Brace yourselves, silly season is fast approaching. It’ll be Christmas before we know it, and as marketers, this stretch tends to be one of the most lucrative times of year for our clients, which makes it worth getting our ducks in a row early to capitalise on the spending frenzy ahead.
A key milestone during this period is the now hugely popular Black Friday sales, which have expanded significantly in recent years into a full weekend-long event, wrapping up on the Monday with Cyber Monday sales.
Black Friday falls on the Friday immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US each year.
Any business selling goods or services should have a solid strategy in place to make the most of this period, since people will genuinely be in the market to spend.
Here are a few things worth thinking through when planning your Black Friday sale.
Incentives
Are you running a 25% off sitewide sale, or using this as a chance to clear older stock with BOGOF offers or similar? Testing different promotions is a good way to engage different segments of your audience.
Channels
Think through which channels you’ll actually use. Make sure your social ads are updated and your Google Ads copy is refreshed. Consider how to put your email database to work too, how many emails to send and what each one should say. Will you extend your reach further through the Google Display Network or YouTube, for example?
Creative
Alongside choosing the right channels, it’s worth producing a set of fresh, vibrant creatives to advertise your promotion. Short, animated video tends to be the format of choice, but it’s best practice to test multiple creatives across different sizes to see which resonates most with your audience and actually delivers against your KPIs.
Content/Products
Do you have specific products to showcase this period? Is there content worth planning around them? Blogs are a great way to educate and softly sell products to customers, warming people up ahead of a bigger offer when Cyber Weekend actually hits.
Budget
Will you push your ad spend further to maximise returns during the sale period, or stay conservative? Like any major sale period in digital, costs tend to climb, CPMs, CPCs, and CPAs all rise due to the auction-based bidding systems platforms like Facebook and Google use. As more advertisers compete for the same space, more ads get placed and more money gets spent, which drives costs up for everyone else bidding too. Worth staying mindful of.
