Guide: How to Build a Successful Black Friday Strategy

"Black Friday is the fourth Friday of November - right after the Thanksgiving holiday. In today's consumerist times, it's a favorite of many because it marks the beginning of holiday shopping. 🎁

Most businesses run attractive offers and irresistible discounts for their customers, who often take the opportunity to buy Christmas gifts for their loved ones at low prices. ⛄

In recent times, Black Friday lasts much longer than one day. Some businesses choose to leave their offers active all weekend. And others - even a week and so the period of discounts merges with the so-called Cyber Monday. This is the Monday after Thanksgiving, and its purpose is to boost online orders. And, of course, to give smaller businesses a chance to offer interesting deals to their customers.

The name "Black Friday" was coined in the 1960s by Philadelphia police. It described the chaos that ensued when tourists from the countryside went into the city to shop for the holidays.

The huge crowds and the traffic jams, accidents and thefts that occurred as a result created a lot of work for the police who had to work overtime. Basically, their day was getting black.

Good thing we can shop online today and the police can relax.

What are the benefits of Black Friday for your business?

More traffic.

Attractive offers attract new visitors and potential customers who can then become part of a sizeable retargeting audience.

Acquiring new customers.

Increased amounts of traffic will inevitably bring new customers to your online store's doorstep. Just keep in mind that in this competition-saturated time, acquiring them may cost you more than at other times.

Building customer loyalty.

Since acquiring new customers is an expensive endeavor, even if it's not Black Friday, be sure to pay attention in your campaigns and to your current customers. Chances are your return on revenue from orders placed by them will be greater. You might even delight them with exclusive offers.

Stock clearance.

Black Friday promotions are a good way to clear out stock before Christmas shopping to make room for new stock.

What are the cons of Black Friday?

Expectation of discounts.

👀Consumers have already learned to expect Black Friday discounts, and in a bigger way. It can be difficult for some smaller businesses to offer deals to compete with larger chains, but customer expectations oblige.

Decline in sales before and after.

Expecting big discounts for Black Friday, consumers stop buying shortly before. Instead, they browse, pin products, save them to their Favorites and buy them at a lower price.

Large number of returns.

Often consumers are tempted by the low price and order items they later decide they don't need. They end up returning them and this creates extra work for you and your employees.

Overworked employees.

The increased number of orders around Black Friday put a big strain on some businesses, especially smaller ones. Customers often have to wait a long time to receive their parcels, and this can lead to dissatisfaction.

Another downside of ordering a large volume at once is that you may run out of stock if your campaign proves too successful. It's important to avoid the point where you have to refuse orders due to insufficient stock. Because then you'll really have angry customers who are unlikely to come back.

If you've decided to run a Black Friday campaign, there are countless avenues to take. Today, we're going to present different strategies that work + two timeline ideas to help you time your campaigns to the big day.

Planning campaigns over time

Make some noise in the weeks before Black Friday

This strategy can (but does not have to) start with the beginning of November. Its purpose is to create anticipation in consumers by hinting bit by bit what you have prepared for Black Friday. 📣

• Week 1. Prepare a traffic campaign to a new audience to communicate that your business will be participating in Black Friday and they can expect attractive offers from you. For now , no more details like exactly when, for what period and what the discount will be. Create anticipation or in plain English - generate buzz, but not for drinking. You can also use these campaigns to collect email addresses to add to a special Black Friday list.
• Week 2. Prepare a traffic campaign again to a new audience in which you reveal a little more about your plans. You can mention the most important thing - what the discount will be. As formats for these ads, you can use video and/or carousel to show your products to those who don't know them.
• Week 3. In this campaign , complete the information and mention when the reduction will be and what exactly it will be.
• Black Friday. This is your actual offer and it will be primarily targeted to a retargeting audience. These are users who have visited your site, bought something, downloaded your ebook in the last year or other time period.

In this sample timeline, we're talking specifically about Facebook advertising. Of course, don't forget to include other channels in your promotional strategy - Email, Search, Display, why not influencer campaigns. The possibilities are endless.

While you're targeting new consumers with these campaigns, don't pause your usual marketing strategy. Let the ads go out on the newsfeed and the orders come into your store.

What are the pros?

Building your Black Friday campaign this way brings one huge plus. It's a potentially lower cost per click and per conversion. At this time of year, ad competition is fierce, which automatically drives up the prices of your desired results. If you want to directly target a new audience with your Black Friday offer, you'll be dizzy with the cost per click you'll have to pay.

With this choice you can expect more purchases as a final result. But this generation of excitement in the weeks leading up to Black Friday will lead to a drop in orders because consumers will wait for their markdown. The idea here is during the promotional period to make up for this drop.

This is by no means impossible, but it is a good idea to put a bid cap on an order.

For example, if a sale normally costs you $8, around Black Friday it's good practice to set a bid cap around $16-20. This doesn't mean that every order will cost you $20. A higher bid threshold means you'll show up earlier in the feed. And with the fierce competition at this time, that's very important.

Lightning Black Friday

• You announce2-3 days in advance that your business will be participating in Black Friday and there will be interesting offers.
• On Black Friday itself, or in the relevant week if you've chosen a longer promotional period, you run a campaign targeting a wide audience (new users, existing customers, website visitors, etc.).

