Over the years, several international Black Friday marketing strategies and promotions have piqued our attention. As a business owner/marketing strategist, are you looking for unique digital marketing tips to promote your goods this Black Friday?
The Black Friday shopping tradition started in 2010 when Amazon began offering discounts for its customers in Ireland and the UK.
In subsequent years, retailers have attracted mobs into their store using flash sales and discounts. According to recent research, nearly all consumers plan to spend money on holiday shopping in 2023, with only 2% of respondents indicating they’re planning to skip spending on holiday shopping.
However, the Black Friday shopping in 2024 will not be synonymous to buzzing crowds and shopping frenzied mobs. As a result of the significantly increased popularity of online shopping ever since the pandemic, stores are expected to have smaller crowds.
Despite this, retailers will continue to take advantage of the Black Friday shopping ritual using eCommerce or marry their physical stores to the websites. Moreover, many businesses will spread their sales and discounts starting from the Monday, leading to Black Friday.
It’s wise to plan ahead. Let us tell you why.
Why is a Black Friday Marketing Strategy Important?
Approaching Black Friday without an exclusive marketing strategy is like losing the war even before fighting a single battle.
Shopper behaviours on the Black Friday are way different from other days.
Tom Pope, SVP of payments and platforms at Tink, highlighted the significance of a smooth returns process, especially in light of the cost of living and cash flow issues, suggesting that quick and efficient refund processes can significantly enhance the customer experience during the peak shopping season. Similarly, Manuel Sandhofer, SVP and general manager Europe at Nium, pointed out that real-time refunds could lead to repeat business and better returns for retailers in the long run, underscoring the overlooked importance of efficient payout infrastructures in eCommerce. The Fintech Times
Predictions for Black Friday 2024 suggest a continuation of trends seen in previous years, with a significant focus on online shopping due to its convenience and the ability for consumers to bargain hunt effectively. Retailers are expected to offer competitive deals online, possibly outpacing in-store sales. Despite economic uncertainties, the tradition of Black Friday shopping is anticipated to remain robust, with consumers likely looking for the best deals to make the most of their holiday budgets.
Let’s look at more shopping behaviours in detail.
Uncommon Shopping Behaviours On Black Friday
Shopping is like the Hunger Games– Minus the dystopia, of course.
However, instant gratification is the only constant shopping behaviour- Time is the most valuable asset; while shopping and otherwise. 53% of shoppers will abandon your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Optimising for user experience and elements that contribute to a seamless checkout increases conversion rates by 35%.
The guilt after the guilty pleasure sets in– As the shopping frenzy doubles down after Cyber Monday, shoppers return items they bought. This may be due to the impulse purchases they made during Black Friday sales. Research also states that 38% were stricly planned, leading to the conclusion that a significant portion resulted from impulse buying.
In 2021, approximately 58% of Black Friday purchases were made on impulse, with the remainder being planned purchases.
87% of shoppers in the US highlighted the importance of free returns when shopping online. More people browse through returns pages before purchase on Black Friday than other days.
Drawing a Black Friday marketing strategy helps you explicitly plan for these behaviours. Your marketing ideas can revolve around
- Promoting content on new products
- Gift suggestions
- Optimising for keywords such as ‘best deals’, ‘best discounts’
- Creating Black Friday landing pages
- Optimising posts with hashtags
Particularly for eCommerce, Black Friday brings in shopping behaviours such as normally unrecognised category pages receiving large traffic.
Hopefully, shoppers shall turn their attention to what keeps them productive and mindful. Your Black Friday eCommerce strategy can internalise this behaviour and prioritise stocks and tactics accordingly.
