Do you find yourself wishing for a magic wand to solve all your holiday marketing problems? You’re not alone. The craziness of the holiday season, coupled with the pressure to stand out in an increasingly competitive market, can leave marketers feeling like they’re operating in a glass house with no peepholes.
With so many companies vying for attention during peak shopping season, it’s more important than ever that your brand stands out from the crowd. Luckily, there are plenty of smart strategies you can use to give your Black Friday campaign a boost.
Marketing during the holidays is tricky because everyone is so focused on gifts and celebrations that they don’t have time to think about brands.
Black Friday is an opportunity for brands to stand out from the crowd and capture the attention of potential customers. It’s also a time when sales performance can make or break a brand in terms of its value.
To succeed, you need to think carefully about how you want to position your brand so that you remain distinctive without alienating your target audience.
A good strategy will help you plan how best to use Black Friday as part of your marketing campaign. Here are 19 best Black Friday marketing strategies which will boost your sales.
Black Friday Marketing Strategies
- Build a Strong Brand: The most important thing to remember when it comes to Black Friday is that it’s an opportunity to build your brand. If you approach the event with the sole intention of driving sales, you run the risk of being forgotten as soon as the deals have ended. Instead, build a strong brand identity that people will want to engage with year-round.
- Focus on the Customer Experience: It’s important to think about how your customers experience your brand across all touchpoints. You need to ensure that your communication is consistent across all channels. You also need to think about how you’ll fulfill orders and resolve any customer issues that may arise. Finally, you need to make sure that your website is easy to navigate and provides an excellent user experience.
- Work on Your SEO: You need to work on your SEO strategy as soon as Black Friday is on the radar. Focus on building links, creating content, and updating your website to make sure it stays on the first page of search results. You also need to be aware of how seasonal keywords can help generate leads.
- Build Your Email Campaign: Email is one of the most important channels for Black Friday. It’s a great way to build engagement and establish a one-to-one relationship with your customers. It’s also a great tool for driving sales, especially if you create a special Black Friday promotion.
1. Have a Clear Plan of Action
Before you dive into your Black Friday marketing strategy, it’s important to have a clear plan of action. You need to decide on your key objectives, identify your ideal target audience, and understand your competition. It’s also important to understand the different sales channels and how they can contribute to your strategy.
- Website – Your website should be the hub of all your Black Friday activities. It should be easy for customers to navigate and provide them with all the information they need. It should also include a link to a special Black Friday promotion.
- Email Marketing – Email marketing should be part of your strategy from the very beginning. It’s the easiest way to stay in contact with your customers and remind them of special promotions.
- Social Media – Social media should be your go-to channel for generating engagement with potential customers. It’s also a good way to promote special offers.
- Google Ads – Google Ads can be an excellent channel for Black Friday if you use it correctly. You can use it to target customers based on their search terms. You can also use it to direct them to your special Black Friday offer.
2. Make the Most of Existing Channels
If you’ve been in business for a while, you probably have existing customer and supplier relationships. It’s important to make the most of these relationships and use them to your advantage during Black Friday.
You should also try to establish new relationships through trade shows, conventions, and other events in your industry.
- Join Trade Shows and Conventions: Black Friday is often more about quantity than quality. If you attend conventions and trade shows, you can use this to your advantage by engaging with as many potential customers as possible.
- Establish New Relationships: If you’ve been in business for a while, you probably have existing customer and supplier relationships. It’s important to make the most of these relationships and use them to your advantage during Black Friday. It’s a great way to drive sales, but it also creates a sense of loyalty between you and your customers.
3. Be Where Your Audience is
Another key consideration when it comes to Black Friday marketing is where your audience is. It’s important to understand their online behavior so that you can engage with them in the right way. You also need to understand their shopping habits to determine where they shop online.
- Engage on Forums and Blogs: A great way to engage with potential customers is to participate in forums and blogs. You can also use this as an opportunity to build relationships with industry experts.
- Interact on Social Media: Social media is one of the most important channels for Black Friday. It’s also one of the most diversified, with retailers focusing on Instagram and Snapchat as well as Facebook and Twitter.
