Building Your Black Friday Campaign
As the shopping season draws near, Black Friday looks set to be the most important sales event of the year once again. According to data from Salesforce, 63% of consumers plan to shop on Black Friday 2023, which highlights how important the event is for businesses of every size.
This turns Black Friday marketing into a real battlefield, with brands trying to outdo one another in clever ways. It is a race to capture the biggest share of the market, and those who plan early are usually the ones who succeed.
These Black Friday marketing tactics don’t just benefit online shoppers; they also help businesses boost sales quickly. However, in a world where every marketing effort is built with care, standing out is far from easy. But remember: with a strong strategy, you can still shine even when competition is fierce.
E-Commerce Strategies for Black Friday: Winning the Online Shopping Rush
“Black Friday is not just another bad day on Wall Street. It is the term U.S. retailers use to describe the day after Thanksgiving, considered the official start of the Christmas shopping season.” – According to Evan Davis, BBC News,
Black Friday began as a tradition in brick-and-mortar retail stores, but in today’s digital age it has become a key factor for e-commerce. Black Friday marketing strategy has evolved beyond old conventions and now dominates the online shopping world.
In other words, Black Friday is a crucial period not only for shoppers but also for online retailers and e-commerce websites, and it needs to be assessed carefully. Preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday with genuine promotions and standout campaigns can significantly increase your sales during Black Friday.
So here is the most important question: How do you prepare your e-commerce business for Black Friday?
The busiest selling period of the year brings plenty of potential customers to your online store, provided your Black Friday marketing strategies are well organized and carefully planned – from social media management to content and email marketing. The right decisions will help you make effective use of this surge in traffic.
For this reason, you need to define your planned promotion and advertising strategy for this period, based on data gathered from your market research. The earlier you set this direction, the more flexible you will be when facing new conditions.
There are specific strategies you can apply to get your business ready for this festive shopping season.
During the Black Friday sale period, your sales and average order value will rise compared with normal conditions. In the process, boosting sales and orders through a few strategies will increase your revenue significantly.
Marketing Strategies for Black Friday
Considering that the average consumer spends $128 on Black Friday (according to Deloitte Insights), you can expect your sales and average order value to rise compared with normal conditions.
In the process, boosting sales and orders through a few strategies will increase your revenue significantly.
The most effective Black Friday marketing strategies can help lift your sales during this discount period. Before we get to the tips, take a moment to remember Lindsay Lohan’s outstanding appearance in her Black Friday promotion video:
@lindsaylohan Get in, besties. We’re going shopping. #BlackFridayDeals go live next week. #BlackFriday #Sponsored
Create a Sense of Urgency
Black Friday discounts are valid only for a limited time. Shoppers who don’t take advantage of Black Friday deals during this window may not get the same opportunity again anytime soon. Besides the time limit, including a limited quantity of products in the promotion will encourage customers to buy right away.
Tip: You can also create a sense of time running out by adding a countdown timer for each product on your website. Black Friday marketing ideas should be creative and always up to date, just like Shopify does every year.

Create Gift Guides
Customers see their purchases during this period as being not only for themselves but also for gifts for loved ones. To tap into this trend, as an online seller, you can prepare appealing gift guides for different customer groups.
Tip: You can help them choose the best gift for their loved ones by clearly showing the audience and purpose your products serve.

Get Ready for Price Searches
All shoppers will focus on price, or at least be influenced by it, throughout Black Friday. So create price-focused ads so you can be listed and attract attention in search results.
If you can’t apply this to all products, at least create a specific product group with attractive prices. Draw visitors to your website by announcing them. Highlight affordable products in particular on your homepage and category pages.

Tip: You can persuade shoppers to make quick decisions by using messages such as “limited stock.” At the same time, you can also try to keep interest in your website high with messages such as “lowest price in 1 hour.”

Strengthen Customer Support
Black Friday is an ideal time to boost sales and build a loyal customer base. The after-sales support you provide matters.
Turning one-time buyers into loyal customers is a great goal as you develop your Black Friday marketing strategy. The main goal may focus on the short term, but you can reap long-term benefits from your marketing strategy.
Tip: After each transaction, you can contact customers directly by email to thank them for choosing you and provide links so they can share their reviews.
Email Marketing Strategy for Black Friday
We all understand that effective email marketing campaigns can play an important role in capturing customers’ attention, driving website traffic and, ultimately, increasing sales during this peak shopping period. That holds true for Black Friday too; according to Retainful, click-through rate (CTR) rises 64% when subject lines mention Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
During this period, working people in particular check their email inboxes constantly. At that moment, an email with an attractive offer makes it easier to grab attention. To avoid missing this opportunity, running an effective email strategy throughout the campaign will deliver positive results.
As a first step, you can divide the campaign period into sub-phases and send countdown emails to potential customers as a reminder. Take Walmart’s marketing strategy as an example:

Well-known brands understand how to build excitement, which can lead to higher sales ahead of Black Friday. By sending emails weeks in advance, Walmart stirs shoppers’ interest in Black Friday and all the great deals they can look forward to.

Industry giants regularly include Black Friday offers and promotions in their emails. This gives subscribers an advantage over other shoppers and can be a major motivation to open emails and click on links.
The international e-commerce platform JD.com uses scarcity messaging and limited-time offers to create a sense of urgency. It goes so far as to highlight limited quantities, exclusive deals and countdown timers to encourage customers to act immediately without hesitation.

Brands are focusing on short, to-the-point content strategies. They also use customer information and purchase history to personalize their email campaigns.
In addition, in their Black Friday email campaigns, they cleverly remind customers about the products sitting in their carts. This makes the campaign more logical and more effective.

As is widely known, after adding products to their carts, most online shoppers leave the website without checking out.

