3 Black Friday Campaigns to Inspire Your Holiday Marketing Strategy

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Who doesn’t love the frenzy of holidays, especially Black Friday that gives the best of the best offers!

Black Friday marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season when people line up outside shops or browse their favorite e-commerce website as early as midnight to get the best deals on some of the products they desire throughout the year.

What began as a parade after Thanksgiving day to announce the unofficial start of the holiday season soon grew into the biggest shopping carnival of the year in the early 1980s.

Today, it accounts for billion-dollar sales for retailers and e-commerce websites. This directly impacted the overall holiday marketing for eCommerce and retail and turned it into a big thing.

A study by Adobe Analytics, for example, revealed that online sales during Black Friday jumped by 23.6% in 2018, clocking $6.22 billion. It was also the first time when smartphones played a pivotal role, with more than $2 billion in sales stemming from it.

Adobe also revealed an interesting fact that the click and collect orders have gone up by 73%, which indicates that many shoppers prefer ordering products online and picking it up from the retail shops. This was further reinforced by a survey by McKinsey that revealed that nearly 48% had planned to shop online and in-store on Black Friday. Even BestBlackFriday.com had predicted the omnichannel shoppers to increase from 24.3% in 2017 to 35.6% in 2018.

Source: eMarketer

Changing Behavior of Holiday Shoppers

As more and more shopping websites compete for shopper’s attention and as more channels proliferate, the buying behavior of the shoppers has also undergone a massive change. Shoppers are no longer loyal to a single brand. They prefer to compare prices, peer reviews, and purchase the one that matches their expectations. They have also transformed from being impulsive to purchasing with purpose. Think with Google reveals that holiday shoppers do extensive research online. So, although there is a decline in foot traffic on Black Friday, the percentage of store traffic increases the week before Black Friday. This means that the retailers and e-commerce websites need to be prepared in advance to offer the best deals and experience to the customers before their competitor does it.

What’s in Store for Holiday Marketing?

• Week-long affair: Black Friday is no longer a one-day affair; it has become a week-long affair in recent times. The Black Friday sales begin as early as Monday. The Salesforce Commerce Cloud data reveals that the total global sales in the holiday season will be up by 15% year-over-year (YoY), and the total sales will reach $768 billion.
• Click and collect format will gain prominence: According to Salesforce, the click and collect format will be a gateway for retailers to increase their revenue within a short period. While e-commerce websites are predicted to witness a 28% increase in their in-store order pickup, retailers are expected to attract 48% more digital shoppers to their sites.
• Personalization: Salesforce predicts personalization and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to play a prominent role this year. Last year, buyers who were shown personalized product recommendations had a 26% higher average order value than those who did not engage with product recommendations.

Common Mistakes that Marketers Should Avoid this Black Friday

The Black Friday week is your time to boost your sales and earn comfortable profits for your company. It is, therefore, crucial to avoid all the common pitfalls and create a successful marketing strategy. To begin with, here are a few common mistakes that you must avoid this year.

1. Waiting till the last minute: A report by Think with Google revealed four types of holiday shoppers:

A common trait among all the four types is that they spend a lot of time researching and browse before purchasing. Most marketers wait till November to plan and execute their marketing campaigns. In a hyper-competitive season like this, this would mean losing out on sales and revenue.

• What to do: You have heard the famous proverb an early bird catches the worm. Well, be that proverbial early bird and start planning your marketing campaign right away. You can begin with sending Black Friday teaser email campaigns to your customers or do social media promotions, or even create content such as gift guides for shoppers. The earlier you begin, the better are your chances of grabbing more eyeballs and sales.

2. Focusing on just one channel: Most marketers focus on only one channel for marketing. Buyers switch between various platforms and devices while shopping for products. So, focusing too much on just one channel and ignoring the others could lead you to burn your fingers.

• What to do: Your offline and online channels cannot function in silos. Develop an omnichannel marketing strategy that ties all the marketing channels together and creates a seamless experience for your customers. So, irrespective of whether your customer shops online or picks products in-store, the experience must be consistent throughout.

3. Ignoring personalization: 38% of the retailers acknowledge competition as the top challenge they face during the holiday season. However, despite knowing this, marketers ignore the potential of personalization and resort to sending blast emails. With customers demanding more relevant offers, marketers need to up their personalization game to break through the noise and attract more buyers.

• What to do: Chart out the customer journeys and add personalization in each step to make the offers relevant to the customers. From offering personalized product recommendations on the website to sending personalized emails, there are several options available to engage with the buyer at every stage.

4. Ignoring remarketing: Cart abandonment is a nightmare for e-commerce websites, with over 75% of the shoppers abandoning their cart during Black Friday. Although shoppers add products to the cart, they prefer to compare the prices on different websites before buying. Sometimes the buyers may have just forgotten about the product added. In either case, marketers should try remarketing to attract users back to the website.

• What to do: From sending push notifications to emails reminding the buyer of the abandoned cart, to even offering discounts, there’s a lot you can do to bring buyers back to the website. The bottom line is to continue the communication with the buyer to nudge them to make a purchase.

3 Black Friday Campaigns to Inspire Your Holiday Marketing Strategy

Now that you have a fair idea of the popular trends and the mistakes you must avoid, we believe it will be easier for you to start creating your Black Friday campaign. Black Friday is just few months away, so don your marketer’s hat and start working on a fool-proof strategy to create winning campaigns. Keep checking our blogs, as we will continue sharing ideas and inspiring stories from marketing leaders to inspire you.