Want to sell big? Follow these top-notch Black Friday marketing ideas!
Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, and you know what that means – Black Friday is the day after! Black Friday is the perfect opportunity for businesses like yours to make massive sales, thanks to customers who are Christmas shopping or taking advantage of the incredible deals. Follow these Black Friday marketing ideas and the outcome should be more than worth it!
Black Friday is one of the biggest sales events of the year. As a business owner, you simply can’t miss this opportunity. Retailers go above and beyond to attract customers and rake in the dough. Black Friday isn’t just for the big box stores. Small- and medium-businesses can get in on it too! On Black Friday, over 1.2 million customers go into stores for in-person shopping. You can expect a swarm of customers at your store if you do a few things right.
We’ve got the secret sauce that can elevate your Black Friday sales numbers to high highs! Take a look at these Black Friday marketing ideas:
- Start advertising early
- Make your discounts worth it
- Use doorbuster sales
- Ensure you have plenty of products
- Maintain website, smartphone, and payment capabilities
- Be adequately staffed
- Hold contests
- Target abandoned carts using email marketing
- Encourage customers to sign up for a loyalty program
- Share QR codes
- Offer free shipping
- Run extended Black Friday sales
Keep reading to explore all these Black Friday marketing ideas so you can be prepared for the shopping holiday!
What is the marketing strategy of Black Friday?
The marketing strategy of Black Friday is to spread the news about the sales and discounts at your business by utilizing every accessible platform. Take advantage of outlets such as newspapers, radio, social media, television ads, flyers, email campaigns, and text messages. The goal is to encourage shopping.
Discover the magic of gift cards!
To help you with this, your partners here at Acumen Connections have created Black Friday marketing templates you can use. Download these free templates for Black Friday marketing.
12 best Black Friday marketing ideas for your business:
To help your business benefit from Black Friday this year, we put together the best plan of action for making the most of the post-Thanksgiving shopping craze. Did you know that Black Friday sales this year are projected to reach $9.8 billion? Get a slice of that (pumpkin) pie for yourself with some tried and tested Black Friday marketing ideas.
1. Start advertising early
As soon as you know what deals and sales you will be holding, get to work with Black Friday marketing promotions. Physical posters and advertisements will help you reach a large number of people locally, so get the word out in your area using these methods. Another way to market your sales is through posting on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even TikTok! Remember to reach out to customers via email and text message. Include as much information about the deals as you can – make them sound enticing and hard to beat at any other store or business.
Source: Saks Fifth Avenue taken October 2023
Engage customers in-store by talking up your Black Friday bargains. Hang posters and give out flyers or bag-stuffers that have all of your store’s Black Friday information – a complete list of sales, your store’s Black Friday hours, and even some coupons. Sell your sales, make your deals sound too good to pass up!
2. Make your discounts worth it
A good starting point for any discount is 20%. This is just enough to be both eye-catching and competitive without threatening the loss of profit. Of course, if a product is particularly popular, consider raising your discount percentage even higher. 50% off is where items become nearly irresistible!
It’s also important to have more than one sale going on in order to appeal to more people. As many products as you can afford to mark down, do it! In addition to great deals, offer a free gift with every purchase or additional coupons to be used on a customer’s next visit. This is a good way to establish good relationships with your customers and encourage them to come back even after Black Friday.
3. Use doorbuster sales
Source: Lenovo
Most businesses partaking in Black Friday, if not every, will have doorbuster sales. Doorbuster sales are regarded as the biggest and best deal offered by a store. Usually, it’s a large discount placed on a product in high demand.
The benefit of doorbuster sales is that they draw customers into the stores to purchase products they like but might not buy without the sale. Once the customer is shopping in your store, they may find other items or sales they like and will therefore spend more money on your business.
Businesses that have doorbuster sales, make sure to advertise it like crazy!
4. Ensure you have plenty of products
When Black Friday comes, you can expect already popular products to fly off the shelves and less popular products to experience more demand than usual. It’s a good idea to check your inventory and be absolutely sure you have enough products to keep your store properly stocked during the shopping rush.
These are the popular items people have on their holiday wish list right now.
Source: NRF
If you do happen to run out of a product, take down a list of interested customer’s names and contact information so that they can come back to the store when you restock. Allow them to still get the Black Friday deal!
5. Maintain website, smartphone, and payment capabilities
Source: Target https://www.target.com/c/target-black-friday/-/N-5q0f2
If you run an online business or if your business has a website, you should prep for the holidays and Black Friday by doing a check that your website can tolerate an influx of visitors. Here’s a site that allows you to test your website’s performance for free: loadimpact.com.
48% of all online sales on Black Friday are via mobile devices. Make sure that your website is mobile-friendly, too. Also, 13% of Black Friday online shoppers use Apple Pay to make their purchases. Does your business accept Apple Pay and Google Pay like some others do?
6. Be adequately staffed
During the holiday season, and especially on Black Friday, make sure you have proper staffing. The last thing you want is to be short-staffed on what might be the busiest day of the year for your business! In some cases, you may even need to bring on seasonal employees. At the very least, come up with a Black Friday schedule and, if you need to, make working on Black Friday mandatory.