In a Black Friday marketing strategy scenario, you can create emails or ads that remind shoppers about their carts, or send notifications to prevent cart abandonment.
Results will improve if you build the content of these emails and notifications around the special features of the sale. You might even offer free shipping if they complete the process within about 15 minutes.

Social Media Strategy for Black Friday
A social media strategy for Black Friday is not simply about announcing the campaign ahead of time. During this period, making use of loyalty programs, early offers, limited-time deals, contests and giveaways becomes extremely important.
@kilimall We are ushering our first Friday of #kilimallblackfriday2023 in style! 🎉🙌 We will be having amazing flash sale products from as low as Ksh 9! We’ll have amazing Friday deals on all categories! We will be live tonight from 11 p.m. with more information on the same! See you there! #kilimallxitelxrichripple #kilimallblackfriday2023 #friday #blackfridaydeals
♬ original sound – Kilimall Affordable Shopping – Kilimall Affordable Shopping
Amazon, one of the prominent names behind the rise of big shopping days like Black Friday, has demonstrated how important it is to manage social media platforms well.
By turning your social media accounts into a reminder service and a deals hub, you can reach more potential customers as the campaign continues or new products are added. On Black Friday in particular, there are often creative campaigns or user posts on social media. You can engage with other people’s posts creatively to connect with a wider audience. Walmart is a great example of this approach.
@walmart Build your shopping list now so you can save with #BlackFridayDeals next Wednesday! (Oh, & you can thank us later. 😉) #BlackFriday #LinkInBio
As you do this, remember that content providing information about your products and services, together with eye-catching images and creative videos, will help you reach more potential customers. It is therefore important to prepare goal-oriented content before the campaign period, in line with your promotion strategy.
@unicorncosmetics We have daily flash deals every day to the run up to our Black Friday Sales 🩷🚨🤩 #tiktokmademebuyit #tiktokflashdeals #makeupdeals #blackfridaydeals
You can also focus on customer-generated content, such as reviews and especially user-generated content. Many people will look at opinions from real customers before they trust you; encouraging them to leave reviews will therefore help raise your sales over the long term.
Black Friday Advertising Strategy
Mastering the art of Black Friday advertising strategy is not just an option – it is a necessity. To stand out during this period, you need to create advertising strategies that are creative, data-driven and capture consumers’ hearts.
P.S: If you want to work with a professional team, check out our list of digital marketing companies that specialize in advertising and digital marketing.
Next, let’s explore the strategies you can apply to maximize the potential of this important event.
Develop a Mobile-First Strategy
Don’t forget that most customers view your ads and products on mobile phones. So it is important to develop a strategy that includes, and even focuses on, mobile devices. If your content and sales website are fully mobile-friendly, that has a positive impact on your sales on Black Friday.
Mobile phones account for the majority of shopping traffic during the Black Friday season. However, many websites fail to engage mobile users, leading to many abandoned carts. You can check whether your website is mobile-friendly by using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
Check Your Inventory and Resources
A fundamental aspect of a successful advertising strategy is making sure you have enough inventory and resources to meet the demand your e-commerce digital marketing campaign generates. This is especially important during peak periods like Black Friday, when sales can rise significantly.
During this time, you may see sales you have never reached or expected. So checking your stock and reasonably defining which products fall within the campaign will help you avoid problems that could arise.
See more: How to run ads on TikTok simply and effectively in 2024
This of course depends on your product or service. If you sell software, making sure you have enough staff and infrastructure to handle the influx of new users may be realistic. Or if you sell computers, you need to make sure you have enough products to meet high demand.
Decide Which Products Go in the Campaign
Deciding which products to include in your digital marketing campaign is an important part of your Black Friday advertising strategy. You should not include every product in your catalog, as this can confuse customers and make it hard for them to find the products they are really interested in.
Create a Smooth and Secure Checkout Process
Although improving your payment system may not seem directly related to digital marketing, a smooth checkout process is important for reducing cart abandonment and increasing sales. At this point, reassure customers about the security of their transactions by displaying trust badges from reputable organizations.
As part of your Black Friday e-commerce marketing strategy, showing prices upfront is the right decision. Providing clear pricing information helps customers make informed decisions before they buy. Include all related costs, taxes and shipping fees in the final price to avoid surprises at checkout.
In addition, giving customers the option to complete a purchase without creating an account can reduce friction and encourage impulse buying. Likewise, requesting only the necessary information, such as full name, email address, payment details, and billing and shipping addresses, is another good tip. Streamlining the information-gathering process minimizes the time and effort needed to complete a purchase.
Offering multiple payment methods is a creative strategy; to do this, you need to meet customers’ diverse preferences by providing many payment options such as credit cards, e-wallets, bank transfers, and the increasingly popular “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) method. At the same time, make sure you provide fast customer support to resolve any questions or concerns customers may have during checkout.
Implementing these strategies helps create a customer-centered shopping experience, encourages purchases, reduces cart abandonment and ultimately increases sales revenue.
Conclusion
The Black Friday season is one of the busiest times of the year for businesses around the world. If you own an online store, this is a big opportunity not only to boost sales but also to attract potential customers for the long term.
In short, the Black Friday marketing strategies we have covered can help you improve your sales performance this year. We hope you now have a better understanding of Black Friday, its impact on retailers around the world, how to prepare for this shopping festival, and how to achieve success.
Nguyễn Đình
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As CEO of The7, I am committed to sharing practical, useful knowledge with every reader. Every article on The7 is based on my 7 years of hands-on experience in marketing — Facebook advertising, LinkedIn advertising, Google advertising, and marketing strategy. I hope you take away plenty of insight from these posts and apply it successfully in practice.
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