How You Can Increase Sales by 30% on Black Friday (2022)

How You Can Increase Sales by 30% on Black Friday

Black Friday is coming up fast. Are you ready for it?

This article will get you where you need to be with your Black Friday marketing strategy.

I’ll be giving you the strategies we’ve used with clients to drive 30% increases in Black Friday sales. These are proven Black Friday marketing strategies that your business should be using.

Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year, and you should definitely be taking full advantage of it. In 2019 (because let’s face it, last year doesn’t really count) Black Friday online shopping sales hit a record $7.4 billion.

However, it doesn’t matter how good your specials are if you don’t use the right Black Friday marketing strategy.

Check out these Black Friday marketing strategies and tips that have helped businesses gain a huge boost in business.

Drive Traffic With Social Media and Advertising

The first thing is to get your brand out there and get it seen by prospective customers.

The easiest way to do that is through social media and advertising.

This section will cover promoting your brand on Facebook, with Facebook Ads, and with Google Ads.

Create Your Social Media Posts

You should start promoting your Black Friday deals at least a week before the day itself.

Remember that people consider the week around Thanksgiving as a bit of a holiday, so social media usage tends to drop off. As a result, be sure you get your posts in under the wire before people start traveling.

Here’s a good idea of social media usage around the Holidays:

What you’re seeing there is Thanksgiving in the bottom quartile beneath the average, and the weeks before in the second quartile above it.

Here’s a Black Friday post example from Home Depot:

What I like about this post:

Focusing on the products, and making them look good
Focusing on Holiday products – things you need to buy as gifts or for the holiday season
“Lowest Prices of the Year” implies that, if you miss out on these prices, you’ll have to pay more later
Big, clear font

For a guide to holiday social media, check out “7 Social Media Hacks for the Holiday Season.”

Create your Facebook Ads

Before we dive into online advertising, there’s something you should be aware of: Ads cost about twice as much between the third week of November and the New Year as they do the rest of the year.

The graph looks, depressingly, like this.

So, there’s a strategy we use to maximize our client’s ad budget…

Bonus Tip: Creating Early-Access Campaigns.

These campaigns, promoted with online ads in the weeks before Black Friday, give people access to your deals 24 hours before anyone else.

As the president of Savings.com says, “If you’re going to buy a big-screen TV, you’re only going to buy one, so whoever gets it first wins.”

Equally, whoever sells it first wins.

So don’t get persnickety about the day itself. Instead, create a campaign page to collect prospective customers interested in saving big before anybody else.

Here’s an example of a Black Friday marketing page made using Wishpond’s landing page builder.

Then, create an email drip campaign that is sent to all your entrants giving them access to exclusive Black Friday deals 24-hours before you open those deals to the public. This exclusivity is also effective in ramping up conversion rates.

Get Your Black Friday Facebook Ads Right

If you decide to run Facebook ads as part of your Black Friday marketing strategies, you’ll need to make sure you create these ads properly.

Here are a few successful Black Friday Facebook Ad examples:

Advertising platform AdEspresso has a really good, searchable library of Facebook Ads. If you’re looking for inspiration for your Black Friday ad, I recommend you check them out (after finishing this post, of course).

Run Your Google Ads Properly

A few Black Friday Google Advertising best practices:

Reference “Black Friday” in the ad copy itself. It’ll grab the eye of searchers
Put the time limit right into the ad. For instance, “Sale Ends in 5 Hours.” Then update the ad throughout the day.
Include the inventory limitations throughout the day. For instance, “Only 14 left at this price” within the ad.

For example:

Remember:

Google determines the cost of a click based on traffic for the search term. Around Black Friday, search traffic is going to explode. As a result, you need to increase your ad budget, significantly, to be seen at all. For instance, searches for toys go up 50% around Black Friday. Budget accordingly.

This is especially true if you’re targeting a keyword with “deal” in it:

Update Your Website to Drive People to Your Black Friday Sales

On the day itself, my recommendation is to have your website visitors avoid your homepage entirely.

You’ll drive more sales if you point people in the direction of A) a page specific to the ad they clicked on, or B) an experience oriented around the discounts you’re offering.

So instead of directing people to your homepage, create a redirect towards a Black Friday-oriented product directory, and exclusively drive people there for the duration of the promotional season.

For instance, this example from Home Depot:

A product directory like this one is super easy to create with Wishpond’s landing page builder. And it’ll automatically be optimized for mobile (which is pretty cool).

Not Sure How to Create a Redirect?

There are a few options, depending on what platform your website is built on. Check out this guide for WordPress, and this Google search for everything else.

Next, create department-based, Black Friday landing pages, like this one:

What I like about this page:

Countdown timer adds urgency to the buying experience
Discounts are in orange and clearly visible
“Today only” also adds urgency
Clearly displays how much the products are normally, without discount

Black Friday Marketing Strategies Done for You

Wishpond’s marketing experts would be happy to help you set this up. You can set up a time to talk about Black Friday marketing strategies as well as website optimization by clicking here.

Use Popups to Turn Traffic Into Leads, If Not Customers

Popups are an awesome way for you to notify Black Friday traffic about your deals, as well as turn them into leads.

Here are some examples of how you can use popups to boost Black Friday sales.

A simple entry popup to make every website visitor aware of your deals:

An entry popup offering a bonus promotion exclusively available to subscribers:

Top Tip: I recommend you focus on turning Black Friday traffic into subscribers, either through the “Early-Access” campaign I showed you above, or through popups like this one. 90% of your website traffic isn’t going to complete a purchase the first time, but with email campaigns (especially abandoned cart emails), you have a chance to convert them later down the line.

Build Up Excitement

Every business runs Black Friday marketing strategies and discounts of some kind, so you need to make sure yours stand out. This is why you should start to build up excitement around your Black Friday and Cyber Monday specials early.

Your goal should be to spark curiosity around your Black Friday and Cyber Monday specials without giving away too much. To do this, you can release teaser videos (like Instagram Reels and TikTok videos), and build up anticipation on social media.

The more excitement you are able to generate around your Black Friday marketing strategies in advance, the more successful your Black Friday deals will be.

Offer More Than Just Discounts

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are events known for their discounts. However, with so many Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts out there, it’s always a good idea to make your promotions stand out by offering something more.

You could offer free shipping, returns, bonuses, or other benefits with their purchase. By adding extras like this to your Black Friday sale, you should be able to inspire more impulse Black Friday/Cyber Monday buys.

Make the Most of Email Marketing

When it comes to Black Friday marketing ideas and strategies, nothing is as valuable as email.

Email is the best way to send out information about your Black Friday sale, and deliver all of your Black Friday marketing offers directly to the right customers.

The best Black Friday marketing strategy with email is to segment your mailing list based on interactions and activities and send personalized content to the right people. For example, if someone has already purchased from you, you can send them different Black Friday marketing messages and promotions compared to new customers.

For Black Friday marketing with email, always make your special clearly visible, with a clear and simple CTA leading to your Black Friday sale landing page. Of course, pay attention to the subject line. This will need to entice your audience with an offer they can’t refuse.

Final Thoughts

The Black Friday period (the weeks surrounding the big day) is the biggest consumer time of the year.

Online traffic is high. Competition is fierce. You need to stand out and make sure your website is ready for what’s to come.

If you have any questions about anything you’ve read in this post, don’t hesitate to reach out in the comment section below.

I hope you have a huge holiday shopping season!