The shorter period of this campaign is a way to save yourself some of the drop in orders before Black Friday. But not entirely, because this is a general phenomenon. We could call it the "calm before the storm." Consumers shop less in the final weeks before Black Friday (between late October and mid-November) to save money while they wait for the good deals.

Even if you decide not to join the shopping rush at all, you can still feel it. And if you don't offer a discount, there's a good chance your customers will go to the competition. Still, if that's your decision, our advice is to pause your regular campaigns so you don't waste your advertising budget in this internet ad-saturated time.

Pay attention to discounts

✨The most important for customers, of course, are the offers. Here the options are many and depend mostly on the capabilities of your business.

Discounts for all

• Option 1: really big discounts that are hard to resist: up to -50%, -60% or -70%, but only on selected products;
• Option 2: A smaller % discount, for example -25%, but on all products on your website;
• Option 3: Gift for all orders over a certain amount. Everyone loves free stuff, so an offer like this will pique the interest of many. The products you give away will ideally be ones that won't cost you much and are popular items that your customers buy often.
• Option 4: 2 pieces for the price of 1. This tactic is often used to get people to buy in pairs or just to get rid of large quantities of a product. Faced with such an offer, a person often buys things they would not otherwise buy.

Targeted discounts for different audiences

Customize discounts for different groups of users. For example, you can show your most regular customers and those with the highest purchase values that you value them. You can do this by offering them early access to Black Friday promotions or a higher discount percentage specifically for them.

For example, a -30% discount would work better for new customers and a fixed discount of, say, £10. + free shipping are a better offer for repeat customers.

You can also try with discounts on levels, for example, -20 BGN from each order over 100 BGN. In this way, budget planning becomes easier for you because your discount is fixed, no matter what the value of the order.

Use upsell & cross-sell tactics

For any discount ideas tied to a minimum purchase value, it will be helpful to convince your customers to buy additional products or pay more for a particular line of items.

It's good practice to see in their cart how much they have left until they unlock the offer you're offering. At the same time, offer them the additional products right there for easier access.

Another interesting technique is to sell certain products together with a discount, for example shampoo and conditioner from a certain hair series.

Gather an email list for special Black Friday offers

📩 A few weeks before the promotional period itself, you can start collecting emails from users who want to be the first to know about your offers.

A good option for these emails are pop-up forms that you can easily install on your website. Another way is through lead generation ad campaigns on Facebook and Google Ads in the weeks leading up to Black Friday. Check out "Make some noise in the weeks leading up to Black Friday."

Put a timer on your website

Nothing creates the sense of urgency and urgency so valued in marketing like a simple timer that counts down the seconds, minutes, hours and days until your promotion ends.

Donate a percentage of proceeds to charity

It's not all about the discounts, and the proximity of Black Friday to the Christmas holidays has many thinking about charity and doing good.

Offer a discount to your customers and tell them that you will donate a portion of the proceeds to an organization of your choice. That way their incentives become two.

They will buy something at a lower price, they will do a good deed and donate to the needy without requiring any effort for them. And it's good for your image, too.

Create a landing page for Black Friday

✔It will be helpful if your emails and ads lead to a dedicated page where the user can find important information in one place, such as:

• the offer;
• selected products that participate in the discount;
• a timer that counts down how much is left of the campaign;
• customer reviews;
• the terms and conditions of the campaign.

Turn shopping into a game

A cool way to do this is by creating a wheel of fortune that anyone can spin, and in exchange for a name and email address get a prize. It could be a discount code, free shipping, free product, etc.

The wheel is a fun way to make shopping more interesting for customers. And reward them on Black Friday with discounts you don't normally allow yourself to do.

Gift Lists

If the products you offer are suitable for gifting, compile lists to make holiday shopping easier for your customers. 📜

For example, in one place can be items suitable for a gift for her. At another - for him , or invent another organization if your products do not match this one.

The important thing is to save consumers time in browsing, especially if your catalog offers a huge variety.

Organize the work process

Hosting

If you're going to run a large-scale Black Friday campaign with big discounts, it's a good idea to consider hosting your website and upgrading if necessary. With increased traffic, nearly 40% of stores in Bulgaria are unable to load precisely because of poor planning.

How uncomfortable does it feel for a user to see an error, we can only guess and knock on wood not to happen to anyone.

Launch campaigns on time

Remember, your business isn't the only one deciding to advertise during Black Friday. In addition to creating huge competition, this has another effect - lengthening the ad approval process. If it normally takes a few hours, past the biggest shopping day of the year is a few days.

So our advice is to plan everything well in advance and schedule your campaigns at least 4-5 days in advance of the day you want to be active. So there's no hair-plucking and tear-dropping later.

Delayed deliveries

It is also a good idea to anticipate that courier companies are extremely busy during this period. That is, some shipments can and will be late.

The first thing to do is to warn your customers when they order that due to the high volume of deliveries, they may have to wait a little.

The second is to figure out how to make up for the delays, for example by giving vouchers for the next order.

Try to stand out

It's easy for your offer to get lost in the sea of discounts that all the brands launch around Black Friday. Be yourself and take the time to prepare your campaigns so that the messages and visuals grab the attention and hearts of consumers.

Black Friday is an important day for retailers, both online and offline. This period offers tremendous opportunities for growth, but also many pitfalls that you can fall into if you don't have enough experience. It's always helpful to turn to a specialist in such cases. At ADvantage Digital Agency, we can build advertising strategies for all occasions that will launch your business in the right direction.