Black Friday is the day after the American Thanksgiving holiday. It kicks off the heavy buying season leading to Christmas. One day can guarantee your shop is back in the black and profitable, even if the year has been tough sales-wise. Physical stores have more traffic and sales than any other time throughout the year, but it doesn’t stop there. Online stores also show much higher traffic and conversion rates. Plus, the sale doesn’t end on Friday but continues through Saturday and Sunday and into Cyber Monday, which is even better for online stores than physical stores.
For the principal sales holiday of the year, it’s essential to refine your Black Friday marketing campaign. For this, you’ve got plenty of options. Flash sales and hourly deals, discount codes and promo codes. Referral packages, gift cards, and email marketing can massively boost sales. Tune in to the target demographic to showcase best selling items to engage the customers’ attention. This is only the beginning. Let’s explore promotion strategies for making your online shop successful over the sales holiday.
Black Friday Strategies for Retailers
Black Friday has grown into a worldwide phenomenon with global competition. You will need to find a strategy to fit the product and the shop, making it stand out.
- Notify clients about upcoming promotions with email or SMS marketing
- Mention discounts and events on social media. Hashtags will improve outreach and help clients find what they want.
- Item bundling helps you upsell, bringing more conversions to you and offering more value for the customer. This is also a great time to generate excitement with sneak peeks or flash sales.
- Gamify discounts with surprise discounts and increase engagement with countdown timers.
- Offer gifts or reduce shipping costs for the client. Plus, remember promo codes, cash-back deals, and special promotions.
This is the best part of the year from a sales perspective. It helps to think ahead and give your clients plenty of notice. You might even wish to maintain a Black Friday landing page through the year to keep you high in search results. Also, customers love it when their purchases help others, so boost your sales even more by donating a portion of the proceeds to charities such as local food banks or shelters.
Black Friday Messaging
SMS campaigns are becoming more popular every year. After all, most people will have their cell phone with them at all times, and the deals you send with text messages are more likely to be seen than through any other form of marketing. This will boost sales, especially on websites and mobile apps.
Start dropping hints some months in advance to create excitement for upcoming deals. Make sure the shop is mobile friendly so that interested customers can purchase straight from the message. If you need a handy email template, you can try our new Black Friday email template.
Prepare Your Social Media
Social media has become a considerable influence in our lives, and it’s crucial to make use of its potential, especially over the sales holiday. Write posts to notify clients of specials, discounts, and flash sales. Clients will be coming fast, so prepare posts beforehand.
Employ a service like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule and post them automatically. Look into the best times to release posts to reach the widest audience. Use hashtags so clients can find your specials.
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Plan Your Advertising in Time
Proper planning will also give you plenty of time to calculate sales projections so you know what kind of discounts will let you offer great deals and still make a profit. Factor in discounts and advertising costs to come out ahead while still keeping your clients satisfied.
Customers anticipate this sales holiday throughout the year, the chance to discover great products for great prices. Have the advertising strategy in place well prior to the long weekend. Know what items you want to promote and what discounts and sales to put in place.
To arrange everything in good time, it helps to set up a content calendar, a game plan for the marketing campaign. This is a schedule for social media posts and a timetable for setting up new graphics and banners. This calendar also lets you know when to prepare and release content for emails and ads.
Black Friday Promo Code Ideas
You can provide Black Friday promotions by giving promo codes to loyal clients. When people save more, they’ll spend more. So, giving better deals to preferred clients keeps them happy and boosts sales. Everybody wins, and clients are even more likely to return.
You can offer online coupons that take a percentage off of specific items or even the entire purchase. Plus, when you offer promo codes in mailing lists or to previous customers, you’re letting them know that you value their patronage.
Bundle Your Products Together
Product bundling is another great way to provide value. Upsell by providing special sales to clients that buy a few similar products. Alternately, cross-sell by offering mark-downs on a new item.
Gift packs are another great offering. In addition to making excellent gifts, they can offer customers great value on the bundled items. Consider using popups to offer personalized deals on recommended items.
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Catchy Black Friday Phrases
It’s no secret that slogans and phrases catch attention and bring clients to your website. Slogans are best when you can remember them easily and when they create a bit of excitement. For some awesome Black Friday slogan ideas, look into the competitors. It’s key to inform your clients that the best value can be had by acting now.
Try, “Don’t miss out on your black Friday special offer!” Or how about, “You’ll want to jump for joy when you see our Black Friday prices!”
Besides, slogans can be used to generate a bit of suspense: “Tune in on Black Friday to discover some amazing deals!”.
You communicate to clients that the event is fun, happy, and a great chance to get what they want at prices they won’t regret.