Stores like Michaels and Walmart are known for hiring seasonal team members to help with the increase in store traffic. Hiring seasonal employees is a mutual benefit. The stores need additional support with the increase in sales, and some people are looking for a way to make a little extra cash during the holiday season. The employees that perform well and enjoy working there may be given an opportunity to keep working as a more permanent employee.
Source: Business Wire
Additionally, make sure your staff is trained in how to handle the credit card reader. At Acumen Connections, we make sure your team is good-to-go with this technology. From the popular Ingenico Desk 3500 to finding the right POS for small business, we can help. Contact Acumen Connections today.
7. Hold contests
Source: Facebook
Contests are a great addition to your Black Friday marketing strategy. Drive traffic to your website and get more leads by holding contests that contribute to brand awareness. Your customers will appreciate the chance to win prizes. Contests can be in-person or online over social media. Make sure to hold these contests well in advance to get maximum visibility and build brand recognition.
8. Target abandoned carts using email marketing
If you have an online store, you’re aware that customers often like to window-shop virtually. As a result, several customers have items in their cart that they’ve abandoned. One way to regain their interest is by sending them an email reminding them of the items in their cart. Use FOMO (fear of missing out) to pique their interest and highlight discounts or free shipping in your email.
You can make your email personalized to really pique their interest. Picture your customer getting an email like this:
9. Encourage customers to sign up for a loyalty program
Did you know that about 60% of a company’s revenue comes from repeat customers? Every business strives to build loyalty to keep their customers coming back. Why not reward such customers? Offer incentives for signing up such as a 10% discount when shopping for the first time. That way you can build your mailing list and keep your customers updated about all upcoming sales and shopping events. 83% of consumers say that being a loyalty member influences their decision to repurchase from businesses. Entice loyalty members with exclusive promos and first dibs.
Discover how MailChimp can help support your email marketing strategy.
A QR code is essentially a barcode that can be scanned by your smartphone camera to display information in the most convenient way possible – on your smartphone screen!
QR codes create a sense of curiosity and interest. In 2022, Coinbase released a Super Bowl ad as promotion for their app. The commercial was just a bouncing QR code with no other details. Their QR code ad was so popular the traffic made their app crash!
The number of smartphones scanning QR codes in the US alone is a staggering 83.4 million and this number is projected to reach 99.5 million in 2025. Using QR codes can significantly amplify your Black Friday marketing efforts. We recommend creating a QR code to intensify your Black Friday marketing preparations.
11. Offer free shipping
90% of customers would go online shopping more frequently if offered free shipping. Not only that, but businesses that offer free shipping have a 20% higher conversion rate than those that don’t. Also, 28% percent of customers abandon their shopping carts when hit by an unexpected shipping cost. These stats are enough to factor shipping into product costs and give customers the shopping experience they want.
The biggest issue with shipping costs for the customer is that it’s an unexpected surprise. You could choose to set a minimum for free shipping – like a minimum purchase of $50 to encourage more sales. Or, you could factor in the cost of shipping to all your online prices so that there’s never an additional surprise expense.
12. Run extended Black Friday sales
This one is a crowd favorite! Who doesn’t like extended sales? Use this strategy to sell more while offering higher discounts and emphasizing that it’s now or never. Including extended sales in your Black Friday marketing strategy is a way to encourage shopping. Keep engaging with your followers on social media even after the shopping-frenzy has ended. Don’t forget to send out an email to your mailing list in the later hours of Balck Friday and keep them in the loop. That way, people that missed your sale can shop from you.
Extended Black Friday promotions can extend over the weekend and up to Cyber Monday.
Source: Macys
Note: these Black Friday marketing tips can also be assigned to Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday as well!
Is Black Friday a marketing scheme?
No, we don’t think so. Black Friday shopping is something millions of Americans look forward to every year and actively partake in. In fact, Black Friday shopping has become a tradition at this point. Many shoppers find good sales on products they were already planning to buy or need to buy.
Take a look at why people shop Black Friday sales:
Source: NRF
How do you attract customers to Black Friday?
To attract customers to Black Friday sales, you need to do two simple things. First, have sales and discounts at your business and second, get the word out about upcoming sales using various means.
Why is Black Friday important to marketing?
Black Friday is extremely important to businesses like yours because it provides a golden opportunity for you to boost sales, increase customer engagement, and build brand reputation and recognition. Besides, customers love shopping during sales events.
Ready to tackle Black Friday head-on?
Businesses everywhere are constantly upping their sales game. They all want to sell more than they did last year. We want you to seize this year’s sales and hit all your targets. That’s why we curated this list of Black Friday marketing ideas to help boost your efforts this year and beyond.
The key to having a successful sale is having a reliable payment processor. At Acumen Connections, we have a reputation for being the best merchant processing partner for all kinds of businesses. We do all we can to assist small businesses reach their goals while saving money on credit card processing fees. Talk to us today!
Anna Reeve, MBA
Hello! I am Anna with Acumen Connections and I love assisting small businesses in any way I can. I have worked in marketing for businesses of different sizes and industries. I believe that creativity and imagination are the hallmarks of content building. I enjoy creating blogs, social media posts, marketing emails, press releases, website copy, responding to reviews etc.