Attention! There are less than 2 weeks till Black Friday!
Last month, we shared tips on how to prepare for the busy season. If you managed to implement those changes, congratulations, you are already en route to having a successful sale. If not, stress not! These last-minute tips will help you maximise your earning potential.
At this point in the game, the focus is on promotion and getting your message out to the right people, ahead of the competition. Developing a multi-channel promotional plan that includes social media, email, websites, mobile apps, in-store promotions, and more, is key to reaching your audience. Let’s break it down a bit.
Email marketing
Recent research has shown that the majority of consumers (63%) like to be emailed about Black Friday and Cyber Monday) sales. No, this is not an invitation to spam their inboxes, but it does mean you should set up a campaign for pre, during and post-BFCM.
If you’re concerned about spamming customers, you can send an email inviting them to sign up for sales updates. This will then tag them for incoming emails, preventing you from bombarding people who aren’t interested.
Your campaign should look a bit like this:
Pre-BFCM: Your BFCM email calendar should include one pre-launch email. Ideally, two. This is to advertise your sale ahead of time. You can use a countdown to create interest in your sale and get people thinking about you before the inevitable bomb of BFCM content hits their inbox.
During: Don’t wait until Black Friday to advertise. Start early to beat the competition. Website pop-ups and automatic email sequences (like abandoned cart discounts) should mention BFCM. Send emails morning, midday, and nighttime during the actual BFCM weekend. Exclude customers who have already purchased during BFCM from retargeting and promotions.
Post BFCM: Keep the conversation going and provide deeper value heading into the Christmas season. Plan ahead of time for post-sale content, such as product tutorials or gift ideas, or highlight your brand’s principles, such as by sending out a personal greeting from your founder or sharing your brand narrative.
Social Media
Social media remains one of the simplest and most effective ways to connect with customers and raise awareness of upcoming promotions. It’s an excellent opportunity to generate excitement for your sale announcements, provide product updates and details, provide gift ideas, and answer your customers’ questions. Here are some steps to maximise your social strategy.
- Start early
Create countdown posts, sneak peeks, and deal reveals to get your fans enthusiastic about your campaign.
- Create urgency
Like any copywriting, it’s a good idea to create a sense of urgency as it increases conversions. Use phrases like ‘while stocks last’ and ‘limited availability’.
- Highlight the sale start and end date
This will help prevent confusion and disappointment. Particularly if your sale will continue to Cyber Monday.
- Hashtags to increase reach
Hashtags can boost posts’ visibility and help them reach new audiences. This is especially true if customers are searching for a certain product in the Black Friday sales.
- Plan and schedule
Planning out and scheduling your content in advance allows you to focus on other priorities during the (inevitably crazy) few days of BFCM.
- Reply and engage with customers
Remember that social media is a two-way conversation, if you’re going to send out posts, ensure you have the resources available to answer customers’ questions.
Pay Per Click (Advertising)
Black Friday ad campaigns are likely the shortest campaigns you will run each year, leaving little room for mistakes. A good starting point is to review last year’s BFCM campaign, which creatives performed best, how quickly did your budget run out, display vs search, etc. Other things to consider:
- Retargeting
You shouldn’t lose a BFCM customer just because they didn’t buy on the first occasion when they visited your website. This promotional tactic boosts sales by reminding recent website visitors, or people who engaged with one of your ads, of your product and providing an easy way to return to the product they previously viewed. Retargeting customers is one of the most effective ways to drive sales. Ad conversion rates are 7 times higher for retargeted customers than for the general public.
- Tag current ads ‘Evergreen’
Before you begin your Black Friday ads, add the label ‘Evergreen’ to all of your current ads. This allows you to simply pause these ads before Black Friday and reactivate them afterwards.
- Copywriting
Add ‘Black Friday’ to the ad copy! It will be difficult to cut through the noise, so you want to be sure customers find what they are looking for. We also recommend spending extra time writing more specific descriptions for key products.
- Use the Promotion Extensions
Promotion Extensions should be an important aspect of your ad writing approach. The extra line of ad content helps set your ad stand out from your competition. The fact that it promotes Black Friday is a bonus.
- At the very least, double your budget
It may appear excessive, but during Black Friday, product searches can increase tenfold. Therefore, it makes sense to increase your budget to match it. It’s the time of year when you are likely to see the highest conversions. If you can, increase your budget by the increased traffic amount and monitor the budget throughout the day.
Black Friday Content Tips
Now that you have your marketing strategy and calendar planned out, you should consider the actual messaging. It can be difficult to come up with unique content that stands out from others. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Problem and solution
Yes, it’s nothing revolutionary, but it’s standard advertising practice for a reason. By highlighting customers’ problems, it will make it easier for them to understand that your product is what they need. For example, ‘Is your golfing dad difficult to shop for? Our golf gadget is used by 90% of golfers.’
Budget gift guides
Many people do their Christmas shopping with a strict budget in mind; highlighting products ‘under $25’ or ‘under $50’ will likely catch their attention.
An audience-specific product
Picking one product in your line that has a very specific audience allows for stronger targeting. For example, a must-have product for ocean swimmers.
Staff picks/customers’ favourites
Buyers have a lot of decisions to make, and any way you can make it easier on them to decide between products will help increase conversions. Having ‘staff picks’ or ‘customer favourites’ in your massage gives social proof to certain decisions.
Leverage UGC (user-generated content)
The ultimate social proof can come from UGC, customers trust unaltered, existing content, so use it wisely! Allowing customers to easily access UGC to get a feel for the product can reduce their need to research. Repost tagged posts from customers, add UGC to your EDM and even add a section to your website to highlight products. This method is scalable and cost-effective for acquiring high-quality content.
Wrap up
Planning is key. You can create a scroll-stopping campaign by planning your messaging, developing your cross-channel strategy, and scheduling the content.
Keep the above tips in mind and if you need any assistance, our team at Omni Online are armed and ready for the challenge.
Good luck!
