This information is relevant for Black Friday as well as for subsequent promotions.
This Black Friday is special. The COVID pandemic has changed the market and buying pattern, increased competition in online commerce. At the same time, this is a time of new opportunities. Black Friday 2020 is a crucial chance for your business. It’s time to analyze the changes, understand the trends of the next years, develop an effective marketing strategy, and reach a new level. You can expand the boundaries, test new features, designs, ways of communicating with customers. Such moments are golden.
Black Friday suggests stress for business owners, load on the website, increase of traffic, and sales. No matter how difficult this period is for you, it should be a celebration for buyers.
High competition means that along with old well-tried methods, new unconventional solutions must be sought. The creative is remembered: it can pleasantly surprise, amuse, people tell friends about it and share it on social networks. Look for interesting promotion solutions that will remain in the memory of users and motivate them to return to you after Black Friday.
There are tried and true tactics that have proven themselves, and new tactics with great potential. What is more suitable for your business is up to you. The choice of method should be determined after the marketing analysis.
1. Mailout
The closer the H-hour, the more buyers are engulfed by a flow of offers and messages about discounts and promotions. How to ensure that your message won’t be ignored?
A series of letters increases the chance that at least one message will be read. The letter should attract attention, intrigue, promise benefits, create the feeling that time is running out.
A catchy headline, a clear offer, a small GIF or animation are the key to high conversions.
It’s best to build a sequence, which will include not only emails but also push notifications, SMS, or messages in messengers. Example of campaign stages:
- Black Friday Announcement;
- Thanksgiving Day;
- Black Friday;
- Cyber Monday;
- Post-campaign letters.
This is the first thing that recipients rate in a newsletter before taking a close look at the content. The design of the letters is crucial if you want to immediately catch users’ attention and stand out from your competitors.
An attractive head determines whether recipients will open your email. The headline should instantly spark interest and engagement, and the text should motivate the user to make online purchases from you.
Analyze your past successes and failures, find the most effective content with keywords for your audience.
The Secret to Writing Texts That Sell
The terms and conditions should be simple and easy to understand so that the customer can quickly make a purchase decision.
Use animations and unique images in your messages that match your brand style. Animated messages, especially those that are funny or cute, grab attention, and win users’ favor.
This is a short, but maximally informative slogan telling about the product and the special features of the promotion. Just one well-written phrase can cause a positive effect.
It’s better to plan in advance via which channels you’ll notify subscribers about the start, course, and end of advantageous offers.
The perfect option is one call and one button. It’s a mistake to overwhelm the buyer with a mountain of offers. The CTA should logically follow the subject of the message and be as simple and clear as possible.
Don’t forget to check the correctness of the CTA display on desktop, smartphones, and tablets.
2. Creation of landing pages
You don’t have to change prices in your main store on Black Friday — it would be too time-consuming for a short promotion. It’s easier and more profitable to create a landing page that contains all promotional offers. You can use this landing page not only on Black Friday. The template structure will allow you to change offers depending on your promotions.
Another option is to create a separate page on your website and upload promotional offers to it.
3. Promotion on social networks
Create fascinating Black Friday stories so that as many people as possible learn about your promotions and immediately go to the page with discount products. Try to make Stories interactive and calling users to take action.
To stand out in the feed, make the Insta grid the basis of your Black Friday campaign. Create one beautiful image and cut it apart to create multiple Instagram posts. Publish them with pauses so that they appear one after another in your users’ feed.
This format of Black Friday promotion works not only for big brands but also for small companies. A YouTube video can even be more effective than a television one. Videos can be published on all possible platforms and attract hundreds of thousands of viewers.
Play on curiosity — create a looping GIF in the style of slot machines and invite users to guess what kind of discount you have prepared or what product is on sale.
This is an easy way to promote your campaign on social media and other platforms. Banners are easy to create and can be reused for multiple purposes.
You can put a banner with the news of the sale on the cover of your Facebook page or on the website, you can make a publication out of it, or cut it into pieces for Instagram layout.
Make “disappearing” offers in the “discount within an hour” format and change publications every 60 minutes. Users will get excited about catching a discount.
Invite the users to play a game — to spin the wheel and win a special gift or discount. This is a great way to engage them.
You can create a landing page with roulette and place different discounts in each sector of the wheel. The user will click on the roulette, it will spin and stop at one of the discounts. When the user clicks on the link that is generated in the selected sector, they will receive an X percent discount on the purchase. If you run this game on social networks, it’s better to make the animation as bright and attractive as possible.
A timer creates the feeling of a holiday that is rapidly approaching. It can be static or animated and posted on social media or a landing page. The best thing is to make a real JavaScript countdown timer.
Invite users to participate in the game and win a guaranteed prize. The conditions can be simple: like, repost to your account to get into the list of gift winners. It’s not necessary to complicate the task, it’s better when the user doesn’t make much effort.
Offer users a gift coupon instead of global discounts on the entire range. Black Friday and Cyber Monday give an opportunity to increase the value of the average check. Wanting to receive a gift, users will spend more. Make the design of your message simple and effective so that the coupon code stands out and the instructions are clear to everyone.
On Black Friday, you can offer users beautifully designed gift certificates for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Show the certificates on social media — let everyone see that you have a great offer for those who always don’t know what to present. You can also draw certificates for reposts.
You can sell a lot of gift certificates by offering discounts and loyalty points.
You can catch the interest of buyers by offering them scratch cards with hidden discounts and promotional codes. An animated card with a promo code can also be put into a personalized letter for loyal customers. People love to be appreciated.
This option is liked by many users and works successfully not only on Black Friday.
Giveaways and contests can spark even more consumer interest than traditional sales.
Organize a contest or give everyone who made a purchase an opportunity to participate in the drawing of valuable prizes. When doing this, be original and always stay true to your style.
You can create a banner on social networks, a post, or a paid advertisement — or all together with the call “Click and Win”. This type of ad works perfectly for giveaways and sales promotions.
A funny message always stands out from the rest. Use humor, if it doesn’t conflict with your brand style. Come up with a unique subject line and prepare images.
When a person sees an offer with a limited expiration date or available range, it looks like a “Take Action!” button. You can limit the number of products on sale.
Show appreciation for your loyal customers. Offer gifts or extra points to those who made orders throughout the year or who bought in bulk.
Motivate clients to tell friends about your discounts by offering loyalty points for it. Many people are guided by the opinion of friends, where and what to buy.
Offer access to promotions and discounts a few hours earlier for your long-term clients.
Not all people have time to take advantage of Black Friday offers. Extend your promotion at the last minute when your competitors have finished campaigns. This will give buyers an additional opportunity to place an order. Surprise your customers with even greater discounts.
If you’re planning a Black Friday shopping festival, party, or other events, advertise it on Facebook and other social media platforms. This is a great way to draw attention to yourself on the market and arrange a big sale.
Now many brands are running a sale and donating a part of the income for charitable purposes. It doesn’t increase short-term profit but brings much more positive results in the long run. This is the company’s image, brand recognition, loyalty and respect of customers, expansion of the audience, and most importantly — a priceless sense of involvement in a charitable act.
We wish you all a merry and successful Black Friday!
The Outcrowd team
