5 Steps To Building A Black Friday Marketing Campaign That Works

Simone Smith

Black Friday – the highlight of the shopping calendar – is just around the corner, and the world is gearing up to bag a bargain.

But for a business owner like you, Black Friday means your competition will be hotter than ever.

With every brand trying to lure in customers with irresistible bargains and prices too good to be true, how are you supposed to stand out from the crowd? With an unforgettable marketing strategy, of course!

Whether you’re a small business or an eCommerce site, with a top-tier Black Friday campaign, you’ll see excellent results.

Take a look at these 5 steps to creating a Black Friday marketing campaign that works.

1. Create a Black Friday email marketing strategy

One of the simplest but most effective ways to announce your Black Friday savings to the world is through email.

When you create a Black Friday email strategy that works, you’ll give your seasonal sales a massive boost.

Consumers start searching for the best Black Friday savings early, so make sure you’re ready from the get-go. You can do this by breaking your emails into 3 separate groups:

Pre-Black Friday email: It’s a good idea to schedule your pre-Black Friday email for around the middle of October or the start of November. Remember, its purpose is to excite readers, so add some early bird discounts or tease customers with the massive savings they can look forward to.
Black Friday email: You should have a second email ready to go for the big day itself. In it, you want to remind your readers that you have big savings to explore and that the sale is in full swing.
Post-Black Friday email: It’s all over but – oh, wait! Cyber Monday is just around the corner! This is a chance to prepare your customers for more great deals on Monday or to offer last-chance weekend deals to those who slept on Friday’s savings.

Top tip! To make your Black Friday email campaign even more effective, spend some time expanding your mailing list beforehand.

2. Create a sense of urgency

Nothing kills an online sale faster than customer hesitation and indecision. Thankfully, the fear of missing out on a bargain is enough to make most shoppers take action.

You can instil a sense of urgency in Black Friday shoppers by sprinkling your content with words and phrases like “sale ending soon” or “limited number available”. These phrases encourage customers to make a purchase ASAP – before time or supplies run out.

Some common urgency words and phrases include:

Time-limited: X time left, sale ends in X hours, one day only, last chance
Speed: hurry, act fast, don’t delay, offer ends today, order now
Scarcity: few remaining, last one left, in demand, selling fast
FOMO (fear of missing out): final clearance, offer expires, prices going up, last day of sale

Remember! Don’t overfill your content with urgency words and phrases. Shoppers will catch on and feel too pressured to make the purchase. This is one of those times when less is more.

3. Promote Black Friday deals on social media

Social media is one of the best tools you have at your disposal as a business owner.

At the time of writing, there are a whopping 5.04 billion people using social media worldwide. 5.04 BILLION! The average person spends about 2.5 hours per day scrolling through popular apps like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and TikTok. Now that’s an opportunity you can’t afford to miss!

Use social media to your advantage to promote sale items. Create Facebook ads, share Instagram posts, and why not get creative and try your hand at some TikToks? It’s a terrific way to expand your reach.

Another clever way to broaden your scope is by partnering with popular influencers. Influencers have great sway over their followers, so use this to your advantage.

Get in touch with influencers whose followers fit into your ideal audience and are most likely to be interested in your product or service.

Remember, social media is also a fantastic way to drive sales online. With cool features like Instagram Shopping and Facebook Shops, customers can now buy products directly on social media platforms.

4. Optimise your website

It may be hard to believe, but most online shoppers will bounce if a webpage takes more than 6 seconds to load. When customers want something, they want it fast.

With Black Friday just around the corner, you don’t want to lose out on potential sales because your site takes too long to load.

Here are our top tips for optimising your website’s speed and user-friendliness ahead of Black Friday:

Compress and resize your site’s images
Consider upgrading your server
Use website caching
Reduce or remove unneeded third-party snippets
Ensure your returns policy is easy to find

It’s particularly important that your website is optimised for mobile users. According to Shopify, 71% of their merchants’ sales happened on mobile devices during Black Friday last year, compared to 29% on desktops.

To make mobile shopping an enjoyable experience for Black Friday customers, improve your site’s navigation and speed and implement one-click purchases.

5. Offer free shipping and returns

Black Friday is an exciting but often overwhelming time for shoppers.

On the one hand, they don’t want to miss out on massive savings, but on the other, they’re worried about making an impulse purchase they’ll later regret.

One of the best ways to ease anxious shoppers and bag a sale is to offer free shipping and returns.

Once customers know they can send a product back at no additional cost, they’re more willing to buy. After all, with free shipping and returns, even if they’re struck with buyer’s remorse, they’ll have nothing to lose.

According to Shopify, 67% of online shoppers say free shipping is crucial to their Black Friday shopping experience.

Here are a few of the benefits that free shipping and returns can bring you this year:

Fewer abandoned carts
Competitive edge
A higher average order value

Ready to craft your Black Friday marketing campaign?

Black Friday is a fantastic opportunity for you to increase your sales, build brand awareness, win new customers, and get rid of old stock before Christmas.

Don’t miss out on these great benefits by failing to prepare. If you need some help crafting a marketing strategy this Black Friday, we’d love to lend a hand.

At The Content Lab, we craft compelling websites, blogs, emails, and social media posts that will appeal to your audience.

To get started, reach out to Abby, our founder and head content strategist.