- Participate in Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing can be a great way to reach larger audiences with a smaller budget. You can use it to promote your Black Friday offer and generate leads.
4. Don’t Forget About SEO
SEO is an important part of any business strategy, but it’s especially important during Black Friday. You need to make sure that your website ranks high on search engines, so you can drive lead generation and conversion rates. You also need to avoid any black hat SEO practices, or you might be penalized by Google.
- Create a Content Calendar: One of the best ways to make sure that your SEO strategy is comprehensive is to create a content calendar. You can use this to schedule blog posts, podcasts, and videos that are relevant to your industry.
- Create Interesting and Brand-Friendly Content: Your content should be interesting and brand-friendly. It should also be easy to read and understand. Your goal is to create a positive brand image that is memorable.
- Make Sure Your Website is Easy to Navigate: Your website should be easy to navigate and load quickly. You also need to make sure that it is fully optimized for SEO. It’s also a good idea to include product videos and user-generated content (UGC).
5. Leverage Influencers
Another way to market your brand for Black Friday is to leverage influencers. You can find influencers in your industry who have a large following and then offer them a special deal or percentage of sales in exchange for promoting your products.
This can be a cost-effective method of increasing brand awareness. Find Influencers and Ask Them to Promote Your Offer: Finding influencers and asking them to promote your offer is a great way to get your name out there. You can also offer them a percentage of sales in exchange for their promotion.
Make Your Brand Look Good: When deciding which influencers to partner with, think about how their audience will view your brand. You need to make sure that your brand looks good in the eyes of your potential customers.
6. Send Out a Product Inventory Update
Another great way to build engagement and boost your sales is to send out an inventory update. Many brands are selective about which products they offer, and this can create false scarcity.
You can combat this by sending out an inventory update to all customers. This will help you manage expectations and also boost sales in the process.
Reward Your Customers: You can send out an inventory update by rewarding your customers. You can offer them a discount on their next purchase or a free gift with every purchase over a certain amount.
7. Limited time offer
Limited time offer is a classic Black Friday marketing strategy. You can use it to drive sales, but you also need to be careful not to mislead your customers. You can also use it as a way to engage with your customers by offering them a special deal.
Create a Sense of Urgency: It’s important to create a sense of urgency in your marketing so that your customers make a purchase before your products sell out. You can use this to your advantage by limiting the availability of certain products and creating a limited time offer.
8. Exclusive products
Offering exclusive products can be an excellent way to drive sales during Black Friday. You can also use these products to create a sense of exclusivity that will encourage customers to purchase from you. It can be something as simple as a branded bag or T-shirt or a special gift with every purchase.
Special Packaging and Limited Edition Products: One way to offer exclusive products is to offer special packaging or limited edition products. You can create a collectible or unique product that is only available during Black Friday.
9. Big product sale
A big product sale can help you drive sales during Black Friday. It’s a good idea to discount your products by a significant amount to get customers interested.
10. Free delivery
This year, a quarter of consumers surveyed said that free delivery is their top priority, making it the single most important feature when shopping online. You could take advantage of this by offering free shipping and returns to boost your sales.
This strategy works especially well for eCommerce brands that can control logistics. If you’re a B2B company and shipping is out of your control, you can still offer other incentives like a discount on your products. Overall, free delivery is a cost-effective strategy that’s likely to see a high return on investment.
11. Dark blog advertising
Creating a “dark blog” for your Black Friday campaign is a great way to target customers who are likely to be interested in your brand. Start by creating a “dark blog”—a marketing and sales-focused website that’s not listed as your main site.
This will help you target your message to the right customers while keeping away from those who are not interested. A “dark blog” is a great way to drive traffic to your website during a busy season.
You can use it to promote your upcoming sale or to collect email addresses from customers who want to be informed about future sales. A “dark blog” can be created using WordPress and a plug-in like the Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plug-in.
This plug-in is meant to be used on a blog that isn’t linked to your main site. You can also use other tools like Shopify to create a “dark blog” storefront and a plug-in like Promo to collect email addresses.
12. Social media ad-free event
To help build excitement around your event, consider removing all advertising from your social media accounts. Not only will this make your posts stand out, but it will also help you to control your image and reputation.
