Black Friday Marketing Strategies

Black Friday is nearly upon us, and if you’re yet to make the most of one of the shopping calendar’s biggest events of the year, don’t panic. You've still got time to work up your company’s Black Friday marketing ideas and make the most of this great annual business opportunity.

Being a phenomenon that’s swept the UK in recent years – after having made it over from across the pond. In the UK, Black Friday has been going since 2010, but in America, it started way back in the early 1950s.

Black Friday happens on the first Friday after Thanksgiving, and even though this isn’t a holiday that’s celebrated in the UK, we’ve quickly seen businesses adopt the notion of Black Friday. In 2021, Black Friday lands on the 26th November, so here’s the best in Black Friday marketing strategies to help take your business to the next level. 

When is the Best Time to Kick-off your Black Friday Digital Marketing Drive?

You’ll have heard the phrase, ‘strike while the iron’s hot’, that’s definitely how you should view when to go in with your Black Friday marketing ideas.

Timing is paramount. Start too early and no one will be interested, fire up your Black Friday marketing strategies too late, and you’ll have missed the boat. Yes, getting things right is a tricky balancing act, but with a little fore thought and planning, it’s not too difficult to make your digital marketing drive work for you. 

Black Friday generally lands around a month before Christmas, which means it’s ideally placed for buyers who want to pick up bargains ahead of the big day in December. However, according to an article in The Guardian, many UK consumers have already started buying for Christmas before Black Friday even lands. So, with that in mind, you’d be wise to offer your customers deals to pique their interest before Black Friday itself.

This way you could even end up bagging double the custom. What’s more, by starting your Black Friday marketing strategies a little earlier, you’ll help your brand or business stick in your customers’ minds, which will hopefully lead to return business on Black Friday itself. 

What Planning should you do for your Black Friday Marketing Strategy

There’s no denying it can be hard to get to grips with everything you need to do in order to make sure your digital marketing works as it should for Black Friday. With lots to think about it’s wise to draw up a schedule of actions you need to target. These include -

Sorting your Website for Optimal Performance

First things first – your website needs to work hard for you. It’s your biggest asset, but if it’s glitchy and a nightmare to navigate, no one will want to hang around. It’s the same as a shop in real life – so think of it as such. Clean it up, make it slick, and help your customers know whereto go. If it’s too busy, confusing, or even dull, then you can wave goodbye to any decent Black Friday business.

You’ll also need to make sure your website works just as well on a mobile device as a laptop. Pretty much everyone has a smartphone, and they’re using them to visit websites, check out deals, compare prices, and often make purchases. If your website isn’t optimised for mobile users then that’s another load of business you can wave goodbye to.

It’s also wise to make a dedicated landing page for your Black Friday deals and offers. This way, visitors to your website can get straight to the information they need without wasting time searching for it.

Another one of the key Black Friday marketing strategies is to sort out the SEO – Search Engine Optimisation for this specific campaign. This should be done as far in advance as possible as it takes time for keywords to register and be found by crawlers.

Emails are your Friend

But you need to use them wisely. That means they need to be relevant, timely, enticing, and never spammy.

They can be a great digital marketing tool when done right, but they’ll end up filed in trash if they fail to hit the spot.

Always make sure your customers can easily subscribe to your emails via your website and entice them with the promise of great deals and discounts.

For one of your Black Friday marketing ideas, make sure you create an email that is -

• Snappy, with a tempting subject line
• Offers an appealing deal
• Is short and sweet

Paid Adverts

If your Black Friday marketing strategies include a budget for paid adverts, then it’s wise to plan these with care. That’s because with so many businesses vying for the attention of potential customers, the paid advert market is saturated.

If you don’t plan carefully, you could end up spending money on paid adverts that simply fall into the online abyss. To help ensure your paid adverts capture the attention of potential customers -

• Consider starting them earlier than competitors
• Make sure you use the right keywords
• Target your audience wisely – try to engage previous customers or look at focusing on your current audience to make that all important purchase

Social Media

There are so many social media platforms out there that it would be crazy not to utilise them to your benefit. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube: your digital marketing policy should definitely make time for these.

They’re a great way to engage potential customers as you can run competitions, offer discounts, tag people, and use hashtags to help grow your company’s visibility.

Create Great Content

Lastly, although Black Friday is all about making a sale, don’t miss the opportunity to give your customers great content. Create blogs, tutorials, how to’s that will help them, and they’ll soon start remembering your business as a place that is helpful, genuine, and knowledgeable. And when you’re in people’s minds, you should then see the sales increase too.

Black Friday may only happen once a year, but it’s a great chance to make your business stand out. Implement the right Black Friday marketing ideas and plan your digital marketing with foresight and attention to detail, and you should see an improvement in customer engagement and – the thing every business hopes for -sales.

If you’re still unsure how to implement your Black Friday marketing strategies get in touch with the specialists at Creative Ideaz today. They’re skilled at planning digital marketing and getting the best results for businesses just like yours.

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