Thanksgiving is considered the most important holiday across the pond in the USA, Black Friday is the day which follows it. It traditionally marks the start of the shopping season – pretty much like Boxing Day does for us Brits.
Black Friday first appeared in the UK in 2010 when American eCommerce giants Amazon ran the first ever Black Friday promotion.
We may not celebrate Thanks giving but ever since Black Friday was introduced to the UK, the sales it generates has been steadily growing. In 2020 the British public spent an astonishing £7.95b on Black Friday weekend – an impressive £4.77b of which was online spend.
While 48% of Brits still believe Boxing Day is the most popular shopping day of the year, a respectable 45% believe it’s Black Friday – so as you can probably see, Black Friday is an event you need to ad to your marketing calendar, here are a few ways you can benefit from it…
1. Offer generous discounts on products you can afford to discount
Black Friday discounts have to be special, something to shout about, it’s what shoppers expect – so you need to identify categories and or product lines that you can afford to heavily discount. There is no set rule on what discounts to offer of course, but the higher the discount, the higher the appeal, anything below 20% may be considered a bit, well… meh.
2. If your products are low value or low margin, bundle them up
Some business sell low value products and/or products which have a low profit margin, so discounting singular products may not be worth while when taking other expenses like shipping into consideration.
One way you can still offer value to potential customers and make running a Black Friday deal worthwhile is by bundling products to increase the average order value.
Selling a beautiful silk tie at £20 with 30% off may not make much commercial sense taking shipping, packing, PPC costs and VAT into consideration, but offering 30% off a bundle of 5 silk ties makes a lot more sense. A saving of £30 is a lot more appealing than a saving of £6 too your website visitors too.
3. Make your best customers feel special
A great way of making your best customers feel valued and increase loyalty is by giving them something a little extra, here are a few ways you could do this:
– Early access to the discounts
– Free delivery in addition to the discounts
– An extra 5-10% off
4. Shout about it, and do it early
Black Friday is a busy time for advertisers whether it be paid advertising, social media marketing, or email marketing.
A great trick is to start early, about a month early, there are a few advantages to doing this…
– Demand is lower so paid advertising is a lot cheaper.
– People get exhausted by being inundated with Black Friday adverts, get in there before anyone else does so people see and are aware of your promotions before black Friday ads become a blur.
– Do a social media countdown to create anticipation, schedule a visual post up to 10 days before Black Friday counting down the days.
– Don’t forget to schedule emails for the day of your promotion and the final day of your promotion to create a sense of urgency and push for those final sales.
5. Ensure site stability
The last thing you want is to spend tons of time and money on your Black Friday promotion only for your website to go down.
- Install an uptime monitor such as Pingdom.
- Every millisecond counts – check your website speed on Google’s PageSpeed Insights and action the recommendations it gives you.
- If your website is hosted on a resource limited plan or shared hosting plan, upgrade it, I strongly recommend SiteGround cloud hosting.
- Ensure you have a website backup, I recommend using a tool that automatically backs up your website in real time and allows 1-click restoration.
Finally...
Don’t worry about losing brand integrity – pretty much every brand offers wow-factor discounts on Black Friday, if brands like Net-A-Porter can offer discounts on £3,000 + handbags without worrying about it, so can you!
– Devise a Black Friday strategy identifying what products/categories to discount and by how much, bundle products up if your product value is low.
– Make your best customers feel special, give them a little something extra.
– Promote your Black Friday deals sooner rather than later to take advantage of cheaper ad prices and potential customers not yet exhausted by Black Friday messaging.
– Ensure your site is monitored, fast and backed up.
– Enjoy it!
