Are you looking for marketing ideas to conquer the beast of Black Friday? Look no further; build your Black Friday marketing campaign around these 30 unique ideas to prepare your business for retail’s busiest day.
1. Offer A Gift With Purchase
Offer a gift with the purchase of a certain amount or higher. Use this Black Friday marketing idea to incentivize consumers to spend more to receive the gift.
2. Partner With Influencers
Have you seen influencers on TikTok who promote items they love from Amazon, Target, or Walmart? Send influencers items that are a part of your Black Friday promotion to build hype around your sales.
@everythingenvy Link in bio under “As Seen In Videos” #amazonkitchen #amazonkitchenfinds #amazonhome #kitchengadgets #kitchenorganization #fyp #founditonamazon #amazonmusthaves #amazongadgets #kitchenhacks #fy ♬ original sound – Margaret & Stetson
3. Share A Special Discount Code With Email Subscribers
Share special discounts with your email list. Promote how you offer premium deals to email subscribers on your website using a pop-up to build your email list.
Baublebar sends a VIP discount code to email subscribers to provide the customer value for being on your email list.
4. Post Promotions On Social Media
Promote your Black Friday deals on your social media. Utilize CoSchedule Marketing Suite’s Best Time Scheduling feature to reach the most users by posting your content when it will get the most interaction.
Recommended Reading: 20 Important Social Media Marketing Benefits You Need
5. Promote Your Sales Early Enough
Timing is everything. Post your sales too early, and shoppers will forget about your sale since it isn’t relevant. Apple used this Black Friday teaser email to build hype for a big sale.
Recommended Reading: The Best Times To Post On Social Media In 2023: An Analysis Of More Than 35 Million Posts [Original Research]
6. Offer Deals By The Hour
Switch up your deals hour by hour to encourage quick sales and split-second buying decisions. Use scarcity marketing tactics to create FOMO.
The Peterborough Petes OHL hockey team used this tactic to highlight specific sales of different products throughout the day. This technique highlights different products to give each product more visibility.
7. Plan Promotions That Allow Upselling
Plan promotions that allow you to upsell products and features.
Ways to upsell:
- Gift with a certain amount spent
- Free shipping with a certain amount spent
- Buy 4 get 1 free
- Bundle deal: 5 for $25 but $6.75 each
Pink is notorious for this tactic pushing people to spend more money to get a higher value from their purchase. They also share that quantity is limited to create a sense of urgency.
8. Bundle Products
Bundle similar products to make them less expensive to purchase together. Implement this strategy to boost your order value by increasing the number of products customers buy in a single purchase. This example from Bath and Body Works is an excellent example of how a bundle can be valuable.
Recommended Reading: 26 Advertising Ideas To Jumpstart Your Campaign
9. Offer A No-Questions-Asked Return Policy
Offer a no-questions-asked return policy to encourage customers to buy without regret. This tactic pushes customers towards impulse buys. If they end up hating it, they’ll get their money back.
Cotton On’s return policy allows for a fully refunded, no-questions-asked return policy to build customer satisfaction.
10. Introduce A New Product Or Product Line
Black Friday is a prime time to release a holiday product line. You could also feature products you are trying to sell out of to make room for a winter product line. Black Friday is the kickoff to the Christmas shopping season; use this opportunity to promote your winter lines. Cuts Clothing teases the clothes they plan to drop on Black Friday, which entices customers to shop.
Recommended Reading: 31 Awesome Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Business
11. Enhance Your Current Product
If you aren’t in the position to be giving out major discounts, you can still get in on the Black Friday fun by adding new features or physical products to your current product. Haven Athletic added onto their product, which is organized gym bags for high-performance athletes.
Although Haven Athletic added products that raised the overall price of the gym bag, consumers loved that there were more products included. Enhancing your product can increase revenue without having to lower your price, which makes this strategy very effective.
12. Create Digital Gift Cards
Digital gift cards are always handy and an easy long-distance gift. Incorporate digital gift cards into your marketing strategy and promote them as the perfect gift from afar, like this example from Amazon.
13. Partner With A Charity
Use your platform to donate a percentage of your profit to an organization that aligns with your company’s outlook. Draw attention to the organization and increase your giving amount to make an impactful donation. Good Light donates 25% of its Black Friday profits to an LGBTQ+ non-profit, encouraging cause-focused customers to buy their products.
14. Utilize A Countdown Clock
Put the pressure on by creating a countdown clock banner for the top of your website. Use pressure tactics to push customers towards impulse buys.
Forever 21 uses a countdown clock for shipping deals instead of sales. It pushes upselling and gives you time to process orders, so everyone isn’t buying simultaneously.
15. Retarget Your Abandoned Carts
Don’t let your customers fill a cart and leave empty-handed. Send an abandoned cart email to increase your chance of closing on the sale.
Pretty Little Thing uses this abandoned cart email to remind customers they could run out of stock if they don’t purchase soon.
16. Offer Referral Rewards
Reward customers for promoting your business by offering discounts on your products. Referral programs encourage positive word-of-mouth promotion from customers that are big fans of your product and company.
Casper rewards both the giver and the receiver with their referral program to ensure everyone wins.
