With Black Friday just around the corner, brands are gearing up for another record-breaking year. Millions of shoppers eagerly wait for Black Friday deals to get everything they want on their wish and Christmas lists. Effective marketing will help you attract a large group of interested shoppers and get the most out of this sales season so now is the time to start planning your campaigns
Let’s explore some tips and tricks you will need to gain customers and maximise online sales this Black Friday;
Be Prepared
This cannot be emphasised enough, in order to capture those early shoppers start planning your Black Friday campaigns now. Failing to prepare is literally setting yourself up for failure. With the persistent supply chain issues this year, availability of products might be limited thus leading to lack of stock. To overcome this, anticipate which products are likely to sell out and have a strategy ready — such as being able to suggest similar available products.
Also, make sure your website is ready for a sudden surge in traffic because trust me, this is definitely going to happen. With virtually every brand running a Black Friday promotion, a website crash (even for just a few minutes) can be a costly mistake. We recommend running tests ahead of the day and having your IT team on standby so you can be confident that everything’s in place to make your campaign a success.
The surge in sales during Black Friday can cause a delay when it comes to delivering orders, but this shouldn’t be to the detriment of your customer.
Get Creative
What better time to shout your brand’s values and USPS than Black Friday. The real catch here is how you intend to get creative whilst doing so. An idea for you can be using Black Friday-themed branding tol make your promotion pop. For the purpose of the campaign, move out from your traditional colour palette, adding splashes of black or red to your designs both on social media and websites to grab attention and show you’re getting involved with the event. Asides being creative, another great tip is being highly strategic with your Black Friday marketing efforts. Put all your efforts into promoting 2-3 of your best selling products rather than spreading your budget thinly across all your social media channels. Pick only those that deliver the best audience engagement and conversion rates for your brand to maximise their visibility and prioritise targeting particularly engaged demographics or specific locations.
Email Marketing
Who doesn’t love receiving discounts and deals in their inbox every day? Set one up a few weeks in advance of Black Friday with offers for your subscribers and watch your ROI grow, and grow, and grow. But first, you need to build that email list; offering an incentive is one of the best email marketing campaign practices and people are more likely to sign up if they get a reward for exchanging their information. Some common options are a special discount code or a free gift card. Another way is to re-target old customers by adding them to your Black Friday email list.
Since most shoppers will search online for deals, investing in email marketing is the perfect way to lead them to your business rather than your competitors! Your Black Friday email campaigns need to be clever, intriguing, and valuable. You need to make sure that your email list will interact with your campaigns.
Collect and Measure your Data Early
This has been said way too many times so I guess it doesn’t hurt to say it one more time: measuring is key. If you want to know how your Black Friday campaign is doing, you need data and not just any type but the right one. Make sure you’re currently tracking all the data you need that makes you able to analyse your visitor’s behaviour on your site. Start with writing down a measurement and implementation plan and check if all tracking is in place. In comes the measurement plan. If you already have one, grab it and refine it. If not, note down the following:
- Set key performance indicators (KPI)
- Set goals and objectives
- Set targets per KPI
Once you’ve defined your plan, do not relax. Now is the time to keep an eye on how your campaign is going and a great way to do this is by using Google Analytics. You can use this to check on a lot of things like real-time statistics to see the number of users on your site and also to check if your site is down at any time in any specific country. You can also check real-time analysis to check your cart URL and checkout URL. In summary, Google Analytics is your friend here.
Black Friday is a once-a-year opportunity that every brand needs to take advantage of as it might be where you might make the majority of your annual sales. We’ve shared some important marketing ideas and strategies that will help you intensify your marketing campaigns and boost your sales so be sure to apply the tactics above to see a smarter difference.
