Has the hype for Black Friday started yet? Have you gotten all your campaigns and strategy planned for this year’s Black Friday madness?
Black Friday used to be an American event, but now the whole world can’t help but take part in it. In fact, Black Friday is now the most popular deal day in France, Germany, and the U.K.
Worldwide the revenue generated from eCommerce sales was over $4.9 trillion in 2021, by the end of this year, this revenue’s expected to grow to over $5.5 trillion, which is a huge increase that shows us Black Friday’s set to be another big one this year.
Let’s start with a bit of Human Psychology – everyone likes a deal! Even if it went down to £19.99 from £20 (I’m not saying do this, please don’t!) people will think of it as a ‘deal’. That is exactly why Black Friday works.
Every year, businesses come up with more creative and inspiring ways to participate in this event and we’ve written this blog to give you a few tips and ideas on what you can do to make the most out of Black Friday.
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Contents
Prolong Purchasing Period
With the events of the last 2 years or so shifting consumer behaviour to lean more towards online shopping, many are predicting an early start to the seasonal shopping frenzy. Add this on top of the cost of living crisis, people are expected to make the most of these seasonal sales this year, especially closer to Christmas.
With that in mind, why not allow your customers to pre-order and bag those bargains before Black Friday, making sure the pre-order and Black Friday offers are the same of course. This comes with the added benefit of making managing stock a little easier.
Conversely, adding a buffer period to your plans will stop you from missing out on those many customers who make late purchases. Implementing this strategy enables you to catch the early birds and latecomers.
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Countdowns
Start by creating a sense of urgency. As human beings we all have FOMO, so we don’t want to be excluded from anything. Countdowns are a great way to emphasize this and show people what they’d be missing out on if they don’t act quickly.
Adding a countdown timer to your website for the Black Friday sale will make people panic and act quickly to make a purchase before it runs out. This is normally a tactic a lot of websites use, but it’s even more useful for seasonal promotions.
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Add New Products
If you are about to launch a new product or service, why not make it exclusive for Black Friday only? Adding a banner or simple graphic onto the page stating ‘Black Friday Exclusive’ will create urgency amongst your customers for them to buy now instead of later. You can build upon this idea by releasing ‘sneak peeks’ to your customers the week before to create a buzz through your social media channels and email.
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Lucky Dips
Sales are a great way to get rid of your stock, make room for new products and still make money out of it. And lucky dips will let you do this with more control over what you want to get rid of.
How it works: Let’s say you have 3 different colours of the same t-shirt, you create another product listing for the lucky dip and charge slightly less than its sales price but when people order it, they don’t get to choose the colour, so you have complete control over which colour you want to send out for individual orders. Plus there’s the element of surprise, which is always exciting. What do you think? Is this worth trying?
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Free Gift With Every Purchase
Depending on what your business offers, you can offer a free gift with every purchase/quote/enquiry related to the industry of your business. Choose a gift that is relatable and relevant and then go searching for a supplier which can offer you a bulk discount.
Tip: To make sure you don’t get insignificant purchases or enquiries, add a minimum order value.
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Offer Mystery Savings
A great way to entice and create a personal experience for your customers can be through the use of interactive offers on your website or through email. Certain interactive ‘peel’ or ‘scratch’ cards are a great way to interact with your customers. You can utilize this tool by giving your customer their scratch card once they are at the checkout and are about to pay. This can help prevent abandoned carts.
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Bundles
Bundles are seen as deals already, so putting a few products together to create bundles/gift boxes is sure to get more attention during the Black Friday event.
This is also a way of increasing your average order value so why not give this a go for Black Friday this year?
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Go The Extra Mile For Your Loyal Customers
Customer loyalty should not go unnoticed. These customers are not swayed by price or availability and help your business grow and keep its profits.
Trying to acquire a new customer is expensive, however, your loyal customers cost less and tend to spend more. So why not treat them to an extra generous Black Friday deal which will make them feel more valued? By doing so, they may even spend more than they normally do, knowing that this is a one-off extra special Balck Friday deal.
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Work With Other Businesses
This can work especially well if you own a small business. You can partner with other small businesses to offer both of your products together in one bundle. It’s a win-win for both businesses as you’d be able to cross-sell to your partner’s customers as well.
For example, if you’re selling coffee mugs, you could partner with a small business that sells coffee beans and promote them together.
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Prepare
Now, what sort of agency would we be by giving you all these tips yet not telling you to prepare!?
Preparation is key – as the saying goes ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. So make sure you decide what you are going to do for Black Friday.
Not confident in your social media skills to prepare for big events like Black Friday, check out our Advanced Social Media Training Course.