Black Friday Facebook Posts
Facebook posts are a great way to get your message out there. They’ll let you showcase your weekend-long discounts and special deals. Plus, you can give clients timing for hourly specials and flash sales.
Basically, they provide clients a timetable for limited time offers and special promotions. Increase conversions by writing posts to showcase gift guides and promote gift packages. Make lists of great gift products for particular people with specific interests.
Promote your bestselling products, and notify clients about the huge discounts. Use your posts right, and you might double your profit over the sales holiday.
Best Black Friday Promos
Promos make the sales holiday exciting for clients and profitable for you. Be creative! Mail or email discount and coupon codes to previous clients and those on the mailing list.
Reward loyal clients with VIP deals and special prices. It helps to include a personal touch as well, thanking your clients for their purchases throughout the year and making sure that they know they’re appreciated. For smaller shops, though, it lets you strengthen personal connections with clients while also reducing advertising costs.
Gift cards are an awesome way to get Black Friday promos out there. Try to set up your campaign early and offer gift cards for larger purchases or faithful clients. They’ll then want to spend the card (and a bit extra) over the sales holiday when the value is best. Gift cards account for nearly half of the purchases over the sales period. Gift cards can also be offered at a lower rate for relatives and friends, giving customers an excellent option for open-ended gifts.
Amazon
When you sell through Amazon, Black Friday is a unique event. It brings in millions of consumers and constitutes a large portion of annual revenue. Plus, there’s heavy competition in these waters. Be prepared and have everything ready in advance of the weekend. Prepare your content, stock the inventory, and plan the deals. Advertise effectively, so clients know what promotions and discounts are available.
Eliminate shipping costs. Do your calculations to maintain profit margins, but absorb shipping costs so that customers feel comfortable buying. Remember, the greatest bulk of Black Friday transactions are impulse buys. Make it simple for the client. Adding in shipping costs causes the client to second guess the buy, which inevitably leads to lost sales. Cover them yourself and boost conversions dramatically, especially when you offer discounted costs and fast shipping times.
Make sure your inventory is well-stocked, even considering your promotional sales. I know we mentioned it above, but it bears another look. Demand is going to go through the roof, so you’ll want to be prepared to handle it. Keep an eye on your inventory during the sales to prevent delays in product arrival. Try to make sure there’s a bit left over, as the prices will jump back up after the sales holiday while the Christmas shopping season is just beginning.
Remember to account for price drops when running sales projections. On a side note, you may want to invest in automated repricing software with pricing strategies to optimize prices according to the sales goals.
Look into what’s bestselling and explore the trends. After you’ve got a bead on the clients, source your products. Look into Amazon’s sourcing hacks to stock the inventory cheaply. Reduced expenses mean excellent deals and great profits. Plus, it helps to bundle items intelligently.
Bundle unique packages and you’re guaranteed to win the Buy Box and increase sales. This radically improves product exposure and increases competitive edge. Provide lower-priced items along with bestsellers and you up the perceived worth, giving your customers excellent promotions on things that they would want to buy anyway.
Topshop
One way to get ideas for the Black Friday marketing campaign is to check out the top sellers. Topshop is a hot seller, offering top of the line women’s clothing and setting the bar in fashion and trends. Look into their deals to get some great ideas to optimize your promotions.
This year, Topshop is offering a sale on all items, 30% off. Plus, they’re running hourly deals and flash sales, which are perfect for encouraging impulse buys on best selling products. Add to that deals on select products, cash back sales, promo codes, and discounts, and you’ve got a recipe for success.
Topshop doesn’t stop there. They support loyal clients and target demographic with VIP sales and student discounts. Plus, Topshop Black Friday sales are in place through Cyber Monday, and they feature extended sales for people who couldn’t purchase over the sales holiday.
Finally, what good are all these sales if no one knows about them? This is why Topshop features deal guides and schedules so that their customers can plan their purchase knowing when the offers are hot. Just Google Topshop Black Friday to find loads of great ideas for showcasing your products and getting customers excited.
ASOS
ASOS is another popular women’s clothing and fashion brand. They provide some great examples of how to leverage the Black Friday holiday to keep clients happy and massively boost conversions. For 2018, ASOS offers a 20% discount on their entire inventory throughout Black Friday weekend. For sales items and the outlet section, it offers additional discounts.
Another great feature of ASOS’ Black Friday set up is the website. They dedicate a website to Black Friday sales and deals, giving clients the whole scoop so that they can see all the savings they’ll get by making their purchases now. Information is king in the current era. This eCommerce giant demonstrates how one can showcase a product and discount for maximum exposure. Have a peek and see if it inspires some ideas for your own Black Friday campaign this year.