10 Marketing Tactics for a Successful Black Friday


October 1, 2018

Updated: Oct. 1, 2018

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday are the busiest shopping days of the year. And though they may seem far away, if you haven’t started planning your strategy for the holiday shopping weekend - now’s the time.

The key to a successful holiday sales season is early planning and consistent marketing, especially as a small business competing against retail giants like Amazon, Walmart, and Target.

Here are 10 marketing tactics to get your business ready for Black Friday promotions:

1. Revisit Past Data

Repeat successes, not failures.

Find out which keywords, content, and promotions lead to the highest traffic and conversions for your business last year. By looking at this data you can get a wealth of knowledge that will steer which types of campaigns and strategies you should launch for your business this season.

2. Send Engaging Emails

Email marketing is responsible for about 30% of holiday sales. But creating email campaigns that stand out from all of the other emails that your customers are receiving can be a challenge.

Here are a few tips from Shopify for making your emails stand out and be more effective:

  • Keep things simple and get right to the point with a clear CTA
  • Use fun animation
  • Offer a free gift with every purchase
  • Extend your sale
  • Run a contest or giveaway
  • Use humor
  • Create urgency with scarcity
  • Raise awareness to a cause or charity

 

3. Use Social Media

Using social media as a marketing tactics for Black Friday should be obvious. Just like with emails, you can share coupons, promotions, contests, and your best Black Friday deals on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Don’t forget to use relevant hashtags, such as #blackfriday.

4. Make Sure You’re Mobile Optimized

About 25 million holiday shoppers will use a mobile device to shop on Cyber Monday according to the National Retail Federation. That doesn’t include all of the shoppers who will use their smartphones to research products and make purchases on the days prior.

Having a website that is mobile-friendly and loads quickly is the most important. Your customers need to be able to quickly and easily find what they’re looking for. You know people will be viewing your website, emails and social content on mobile devices, so make sure they display correctly.

5. Pay for Ads

As a business owner, you’re probably familiar with AdWords and Facebook Ads. Even though you have to make bids against thousands of other marketers, a PPC campaign or Facebook ad can still be an effective way to get your promotions out in front of potential customers.

6. Offer Something Different

If you know that all of your competitors will be offering sales on one particular product try to do something different to avoid getting into a bidding war. Think of ways that you can differentiate yourself, whether it is by offering a low-cost item for free with purchase, free gift wrapping, in-store pickup, or even just promoting a more unique product.

7. Plan Your Offers and Upsells

Once you see what has worked for your business in the past and thought about what your competitors might offer, it’s time to create the offers you will push with your promotions.

After you have decided on those, create upsell or cross-sell opportunities that could pair well with your original offers. This will help you make the most of your marketing dollars by increasing the amount of each purchase.

8. Go After Abandoned Carts

Only about 5% to 8% of your customers will convert the first time they visit your website. But, you can chase those abandoned shopping carts by doing some retargeting. You can do this with retargeting ads via Facebook or Google even if none of their information was entered. If they did enter some of their information, you can retarget them using automated emails with specialized content or offers to get them back for the sale.

9. Sell Before and After

If you focus all of your promotions too narrowly and wait until the last minute to advertise, you will have already missed a huge portion of shoppers. Online searching for holiday shopping is already picking up prior to Halloween. By offering Black Friday deals a week early, and extending Cyber Monday deals through the beginning of December you can beat the bigger retailers to the shoppers’ wallets and catch any last minute deal seekers.

10. Don’t Discount Everything

Larger retailers can afford to slash prices everywhere, but you don’t need to do that to reap the rewards of holiday shopping. In fact, that could actually hurt your profits.

Instead, try using a tiered discount system where your higher-priced items have the most aggressive discounts.


Bonus!

Don't forget that sometimes it's the little things that push consumers to take the plunge and make a purchase.

According to a survey done by Inc. Magazine, the top two benefits that consumers say encourage them to do more online holiday shopping are:

Free shipping (80%)

Fast shipping (54%)


If you need help implementing any of these tactics discussed, such as mobile optimization, advertising, or retargeting using marketing automation, call us today at (407) 682-2222 or use the contact form below. We can get you ready for your holiday promotions and beyond!

Did you like this post?

Sign up for our Tips and Trends list and we'll let you know each week when we have a new one.

12 Ways to Get Your Business Growing Again

Categories

Web Design (26)
Web Development (36)
Misc. Website (21)
Search Engine Optimization (96)
Social Media Marketing (111)
Local Search Marketing (24)
Content Marketing (37)
PPC Advertising (33)
Digital Marketing (125)
Marketing Automation (26)
Sales Automation (21)
Company News (10)
Other (27)

Archives

Feeds