7 Black Friday Marketing Strategies to Boost your Sales!
Designing and planning your Black Friday marketing strategy in advance is important. To organize and boost your sales on key dates, especially during the last quarter of the year, which starts with one of the most important dates for retailers and online stores: Black Friday.
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The pandemic has left a profound mark on the way businesses operate, and over the last three years, we have witnessed significant changes across all sectors. In this context, retailers are once again faced with the need to adapt and reinvent themselves, just as they did in 2021.
Although the global situation has returned to some degree of normality, uncertainty persists as to whether consumers will return to the massive crowds in physical stores or whether they will continue to opt for the convenience and security of online shopping, as they did in the last two years. The trend toward eCommerce experienced an unprecedented boom in 2022, making it imperative that retailers continue to focus their efforts and resources on their online platforms.
By Black Friday 2023, retailers are expected to further intensify their online efforts, bringing out irresistible deals and enhanced online shopping experiences to attract consumers. Competition will be fierce, and those who can differentiate themselves with innovative offers and an exceptional user experience will likely reap the greatest benefits.
There are a number of resources that will provide you with inspiration and ideas on how to sweep this holiday season. In this post, we’ve chosen seven strategies that should be on your list this Black Friday.
7 Black Friday Marketing Strategies
Timing
A good Black Friday marketing strategy is the alpha and omega that will lead to sales success this season, and remember that it all starts long before Black Friday itself. As time goes on, shoppers will become immune to the Black Friday deals they see or receive because they will have already selected what they want to buy. Therefore, you should always plan your Black Friday marketing strategy in advance and start communicating your offers well in advance.
- Clever tip: organize a quarterly calendar with all the actions you plan to carry out on special dates: content, social networks, sweepstakes, Google Ads campaigns… For this quarter, for example, organize Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas, among others, so you will have time for everything!
Create a specific landing page
Creating a targeted landing page can add several benefits to your strategy. The creation of such a landing page, closely related to your Black Friday Google Ads campaigns, can significantly improve your quality score on Google, i.e. the positions of your ads and also decrease their cost. Taking the user directly to the page where you show your sales, offers and specific products will also improve your bounce rate. People don’t have the patience to navigate web pages, so the easier you make it for them, the better.
- Clever tip: Why use a landing page for one-off marketing actions? The hook for visitors to leave their data or perform the action you want can be of many types: a free eBook, a useful template for your target audience or a free consultation hour if you offer consulting services, to give a few examples. That means that you will not only need a good design, but the texts, images and loading speed must be as good as you can achieve.
Pre-create bundles & gift ideas
I am the kind of person who loves to choose gifts for friends, family or colleagues. However, I assure you that I belong to a minority group; for most people choosing gifts is a nightmare, so we have to try to make the job as easy as possible for our users. Create gift categories on your website for different types of occasions. For example, “The best products for Black Friday”, “The best gifts for Secret Santa”, “The best gifts for the family”, “Gifts under 20 euros”… etc… Navigation will be much easier for users once you gather your products in specific gift categories.
- Clever tip: Why organize your eCommerce in categories? The categories of an online store are the guidance a customer needs to speed up the search for the perfect product. By ensuring a clear structure, customers will be able to conveniently scan the store’s offerings and enjoy a better shopping experience.
Launch a referral program
“The most credible form of advertising comes straight from the people we know and trust. Eighty-three percent of online respondents in 60 countries say they trust the recommendations of friends and family” Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Report.
Initiating a referral program during Black Friday is a great technique for improving your brand loyalty and driving profitability. Find a smart way to reward your customers for bringing your friends and family to make a purchase from your website.
- Clever Data: BigCommerce reports that 74% of consumers identify word-of-mouth as a vital factor in their purchasing decisions. In addition, 92% of consumers believe referrals from friends and family more than paid advertisements.
Personalized promotion emails
Consider setting up email marketing campaigns for your previous customers, taking into consideration the products they purchased in the past in order to include similar products or tailor made recommendations. The more personalized and less generic your Black Friday Marketing is, the more possibilities it has to be successful. Even though it’s an extra effort on your part, there is so much competition out there that if you want to stand out, you need to take that further step to catch potential customers’ attention.
- Clever Tip: when creating your personalized emailing campaign for Black Friday, we recommend several things: make it fully responsive (adapted to mobile devices), be careful not to be too mysterious with the content, create a sense of urgency, show your products to attract attention, and choose a catchy subject line, the first thing is that they open the email!
Get your mobile website ready
Even if the final purchase might not happen through a mobile phone, users will be using their phones to check the offers, checking their email, and visiting your website to look around. That being said, mobile experience must be optimal for your potential customers. You also want your website to be mobile friendly for not getting penalized from Google. Make sure you run a quick test and fix (if any) pending issues.
- Clever Tip: Remember these three key points when optimizing your website for mobile devices:
- Try to use libraries that allow you to do conditional page loading, avoiding loading unnecessary resources when people visit you from mobile.
- You have to be very careful when designing. It is recommended to design with the mobile-first pattern to avoid having adaptation problems with the screens and avoid overloading the page with useless elements.
- Check the effects because some of the ones you use on the desktop web will not work on the responsive web.
Optimize Google Ads
I could’ve dedicated this whole post only to techniques on how to optimize your Google Ads for Black Friday. As I decided to put some variety in the post and if iI had to highlight one tip regarding Google Ads, here you have it: “Increase your budget!”
It’s very important that your campaigns don’t go through the budget during the busiest time of the year. Make sure you update your ads headlines and texts to mention your Black Friday offers. Another good idea is to add your inventory details in order to provoke some sense of urgency.
As previously mentioned, planning ahead is significantly important. Get creative and let your imagination come up with new, innovative, and original ideas to drive your customer’s attention. Competition is tough and if you don’t want your business to get lost among the various alternatives you will need to plan well your next steps for all the important seasonal holidays coming up.
