Black Friday Marketing Strategy: How to Stand out among the Competition
Introduction to Black Friday Marketing
Black Friday season is the busiest time of year for small business owners. Every year, businesses prepare to launch new products and services, run massive sales, and work around the clock to support new and existing clients. During the craziest shopping time of year, it's important to approach your Black Friday marketing with strategy and intention.
This post guides you through some of my best Black Friday promo ideas and marketing strategies to help you stand out among the competition. As a marketing strategist who has supported clients through 4+ years of Black Friday launches, I have some tips and tricks up my sleeve.
Whether this is your first or 20th Black Friday, it's my hope that these strategies inspire and encourage you with your Black Friday promotion.
Black Friday Promo Ideas
When you consider what Black Friday should look like in your business, you mind may only go to "sale". While discounted products and services are enticing for customers, it's not the only thing you can do. Here are some Black Friday promo ideas to get your wheels turning.
Gameify Your Promo
Making things fun is a great way to capture attention and harness engagement from your audience. Consider running a virtual scavenger hunt, offering scratch-offs to reveal a discount, or having a scoreboard with prizes and different levels for purchases.
Adding the element of gamification increases the little dopamine hits customers already receive from purchasing, and it improves the experience someone has with your brand. Most of all, it makes buying FUN!
Run a Flash Sale
The most obvious Black Friday promo idea is to run a sale. The sales that you run during Black Friday should be one of if not THE biggest sale of the year—and make that fact very known to your audience.
Flash sales are only available for a limited time, thus creating urgency and getting people off the fence in order to make a purchasing decision.
Create a New and Product or Service
People are already in the "buying mindset" during Black Friday, making it the perfect time to launch something new. Think about what people have asked you about and how you can turn those questions into a new product or service.
Make sure this is something your audience really wants and will be excited about, in order for it to stand out among the noise. If you want to take things a step further during your Black Friday promo, you can offer this new item at a special price—but only during Black Friday week.
Add Exclusive Bonuses to an Existing Product or Service
It may not always make sense to discount your products or services. For example, if they won't be profitable or worth the effort with a discount, something else to consider is adding exclusive bonuses instead.
This is the exact strategy I used during Black Friday 2023. I offered bonuses like a free content calendar template, free 30-minute strategy session, and free week of Voxer messaging support with my different offers. This is an enticing option for clients who were debating booking your services anyway, and it creates urgency because those bonuses are only for a limited time.
Black Friday Marketing Do's and Don'ts
Black Friday marketing is different from regular, day-today marketing because everyone is vying for their customers' attention. Here are some do's and don'ts for effective marketing during this time.
Black Friday Do's
Plan Ahead: This is NOT the time to wing your strategy. Start planning your launch strategy (this free launch checklist will help), social media content, emails, and products and services ahead of time. This will allow you to be present and available during Black Friday week.
Prioritize Email Marketing: Email is one of the most effective tools for driving Black Friday sales. Spend the months leading up to Black Friday growing and nurturing your audience, so that they know, like, and trust you when it comes time to sell. Click here to get 50% off Flodesk, the email marketing platform I recommend.
Build Community on Social Media: Take the time before Black Friday growing a loyal community on social media. Show your face, share your stories, be honest and vulnerable, and that will help you find your people.
Offer What Your Audience Wants: Do your research. If you choose to launch a new product or service, make sure it's exactly what you're audience wants. This is not the time to experiment; there are better times of year for that.
Black Friday Don'ts
Spam Your Audience: You likely will need to email your audience more frequently than usual, but there's no need to send more than one email a day. People will get annoyed before they even have the chance to buy. More does not necessarily mean better.
Ghost Your Audience, Then Sell: You need time to build trust and provide value before running a Black Friday promotion. I recommend my clients take the 6-10 weeks (at least) before a launch providing free education, stories, and overall value so their community trusts them before launching.
Forget to Follow Up: People might not buy during Black Friday, but that doesn't mean it's a "no" forever. If you do your launch right, your audience and email list should grow during the pre-launch phase. Continue to nurture and serve those people after Black Friday ends—the follow up is so important!
Black Friday Launch Support
If you're looking for some support, strategy, and accountability during Black Friday, I have two resources that will help you.
Black Friday Launch Checklist
Are you wondering how to best prepare for your Black Friday launch? Click here to download your free launch checklist, where I break down the to-dos to check off every week for the 8 weeks leading up to cart open.
Black Friday Launch Roadmap
Need some more 1:1 support to help bring your launch to life? I'm supporting a select few small business owners during Black Friday season inside the Launch Roadmap.
I'll provide the perfect storm of operations support and marketing strategy to help you hit your launch goals. Click here to learn more about Launch Roadmap and book your spot.