Top Black Friday Shopping Stats 2023
- E-commerce Growth: Online sales during Black Friday 2023 reached $9.8 billion, marking a 7.5% increase from the previous year. This growth shows the ongoing shift towards online shopping, with a large portion of consumers opting for the convenience of digital purchases over traditional in-store shopping. Fit Small Business
- Consumer Spending Habits: There was a significant increase in ecommerce spending, with a 7.8% rise in the U.S. and a 6% growth globally. BigCommerce data showed an 8% increase in gross merchandise value (GMV) on Black Friday and a 12% increase on Cyber Monday, showing strong consumer engagement and spending across various platforms. Feedonomics
- Online and In-store Sales Dynamics: While online shopping continues to grow, most retail sales still occur in physical stores. The fourth quarter of each year, including the holiday shopping season, sees a surge in both online sales and their share of total retail sales. For instance, online sales in the fourth quarter of 2022 accounted for 16.3% of all retail sales, up from an average of 14.1% in the first three quarters. This trend underscores the significant impact of the holiday shopping season on both online and in-store retail landscapes. Pew Research Center
- Consumer Demographics: More men (59%) than women (57%) expressed interest in participating in Black Friday sales. However, both genders indicated a strong preference for substantial discounts, with 50% off being the most appealing. Younger Americans, particularly those aged 18-24, were the most likely to be enticed by sales, demonstrating the significant influence of discounts on consumer behavior during Black Friday. Finder
Digital Marketing Tips for Black Friday 2024
This year bustling footsteps, tsunami crowds and pedestrian traffic shall all shy away on Black Friday.
Considering the insights above, we expect shoppers to go on an online shopping spree.
The digital marketing tips for Black Friday we have enlisted below shall amp your online channels and rake in revenue.
Prepare Your Site
We suggest this before all the digital marketing tips for Black Friday as it can make or wreck your brand (and website).
Preparing your site should happen on two fronts:
- Testing website load with PageSpeed Insights
- Improving UX and UI
Test And Increase The Load Your Website Can Handle
Who said only instore shoppers can cause mayhem?
The influx of online shoppers into your website on Black Friday can predispose your servers to overload and crumble your website.
In 2018, J.Crew’s website crashed, resulting in losses between $700,000 and $775,000 and significantly impacting the retailer for five hours. During this period, a “Hang on a Sec” screen was displayed, preventing customers from logging in and completing their purchases.
Moreover, frustrated customers could take to social media to ridicule your brand.
Negative publicity isn’t good PR. However, you’d be losing website visitors over to your competition who’d keep your frustrated customers for themselves. Remember, it’s up to 7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an old one.
Black Friday, particularly, is not when you want to be spilling your customers over to your competition.
Improving User Experience
Online shopping has become intuitive for most shoppers around the world. They know a cart means adding items, reviews are testimonials and the checkout button buys them the product. Thus a seamless online user experience is vital for merely existing on the web.
To enhance UX, begin with an SEO audit for your entire site. You can hire a digital marketing agency to alleviate this workload.
With digital natives joining the working class, it’s the right time to mark them as your VIP targets. Exceed their eCommerce expectations by using chatbots, integrating more wallets, cross-selling, freebies, retargeting etc. Do anything that motivates their impulsive buying tendencies and resultantly sells your product.
Besides, consumers browse mobile phones even when in-store. They look for information, compare prices, find deals etc. Make sure your web pages are loaded with content to solve their queries. FAQs and product information pages can help them here.
You can go omnichannel by using geographic data. You can send offers through text messages and push notifications when they are in the vicinity of your store.
Actionable digital marketing tips for Black Friday:
- Look into the previous year’s data. Identify behaviours like page visits, navigational behaviour, payment behaviour, product categories. Upgrade their experiences here.
- Free tools such as Pingdom can gauge your website speed and suggest improvements.
- Spread your Black Friday deals over several days to avoid website overload. You can also start promoting your discounts in advance.
- Compress your product images and background images.
- Use chatbots to enhance conversations with your brand.
Deals and Coupon Marketing
One of the oldest and consistently performing digital marketing tips for Black Friday is promoting your deals and coupons.
A glance at Google Trends data reveals the number of hits for ‘deals’ transcend the normal on the 4th week of November.
Consider all your marketing touchpoints- website, social media, affiliates, physical stores.
Identify who shops what and where. Promote appropriate deals and discounts here. Advertise your coupons at the checkout. Promote your discounts on other coupon websites as well.
Actionable digital marketing tips for Black Friday:
- Use your email list to promote your coupons in advance.
- Remarket coupons to the shoppers who have visited your site on Black Friday.
- Change the text on your websites with words such as ‘Black Friday Deals’ to portray your sites.
- Go full-on with PPC and Facebook ads to promote your deals.
Content Marketing: Interest Shoppers With New Products & Gift Ideas
Another Black Friday promotion idea is inspiring buyers with new products to shop for. Crafty marketing is realising your customers’ need early and implanting the idea of your product in their minds.