You can also use this opportunity to highlight the importance of customer safety, given the current climate of ad-blocking. If you are running a smaller brand and don’t have the resources to remove all advertising from your social media accounts, consider removing ads from your promoted posts.
This will still help you to stand out from the crowd and show customers that your brand is committed to safety and security.
13. Partner with influencers to increase awareness
Partnering with influencers to promote your Black Friday sale is a great way to increase awareness. This can be a good option for brands with smaller budgets as you can work with micro-influencers who don’t charge as much as traditional influencers.
You can also partner with social media stars by offering them free products in exchange for an honest review or shoutout. As a result, this strategy can help your brand get more social media exposure, which is especially important during the holidays when it’s likely that many people are following a strict budget. This could help to attract new customers and build your online image.
14. Rich Media Advertising Strategy
With the growth of ad blocking, native advertising has become increasingly important in recent years. There are a few different ways you can use rich media as part of your Black Friday campaign.
You can create ads that are similar to the articles your readers are used to seeing. Alternatively, you can create sponsored posts using images, videos, or other visual content. Sponsored posts are designed to look less intrusive and blend into the content around them, making them harder to distinguish from organic posts.
You can use rich media to create a distinct brand image in your ads and to build trust among your readers. This could help you to increase ad views without being intrusive and could be a good solution if you’re dealing with a lot of ad blocking.
15. Virtual Reality Marketing Strategy
VR has become a popular marketing trend over the last couple of years. In fact, a recent report found that 85% of brands have used virtual reality in 2020. VR is a great way to immerse customers in your brand and give them a unique experience that they won’t get anywhere else.
You can try VR marketing by creating 360-degree videos or by hosting VR events where people can experience your brand in a new way. You can even offer VR experiences as a gift with a B2C business model.
Hosting a VR event where people can come and experience your brand in a new way can be a great way to boost engagement with potential customers. You can also collect email addresses from potential customers at your VR event.
16. Content Marketing Strategy
A lot of brands focus on creating an event around Black Friday, but few create content around their strategy for the event. Creating content around your Black Friday strategy could help to create additional value for your customers and also help to build trust and authority for your brand.
You can publish blog posts showing your readers how your strategy has developed and what to expect from your event this year. You can also publish videos or podcasts and create a social media GIF to go along with your content.
Content marketing is a long-term strategy, but it’s a good idea to start thinking about it now and creating value for your customers.
17. Diving audience research strategy
Another important strategy to keep in mind throughout the year is audience research. Understanding your audience is key to creating successful marketing campaigns. You can conduct audience research at any time of the year and it’s a good idea to do it more than once a year.
You can ask customers to fill out surveys or polls, or you can host an online focus group to discuss topics that are important to your customers. You can also observe your audience by watching how they interact with your brand and how they use your products.
Doing this will help you to understand your customers better and make better marketing decisions for your campaigns.
18. Email marketing strategy
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach potential customers. You can use email marketing during Black Friday to create a sense of urgency among your customers and give them a reason to shop with your brand.
You can create an email campaign around Black Friday with a discount code, an extended return policy, or a free shipping deal. You could also host a contest where people can enter to win a prize in exchange for signing up for your email list.
You can send emails to your entire list or you can segment your list and send emails to specific groups of customers. Segmenting your list can help you to create more personalized emails and avoid annoying your entire list.
19. Facebook Advertising Strategy
Facebook advertising is a great way to promote your Black Friday sale and target potential customers. You can target people based on their age, interests, and where they live, and you can also use targeting options like page likes, demographics, and psychographics.
You can create different ads for different groups and change your ads as often as necessary. Try to vary your ads so that you don’t get stale and so that you reach as many people as possible.
Conclusion
Bottom line, Black Friday is a great time to boost sales, but it’s also a great opportunity to build brand awareness. Creating an exciting event around your sales, partnering with influencers, creating rich media ads, and hosting VR events are great ways to stand out from the crowd and capture the attention of potential customers.
It’s also important to remember to stay authentic to your brand while you’re creating these events. With the right strategy, Black Friday doesn’t have to be stressful. It can be a great way to boost sales and build your brand.