17. Make Shipping Free
Provide free shipping only during your Black Friday promotion to add another ace up your sleeve. If your free shipping is limited or conditional on how much money you spend, it encourages customers to purchase during your promotion.
Anthropologie used this sale to offer both limited and conditional free shipping to ensure that customers spend at least $50 to redeem the offer.
18. Promote A Giveaway
Promote a Black Friday giveaway to build traffic on your social media pages and do something different.
Auto Doc Auto Parts promoted this giveaway with rules to make sales and build their social media presence.
Recommended Reading: 29 Sales Promotion Ideas: Stand Out From The Competition
19. Market To Past Customers Who You Haven’t Seen Recently
Retarget past customers that are still on your email list. The more someone sees your product, the more likely they will make the purchase.
Birchbox used this strategy in a retargeting email to convince a customer to use their product again. They entice their target with multiple discounts to make an irresistible offer.
20. Continue Your Sales Into The Weekend Leading Up To Cyber Monday
Offer sales beyond the time that your competitors are. Create a competitive edge by being more accommodating to people who don’t have time to shop all day on Friday.
SMS messaging is a direct marketing approach you can use to notify customers your sale has been extended.
21. Correlate Sales Across Multiple Brands, All Under One Company
Brand consistency creates dependability and trust in your brand and product. Stay consistent through your brands with correlated marketing messages and deal offerings.
One example is Gap Inc. owning Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta. For Black Friday, they should make their discounts and offerings consistent throughout the multiple brands.
22. Build Your Email List Early
Don’t wait until the last minute to start building your email list. Email marketing is an integral part of your Black Friday marketing campaign. A strong email list can help your promotions perform better.
Make sure you offer discounts or a gift for customers who join your email list, so there is something in it for them. Kate Spade uses a pop-up on their website to build their email list and offer a reward that you will only receive if you join the email list.
23. Write A Stand Out Subject Line
Your subject lines may be on the back burner, but it’s time to step it up. A well-written subject line persuades subscribers to open the email and interact with your promotion.
Use CoSchedule’s free email subject line tester to analyze your subject lines and make sure they are attention-grabbing and compelling.
24. Extend Your Offer Beyond Discounts
Offering a limited product to customers could be more valuable than discounts. This strategy will set your promotion apart from all the others on this popular shopping day.
Barnes and Noble make their bookstore a must-stop by offering signed editions of popular books that you only can purchase on Black Friday.
25. Tease Customers With Mystery Savings
Add an element of mystery and interaction into your promotions by sending out mystery discount codes.
Kohl’s integrates this promotion to build excitement for their upcoming Black Friday sales and stay relevant to email subscribers.
26. Promote Conditional Discounts
Offer a discount for purchases over a certain amount. You can take this idea further by offering different levels of discount when they spend more money. Use this idea to upsell and push higher spending, so they save more.
J Crew Factory uses this system for their online store to increase the amount of money people spend on each purchase.
Recommended Reading: 20 Retail Marketing Ideas To Expand Your Reach
27. Ensure Your Website Is Ready For High Traffic
This may not seem like a marketing strategy, but you’ll be in trouble when your site crashes because you did not prepare it for high traffic. Run tests to ensure that your website won’t crack under pressure.
Use GTmetrix to run tests on your website to ensure it is up to speed and can handle high traffic.
28. Provide An Option For Installment Payment
An installment payment option allows customers to pay for their purchase over several months. This payment option is most commonly used for big purchases like new computers, phones, or appliances.
29. Offer Multiple Payment Options
Make the purchase process easy and fast by offering payment options that work for various platforms.
Popular payment methods include:
- Apple pay
- Google pay
- Paypal
- Klarna installment payments
- Card payments
30. Create A Gift Guide
Use research about different target customers to assemble a gift guide, making Christmas shopping on Black Friday less intimidating. Target has an always active gift idea section for stress-free gift giving to inspire quick purchase decisions.
31. Offer A Flash Sale
You can host a flash sale or giveaway on social media or your website throughout the day. These short-duration contests create excitement and engagement, driving more traffic to your Black Friday deals. J. Crew made this catchy ad of a coffee cup getting drunk, which entices customers to act fast so they don’t miss the deal.
32. Create A Limited-Edition Product
Create exclusive, limited-edition products or variations specifically for Black Friday. Limited availability can create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to buy. This product from GLOSSYBOX shows their strategy when it comes to making a limited-edition product that appeals to their consumers.
33. Partner With Another Business
Partner with other local businesses to cross-promote each other’s Black Friday deals. This can help you tap into each other’s customer base and increase exposure. Starbucks and Spotify partnered to promote each other by collaborating to create a Starbucks-curated playlist that was featured in Starbucks locations.
34. Host A Virtual Shopping Event
Host virtual shopping events or live streams on social media platforms where you showcase your products, answer questions, and offer exclusive discounts to viewers. This can mimic the in-store experience online. Nordstrom frequently hosts virtual shopping events where their customers can join and gain insight into the product and its features.
35. Provide Personalized Recommendations
Use data and AI to provide personalized product recommendations to customers based on their past purchases and browsing history. Personalization can enhance the shopping experience and boost sales.
Old Navy does a great job at personalized recommendations by creating a wish list that consists of any products that you abandoned at checkout.