Content marketing can help you here. Using content marketing techniques you can create and promote personalised content to specific audience segments.
However, for content marketing to work, you must plan in prior.
You have to segment your existing customers based on interests and preferences.
To attract new customers identify segmentation patterns in your existing customer base. Then, promote your content through Facebook advertising to get their emails and later warm them up using more content.
Educate your prospects and current customers using gift ideas. You can email blast them with blog posts, gift bundles, how-to guides, etc. Similarly, promote referrals to grow your customer base using your existing email lists.
Actionable digital marketing tips for Black Friday:
- Create pre-sale word-of-mouth. You can tease your audience using product bundles before going into the big shopping day.
- You can create content on ‘top gifts for <their profession> friend’.
- Send an email blast to your current customers about new content.
- Curate content from other websites and send them to your readers.
- Use Facebook ads to build your email lists.
- Make use product availability notifications, pre-order options, etc, in your landing pages to increase your subscriber list.
Social Media Marketing
Over the past few years, the use of social media to find shopping ideas and gift ideas have surged. In 2019, Instagram and Pinterest saw traffic rise by 73% and 45% respectively.
People are inevitably going to spend more time on mobile this year owing to the incredible popularity of TikTok. This gives online marketers to leverage content on social media to interest users.
Consumer trends denote that, people expect a brand to take a stance on ethical and moral issues. They also expect brands to support environmental causes. Your social media posts and newsletters can become increasingly tilted towards supporting environmental concerns and mental health.
If you are a B2B business, you can support your users with freemiums this Black Friday.
Gotta Hash(tag) ’em all!
A hashtag strategy is an inescapable digital marketing tip for Blackfriday, now that Instagram allows users to follow hashtags.
For growing your target audience using hashtags, you have to start several weeks prior. Post relevant content and use appropriate hashtags for them to promote your content.
There are several Black Friday specific hashtags that you can use. Use insights from Instagram analytics to gauge the number of views from your hashtags.
Test different combinations of hashtags until you get the right one.
Tell and Sell via Stories
Last year, TikTok significantly influenced shopping behavior, with 71% of users making purchases after discovering products in their feed or Stories. They claim this helped their buying decisions.
Promoting B2C products on Instagram stories can raise brand awareness before the big day. Stories work because they blend themselves easily in your shopper’s browsing spree.
You can also promote your deals and discounts through stories as well. Instagram, being the visual medium it is, offers a lot of scope for advertisers to persuade and influence consumers.
Actionable digital marketing tips for Black Friday:
- Use content to gain the attention of your user and grow your retargeting list and lookalike audience list.
- Create 15-30 second engaging stories in your ads that can connect with the shopper on an emotional level.
- Use environmental, collectivist themes in your Black Friday posts as it is when such spirits are high.
- Nowadays, going local is a killer marketing move. If you are a local business, you could ride the local wave in your marketing campaigns.
To Black Friday and Beyond
Black Friday shopping is not limited to one single day.
Thankfully, retailers have manipulated the mob into a being in a week-long shopping mania using deals and discounts. Shoppers continue to look for discounts on the days between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
However, there will always be customers left out of these deals. Some may have even missed out because of technical issues, not finding the right deals etc.
Some will want to return the products they brought and buy new ones.
For the left-out and returning customers, spread out your deals by spilling your offers over the next week as well. You can infuse Christmas shopping spirit in your posts and ads. Use cross-selling to sell different products when they appear for returning items.
Conclusion
Customers in Ireland and the UK may not have adopted the turkey dinner and annual family get together to celebrate the Black Friday weekend. However, the shopping craze has caught on in both Ireland and the UK.
68% of Gen Z are interested in shopping over the Black Friday – Cyber Monday weekend. Now that shoppers are glued to their phones watching TikToks, it’s time to get creative with your content and best exploit your email lists.
Use these Black Friday marketing stats and tips to plan lucrative discounts and fix loopholes in your existing digital touchpoints.
How The SEO Impact Can Help You With Your Black Friday Sales?
The SEO Impact has pioneered marketing and eCommerce strategies for Black Friday for several companies. We craft attention-grabbing marketing and purchasing experiences for your brand to boost sales.
Now, it’s a child guess that digital marketing shall be the cornerstone of a company’s sales and revenue this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Contact us if you need help with your digital marketing strategy for the shopping weekend.
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