Black Friday is a colloquial term for the last Friday of November. It is an American tradition, named after the chaos that ensued in shops after the Thanksgiving holiday, often in preparation for Christmas.
Black Friday is now an international event where shops offer highly promoted sales and special offers to take advantage of the rush to buy holiday season presents. It is the busiest shopping day of the year, and it is an event you should consider for your ecommerce digital marketing strategy.
Read on to see how you can take advantage of this event. If you have any questions, our ecommerce digital marketing agency specialists are on hand to help. A free 30-minute consultation can be arranged to help you know where to focus your business for this coming sales event.
Book a FREE 1-2-1 Training & Webinars Let’s Chat
When is Black Friday?
Black Friday 2023 will be on Friday the 24th of November. Most businesses start advertising weeks before this, and even offer discounts as early as the Monday before. Ideally, your marketing strategy should start now.
It’s not enough to just discount your stock and post a coupon on your website, newsletter or social media. You need to cultivate your audience through social media, PPC consultancy, and emails to keep in touch throughout the week and optimise sales.
What Special Offers are Good for Black Friday 2023?
The simplest and most effective is a discount code or price reduction for certain products. If you use an ecommerce platform like Shopify or WooCommerce, these are very easy to set up. But they’re not the only kind of sale you can promote, other offers you could try are:
- Free shipping
- Free product(s) included in an order
- Flat discounts on orders over a price threshold
- A discount applied when a set number of applicable products are added to the cart
- Pure Bundling – a set of items sold together as a single item at a lower price than if they were bought separately
Cultivate Upcoming Customers with Email Marketing
Our email marketing specialists highly recommend integrating this event with your newsletter campaigns. Swap out your usual newsletter subscription signup notifications for ones themed with Black Friday. Offering discount codes available specifically for people who sign up is a great way to gather an audience ahead of the sale. Who knows, they may stick around afterwards as a dedicated customer.
As for your normal subscribers. Keep in touch with them about your upcoming sales. You could give special offers specifically for long time subscribers to drive loyalty, or simply keep your audience informed. Remember the best practices for email marketing, as you don’t want people to get annoyed and start unsubscribing.
Book a FREE 1-2-1 Training & Webinars Let’s Chat
Advertise on Social Media & Search Engines
Your website is the centrepiece of your digital marketing campaign, during Black Friday this is no different. Promote your website and the upcoming sale using organic social media, as well as paid search ads. You can also use pay per click advertising on social media to boost your posts and drive intrigued people to your website in time for the sale.
This sales event is great for driving up engagement and even followers. Consider running a social media giveaway, and have your customers talking about the products they like most.
Black Friday 2023 Dos and Don’ts
Do Keep it Simple
Don’t feel compelled to overcomplicate your customers or your marketing strategy with multiple sale strategies. Our ecommerce digital marketing agency has found offers as simple as free shipping to be effective at increasing sales.
Don’t Put Outrageous Discounts on Your Hottest Products
Your most popular products are always going to fly off the shelves, so there’s no point selling them at a massive loss when a smaller discount will still work. Save your biggest discounts for products that need some attention, or need to be removed from your store.
Do Consider Upcoming Festive Holidays in Your Strategy
A lot of Black Friday shopping is done in preparation for Christmas. If you have products that would make a great festive present, consider highlighting them.
Don’t Raise Prices Before Offering a Discount
Some businesses do this to minimise profit losses from holding a sale, but it’s not worth it. Raising prices before a sale may go against the Advertising Standards Authority’s rules. Also, your repeat customers will notice sudden changes in prices. It can erode trust in your business and harm your sales in the long run.
Do Seek Help From Our Ecommerce Digital Marketing Agency
At InSynch, we’ve helped manage Black Friday events for plenty of online businesses. We have email marketing specialists and PPC consultancy experts who know how to manage big sales events and ensure everything runs smoothly.
Talk with one of our experts today, and get started on a 3-month Total Digital Marketing package to help you excel during the holiday season. Alternatively, we offer website conversion optimization and pay per click advertising services, perfect to boost results for your sales event.
