Beat The Black Friday Crowds: M4B’s Black Friday Marketing Tips

Despite originating in America, Britain’s Black Friday sales are booming. In 2016 sales topped £5.8 billion from Black Friday to Cyber Monday and figures are expected to rise again this year. With so many customers looking to purchase the latest bargains just before Christmas, more and more businesses are pulling out all the stops for their Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns, making it harder to stand out from the crowd. Consequently, businesses need to do more than drop their prices to optimise sales and get a good ROI. They need a competitive, well-executed marketing strategy to get their brand noticed.

With this in mind, we’ve put together our top Black Friday marketing tips to help you beat the black Friday crowds.

Fail To Prepare, Prepare To Fail

With Christmas marketing campaigns to plan, Black Friday can often sneak up on you, and, whilst it may seem excessive to plan early for a one-day event (although Black Friday is rapidly growing in length), the earlier you plan for Black Friday the better. Planning what discounts will be available, allocating budget and preparing your marketing campaigns in advance will save you time, money and stress in the long term. Plus, a well thought out, branded, pre-planned campaign is likely to stand out, perform better and generate greater ROI, than a campaign thrown together once competitor’s campaigns have reminded you about the shopping holiday!

Let Your Customers Know You’re Taking Part

With many consumers waiting for and planning their shopping around Black Friday, it’s worth letting your customers know you’re taking part. Even if you want to hold back on releasing the details of your offer, creating a buzz around your upcoming Black Friday offers is likely to encourage customers to visit your site and shop with you when your offer is live.

Social media is a great way to spread the message about your upcoming campaign, as it entices customers to keep checking your site and social media. Meanwhile, asking social media followers to sign up to email alerts to receive your upcoming Black Friday offers is a great way to reach new customers and create real customer excitement around your campaign.

Email marketing is a great way to alert your existing customer base that you’ll be taking part, and puts your brand at the forefront of their minds on Black Friday. However, as many companies will be employing similar tactics, it’s worth creating a campaign that really stands out.

Create A Stand-Out Campaign

It may be easier said than done, but, creating a stand-out, original Black Friday campaign really does pay off in the long run.

Most importantly, an original, exciting promotion that offers something slightly different, and better, than your competitors, is more likely to help you stand out, and therefore increase sales. This doesn’t have to be anything too excessive, a simple free delivery code, in addition to a discount, or a free gift or competition, is a great way to provide shoppers with a little something extra amid a frenzy of discounts.

Adding to this, original images, media and ads are not just a sure way to make your campaign stand out on Black Friday, but, are also a great way to ensure your brand is remembered long after the sales rush has died down.

Deliver On The Day

Although it may be tempting to post your offers and hide until the chaos is over, communicating with customers and having an active presence on Black Friday can really pay off.

With so many retailers and businesses taking part, your brand can easily get forgotten. Maintaining a buzz through frequent social media posts and responses can make a real difference to sales and brand awareness. It’s worth scheduling updates during your campaigns to save time whilst also maintaining a social presence and ensuring your brand is at the forefront of the Black Friday action.

Thanks to increased traffic, your customer service team are likely to be busier than ever, so, make sure they’re prepared to deal with extra queries to avoid missing sales or having dissatisfied customers.

Last, but definitely not least, ensure your products are fully stocked and your website is up to speed. This will help to avoid disappointing customers once they reach your site, and therefore, help you avoid wasting advertising spend on fruitless leads. Setting up a specific Black Friday landing page is usually the best way to organise your site and clearly direct customers to where they want to be. This also makes it easier to plan your campaign and have your content drafted well before your campaign goes live.

Evaluate Your Results

It’s no use spending extra advertising budget on Black Friday without monitoring your results. Create a Black Friday report detailing your advertising spend, conversions, clicks, impressions. Then, compare the figures to previous periods or last year’s Black Friday results to see what worked, what didn’t and whether your extra spend was worth it.

Consumers usually hold back on purchases in the week leading up to Black Friday. However, if you’re taking part, you’ll likely see this fall in sales be more than counteracted during your campaigns. Evaluating this pre-Black Friday drop in sales, alongside your advertising spend and ROI, can help you to start planning for the following year’s campaigns.

Finally, once you’ve analysed your results, and hopefully seen an increase in customers and sales, it is vital to ensure all Black Friday sales are delivered successfully and meet customers’ needs, in order to retain new customers and keep reaping the benefits of your campaigns.

Although Black Friday marketing can appear both daunting and expensive, implementing a clear plan, message and campaign goes a long way to ensuring you have a successful and profitable Black Friday, that has short and long-term benefits for both your customers and your business.