure that your promotional event can stand out from the crowd.
Plan your strategy as early as possible and don’t be afraid to modify it if you don’t see the desired results. Learn from your past year’s campaign documentations.
If this is your first time, remember that documenting your campaign will help prepare for upcoming shopping events.
Also Read: Sales Psychology – 6 Marketing Principles To Success
