How can you improve your Black Friday advertising strategy in 2022? We are here to break it down!

The day after Thanksgiving, better known as Black Friday, is the official starting point of the holiday shopping season. Businesses create exciting deals to attract customers to their brick-and-mortar stores. To lengthen the shopping weekend, they have created Cyber Monday for online retailers to get in on the shopping season, with exclusive deals you can only find from online stores. Small Business Saturday is also for shoppers to support local small businesses in brick-and-mortar stores and online marketplaces, such as Etsy.

Businesses across the United States are working hard to gain even higher revenues during the holidays. Your Black Friday marketing strategy for 2022 is crucial to your success during the busiest shopping season. Here are our top 5 Black Friday marketing tips.

Black Friday Marketing Strategy

1. Plan your marketing campaign well in advance

You can’t start training for a marathon the night before the race. Marketing campaigns need to be well thought out and based on past performance. Black Friday marketing ideas need to be brought to a whole new level.

A holiday marketing calendar is an excellent tool for scheduling brainstorming sessions, designing and copying briefs, and launch of Black Friday ads. You can set target dates for when milestones need to be accomplished and how to generate some hype for your Black Friday sales.

2. Optimize Your Website Performance

Evaluating an online store’s web hosting is one approach to preparing it for a Black Friday promotion. Consider updating if the website is nearing its resource limit.

The optimum plan should have enough bandwidth, memory, storage, and processing capacity to support the number of products displayed, the expected monthly traffic, and a smooth shopping experience.

Ecommerce stores are growing in popularity, and more and more customers are starting their shopping season with online shopping. It’s convenient, and they can do all their holiday shopping in one sitting rather than driving around to many stores.

3. Offer exclusive deals to your customers

Your loyal customers will appreciate having specific Black Friday sales specific to them or early access to Black Friday promotions. Creating an email marketing campaign targeting previous and loyal customers can increase Black Friday sales because they have already shopped with you.

You can create a discount code that only they can use, have an in-store Black Friday giveaway to encourage new customers, or even provide a free gift for those who do online shopping.

Some businesses have even created an early Black Friday sale to encourage customers to shop with them.

4. Generate hype on social media

Social Media posts are the best way to create hype for your Black Friday sales event. Using a holiday marketing calendar, you can start using your social media platforms to post-holiday promotions, advertise your online business and get customers excited about your Black Friday weekend.

Posts with specific products that will be a part of the Black Friday sales can help get potential customers excited, and they may want to see what other items you carry, thus creating a stream of new customers to your online store.

5. Make the most of digital marketing tools

Don’t underestimate the power of digital marketing strategies. Although more shoppers rely on social media accounts to discover new businesses, current customers can be retained using marketing channels.

Just by asking for your customer’s phone numbers or email addresses, you can send messages to them in the digital path they want. Younger generations prefer getting text messages because most have a smartphone. Sending targeted messages to them can lead to the excitement of your Black Friday deals. Older generations prefer receiving emails, which have the added bonus of additional wording and image displays. An email marketing campaign can also give shoppers early access to your Black Friday deals.

Getting phone numbers and email addresses are easy to get from customers and is a great marketing strategy for learning more about your target audience.

Three Crucial Black Friday Preparations

Planning your inventory

• What do you need to order to meet customer demand?
  • Customers are beginning their Christmas shopping season, and you need products to fulfill that need. Don’t think of just seasonal items to put on sale, you need to think of current trends and the popularity of items.
  • Online stores need to consider customer demand just as much as brick-and-mortar stores. Consider past Black Friday trends to help you decide what items to carry.
• How much should you order to avoid overstocking or running out of products?
  • Order enough to get you through the Black Friday weekend. It’s better to run out on Sunday afternoon than Friday morning.
  • For popular items, it’s best to order more and for more seasonal items, order less. You don’t want overstock items that can’t be sold past the season.

Staffing

• Ensure you have enough employees on hand to help customers, manage the store, and ring up sales
  • Black Friday week should be considered all hands on deck. Schedule as much stuff as possible, and have floaters who can help cover areas during break time.
  • Having a meeting beforehand can help answer staff questions and help develop a plan for how the week will go.

Marketing

• Create a Black Friday ad campaign that will generate traffic and boost sales
  • Start planning your Black Friday marketing strategy in advance so everything can run smoothly.
  • Black Friday campaigns can start in mid-October to generate excitement.
  • Boost Black Friday sales with exclusive items, giveaways, and free gifts with purchase.
  • Use Social Media marketing strategies and start posting about your Black Friday shopping event.
  • Give a sneak peek to customers through email and social media posts.

Three Crucial Cyber Monday Preparations

• Have enough staff
  • Customer Service will be your number one priority for online sales. You don’t want to lose customers because they have questions or are having trouble with your website. Have enough staff to cover phone lines and if you have an online chat, have plenty of staff to cover that.
  • For the rest of the week, have adequate coverage in the shipping department so customers can get their exciting deals as quickly as possible.
• Order Plenty of Inventory
  • Potential customers want to see lots of inventory in an online store if they want to purchase multiple items.
  • Have plenty of stock on hand and don’t allow for back-ordering.
• Use The Same Black Friday Marketing Strategy
  • You shouldn’t have to change your marketing strategies for online sales. You can market certain items as Black Friday deals and have other items as Cyber Monday deals.
  • Continue to post on all your social media channels over the Black Friday weekend to encourage customers to buy from online retailers.

However you choose to plan your Black Friday sale, it’s best to start early and have a well-thought-out plan in place. Giving your staff plenty of time to prepare and having procedures in place will mean less stress and more time spent with customers, helping them find the perfect gift for the beginning of the holiday season.