Black Friday is an opportunity for businesses around the UK to win big at a time when consumers are prepared to spend a large amounts of money. Traditionally, tech retailers would drive the sales and win big, but the scope of the day has broadened to a whole Black Friday week that all kinds of businesses want to be a part of. Even some service-based businesses offer discounted rates at this time of year to bring in new clients.
Why do we have Black Friday in the UK?
Black Friday is a US tradition associated with Thanksgiving, so you’d be forgiven for wondering why we care about it in the UK.
The craze on this side of the Atlantic was driven by international giants like Amazon and American-owned Asda who saw an opportunity to shift large amounts of stock in the run up to Christmas. Not wanting to be outdone, other large retailers followed and it quickly snowballed to the point where the consumer appetite for savings was enough for smaller businesses to want a slice of the pie as well.
At it’s core, Black Friday in the UK is an excuse for a pre-Christmas sale. This is important to remember, because the sales are by no means obligatory.
As we’ll explore, there are ways to win and ways to lose at this unique time of the year and if it’s bad for business, you shouldn’t do it. However, many small businesses can see a lot of success if they prepare correctly, which is what we aim to help you do.
The pros and cons of Black Friday sales
Before planning a Black Friday sale it’s important to weigh up the pros and cons for your business. The table below highlights some of the key points you should consider:
| Pros | Cons |
| Many business report record numbers of products sold over the Black Friday weekend. | Some argue that Black Friday brings no increase in demand for products. Consumers pay less for what they’d buy anyway. |
| Increased exposure through organic and paid campaigns. New customers have a real incentive to look at your site. | If your website experiences abnormal traffic levels, it’s at risk of slowing down or breaking completely. |
| Retaining new customers leads to an increased customer base for Christmas and beyond, generating money beyond the weekend itself. |
To make the most of Black Friday, you need to be sure that the benefit outweighs the cost. Let’s say you don’t have the means to make a big marketing push to gain visibility in the lead up. All that’s likely to happen from a Black Friday sale is that existing customers will pay less for products they would have bought at full price anyway.
On the other hand, if you leverage clever marketing and well-chosen deals, you can win new customers and sell products to existing customers that they wouldn’t have considered otherwise.
The way to make Black Friday successful, even if you sell lots of products at cut prices, is to make sure that those customers are retained in the future, which means they’ll make you a nice profit in the long term. In the next section, we’ll look in more detail at how to accomplish this ideal situation.
How to promote Black Friday online
Effective Black Friday promotion is multi-channel. This means that it should incorporate all the different marketing tools you have at your disposal: search engine optimisation, search advertising, social media presence and email campaigns.
Search engine optimisation (organic reach)
There are two basic parts to organic Black Friday promotion: maximising the impact of existing landing pages and creating new, targeted landing pages. If you have several high-performing pages, make sure that your deals are visible on them and immediately accessible to users.
For example, that could take the form of a banner or sidebar with a link through to a sales page. It’s also worth creating a landing page optimised for Black Friday in your industry (i.e. a page designed to talk about Black Friday and promote your deals).
Data from Hitwise suggests that there are 40% more searches for ‘black friday’ and related terms in the UK this year, so it’s a very good idea to try and get in front some of those searchers by.
Search advertising
Regardless of organic reach, paid search advertising (PPC) is a way to get visibility in front of people searching for highly relevant keywords. At such a competitive time of year, it’s essential that you get your deals and messaging right.
If you want clicks from those ads, they have to stand out from competitors. That means your deals have to be better (or at least look better) and you should make the most of ad extensions to make your ads as eye-catching as possible.
Social media presence
A mixture of social advertising and leveraging any organic reach you have is essential in the days before Black Friday.
Social media platforms are a great way to let people know what deals you have on. Image-based platforms like Instagram and Pinterest will help you to draw attention to key products, while Facebook and Twitter will help you to build buzz and talk to your audience.
Paid promotion on social channels is also one of the best ways to reach a highly targeted audience, helping you to bring new customers to the site whom you know fit the demographic of your existing customers.
Email marketing
Email is still one of the most powerful marketing tools if used correctly. In the run up to Black Friday it’s important to offer incentives to customers who receive emails.
Consider offering limited edition early deals, exclusive codes, or extra money off if they refer a friend. This channel is also crucial for retaining new customers after Black Friday has passed.
Follow up purchases with welcoming emails, perhaps offering further deals or incentives to return for their Christmas shopping. If you can retain a good percentage of your new customers into 2018, your Black Friday is likely to have been very successful.
Looking ahead to Christmas
Black Friday and Christmas occur so close together that making a meaningful distinction in shopper activity at this time is difficult. Many consumers use the Black Friday weekend as a chance to get a lot of their Christmas shopping finished and buyer activity tends to decline throughout December.
Depending on the nature of your business, Black Friday may be the single big spike in your year, with no significant activity in December. However, if you know customers tend to stay more engaged, managing the transition to the end of the year is an important skill.
Remarketing - sending emails or showing ads to previously engaged audiences (whether they were buyers or people who clicked on ads in the past) - is a particularly effective strategy at this time of year. Maintaining communication with engaged audiences in this way keeps you fresh in their minds as they continue to shop in the weeks before Christmas. Consider offering small discounts for existing customers if you want to stand a good chance of selling them something new.
It’s important to see Black Friday as an important part of an ongoing strategy, rather than an isolated ‘quick win’ event. If you approach it with this mindset, you’re much more likely to see lasting success from the sales, rather than a one-time spike fuelled by discounts.
published under Digital Marketing Guide
