11 Black Friday Marketing Ideas and Best Practices to Incite Customers

Boosting Sales on Black Friday Is Challenging

What better date for both customers and retailers to love than Black Friday? For marketeers, it’s the season where the Black Friday marketing ideas can unleash creativity and boost sales.

For customers, it’s the heaven discount season where they can splurge before Christmas. It’s the perfect opportunity for Christmas gift shopping.

As a communication provider, we also love Black Friday since it’s one of our busiest times of the year. Communication messages flows left and right and our customer support teams love helping our customers to boost sales through engaging mobile campaigns.

Last year alone, online spending on Black Friday surged 21.6% to hit a new record $9 billion, according to Adobe Analytics.

We look forward to seeing how this year’s Black Friday marketing campaigns ideas will influence consumers. In this article, we want to share with you some of the best practices to follow this season.

1.     Start Your Black Friday Marketing Ideas Early on Social Media

Your customers are expecting Black Friday season, so they will be looking for promotions early.

They are aware that prices will drop, so if they are faithful to your brand, they will visit your store way before November 26.

So, plan social media campaigns for Black Friday promotions early. A report by Criteo suggests that the best time for first-time buyers is on average of 43 days before the date.

Best practice takeaway: Four weeks earlier, publish twice a week about Black Friday. Share some products you plan to discount.

2.     Prepare a Customer Retention Strategy for Black Friday Season

With most businesses busy to plan Black Friday campaigns, many forget that this is the perfect opportunity to turn first-time buyers into loyal customers.

Let’s not forget the overwhelming amount of Black Friday marketing messages hitting every communication channel. It’s hard to remember all the brands, especially when most buying decisions were impulsive.

VoiceSage’s advice is to start a customer retention plan that converts first-time buyers into long-term repeated customers.

Best practice takeaway: Start a drip marketing campaign to retain customers. Make sure your personalize emails and text messages to show customers that you care about them as individuals.

3.     Offer a Gift with Every Purchase

Another effective Black Friday marketing idea is to offer a gift with every purchase. You can decide whether you want the customers to purchase a certain amount.

More spending results in more revenue, so a gift is a lovely idea to incentivize. For instance, according to Spendmenot, Black Friday shoppers spent $430 on average in 2021.

Best practice takeaway: Customers who spend more with you should receive a gift. This way, you show they are appreciated and valued.

4.     Share a Discount Code via Text Messaging

Sharing discount or promo codes is not a new Black Friday marketing idea. Share special discounts with the customers who signed up to receive mobile messaging communications.

Take advantage of the entire four-day period between Black Friday and Cyber Monday by sending text messaging, which is instant and cost-effective, unlike other marketing channels.

However, don’t over-message your customers unless you see that they respond well to your text messaging campaigns.

Best practice takeaway: Make sure you enrich your text messaging campaigns with rich media content to drive better customer engagement.

5.     Make Shipping Free for Customers

Some brand already offer free shipping throughout the year, but if you are don’t offer this benefit yet, make sure you at least skip the shipping fee for Black Friday season.

Providing free shipping during Black Friday promotions allows you to encourage customers to purchase more.

Best practice takeaway: On top of the free shipping, add a discount code that can be redeemed when a certain amount is spent on online purchases.

6.     Bundle Products to Upsell

Bundled products strategy is a marketing technique in which several products are grouped together and sold as a unit. You might be familiar with this method from Amazon.

Just be aware that creating product bundles is an art because customers might react to bundles differently.

Best practice takeaway: When choosing to use product bundle for Black Friday campaigns, make sure you know your audience to create a good segmentation and targeting.

7.     Create Urgency with Countdown Timer

The countdown timer element is a great method of creating a sense of urgency for your customers to drive more sales.

And what better timing than Black Friday, right? Powerful selling and stunning visuals are what drives conversions. So, make sure that you incorporate a countdown timer in your communication.

Best practice takeaway: Emphasize the sense of urgency by setting a deadline. Use words like “urgent”, “limited”, “hurry up” in your marketing messages. And include a strong CTA to motivate customer to act.

8.     Market to Churned Customers

Don’t let your old customers go empty-handed on Black Friday. Re-established lost connections with your customers on Black Friday by re-engaging them with text messaging or email marketing campaigns.

If you know the reason why they churned, let that be the ace in your sleeves. For example, if they stopped buying from you because you didn’t offer them free delivery, now it’s your time to win them back with Black Friday free shipping offer.

Best practice takeaway: Lost customers respond well to a company that listens to their frustrations, acknowledges their reason for churning, and takes steps to address the issue and improve customer experience.

9.     Build Your Messaging List Early On

Having an up-to-date messaging list is important when planning mass messaging campaigns. Make sure all your contacts are subscripted to receive marketing communications on their mobile phones.

Additionally, knowing the best times to contact customers would make your Black Friday messaging campaigns more effective.

Best practice takeaway: Customer value to receive messaging and alerts on their preferred communication channels, at the right time.

10.  Coordinate Sales Across Multiple Channels

Brand consistency is what creates trust and familiarity with your customers’ base. Stay consistent with your Black Friday marketing ideas across channels.

Your deals and offerings should have the same branding and messaging on your online shop, social media, text messages, WhatsApp, YouTube, brick-and-mortar shop, etc.

Best practice takeaway: Expose your audience to the same core messages on Black Friday. Make sure your brand elements repeat on all communication channels to solidify brand recognition.

11.  Offer Multiple Payment Options

Lastly, a great Black Friday marketing idea to integrate is to offer multiple payment options at checkout.

Make your purchase journeys as easy and fast as you can by offering additional payment options. Some examples include Apple Pay, Google Pay, Paypal, card payments, instalments, etc.

Best practice takeaway: Offering multiple payment options can scale up your Black Friday conversions and improve overall customer satisfaction.

Wrapping Up Black Friday Marketing Ideas

It’s time to wrap up our Black Friday marketing ideas article and we hope you took some important key takeaways to integrate in your future campaigns.

Remember that these aren’t limited to Black Friday season only. In fact, we recommend applying these marketing tips and tricks to your existing strategies for good.

Last but not least, check out VoiceSage’s text messaging solutions that include a wide range of communication channels from simple SMS, rich messages, WhatsApp, email, voice solutions, and social media.