Why you need to plan your Black Friday marketing campaign now.
Whether you’re a B2B or B2C company, there’s a lot to gain from having a seasonal marketing campaign in place for Black Friday to Cyber Monday to Boxing Day.
A successful seasonal marketing campaign is more than creating special discounts. It’s a perfectly timed campaign which is months in the making, with an aim to create leads, engagements, and sales.
From Black Friday to Christmas, consumers are actively seeking out ways to save money, find gift ideas for loved ones and treat themselves. By creating your own marketing campaign, you can be in that mix.
Because of the time of year, customers know there’s a limited time to act, especially during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Boxing Day sales. Because of this, customers are more likely to buy quickly, to get a better discount on your product.
Timing is everything, which is why having a marketing campaign in place is so important. Being ahead, spreading awareness of what you can offer consumers is what will make a difference. Whether that’s on Black Friday or during the Christmas period.
The best time to begin your marketing campaign is three to four months prior to the event.
This allows you to prepare for the build-up, creating teasers for your offer such as email sign-ups, social media posts or infographics which will help spread awareness of what it is you’re offering.
By giving yourself as much time as possible, you’ll be able to create a high-quality content strategy across your chosen platforms, accounting for time spent on assets, copy or scheduling.
For longer campaigns, such as a week, you’ll need to begin thinking of promoting as early as October to be the most competitive.
A common misconception is that B2C companies are the only ones who can benefit from a seasonal marketing campaign. But, B2B businesses can still take advantage of the increased sales and traffic.
B2B businesses can do this authentically by putting a focus on showing customers the potential ROI that you can offer.
This can be done in various ways such as offering seasonal tips, valuable content focused around the season or offering a condensed version of a service (like an audit or system evaluation).
Black Friday isn’t just the day for discount televisions, it’s a day where most businesses offer their customers something unique. Whether you’re in food, retail, software or anything else.
Seasonal marketing campaigns offer businesses the chance to take advantage of the busy time of year by:
This time of year, people are looking to spend, whether for themselves or a loved one.
Many people get ahead by buying Christmas gifts, using the discount to save even more. Partaking in a Black Friday marketing campaign can lead to increased sales, with consumers getting caught up in the holiday excitement, so are more willing to spend.
If you’re interested in spreading more awareness of your brand, Black Friday and Christmas campaigns are great for that. Use the time of the year when people are shopping to draw more attention to you. Creating a relationship with new customers will help your business in the long run.
If you’re B2B, consider creating infographics people can use, showcasing your relatability and helping to build trust with customers.
For B2C, use seasonal marketing campaigns to draw more attention to your brand, attracting new customers with special offers or discounts.
Seasonal marketing is the perfect time to convince those who are aware of your business to convert to customers.
Those who follow you on social media, visit your website or are signed up to your email list will receive your Black Friday or Christmas offers. This could convince them to make a purchase, converting them from lead to customer, with them potentially becoming long-term customers of your business.
Now you know the importance of seasonal marketing, it’s time to begin setting out your plan. Here’s our top things to keep in mind to create a successful Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Christmas marketing campaign.
Ask yourself what it is you’re offering and to whom. Having a clear image in your mind of your audience will help you to shape up what you’ll want to offer. Be sure to keep in mind what your USP (unique selling point) is.
Nothing is more important to a campaign than clear and defined goals.
To define your campaign objective, you’ll need to think about what it is you’ll want to gain, whether that is increased awareness, website visits or sales.
From here, you can look at what KPIs will be best to measure the success of this campaign.
KPIs or Key Performance Indicators, are a measurable way that showcases how well your business is meeting its objective. An example of these can be financial based such as gross profit or a number of enquiry tickets being generated.
If you’ve run previous marketing campaigns, there’s a lot to be learnt from assessing that data. Look closely at the things that went well and what didn’t.
There’s no harm in running a similar Black Friday or Christmas discount again, if it proved successful. It can even create customer loyalty if repeated.
Take the time to assess any customer insights you have to help shape your marketing campaign by looking at social media, email marketing and Google Analytics.
With a handful of marketing channels to choose from, you’ll need to decide quickly which channels you want to use. For example, email marketing is a great avenue to go down, with Campaign Monitor reporting 116.5 million email campaigns being sent on Black Friday.
If you’re considering running promotional ads, you’ll need to consider where you want to place these ahead of time.
Too many requests to your website can weigh it down, causing it to crash. After the 2021 seasonal period, Sitecore reported that 59% of 18–44-year-olds wanted to shop online during the holiday season in 2021.
Ensuring your website can handle a potential surge is important, paying notice to your loading time. Hubspot reported that for an E-commerce website, the ideal loading time is between 0-4 seconds, with the highest conversion rates occurring on pages that load between 0-2 seconds.
Preparation for a seasonal marketing campaign is key and begins months before the actual event.
Here’s our top 5 things to check at the beginning of your planning stage, allowing you plenty of time to prepare before Black Friday or Christmas.
Be sure to pay close attention to your social media, making sure it aligns with your strategy and your current tone of voice. Your social media is an extension of your business and should match your entire marketing.
Being active is also important, not just for brand credibility, but also to begin to raise your brand visibility and what you already offer.
Knowing your timeline, you’ll be able to plan for any copy for social posts, how you want your website to look—if you need to make any changes—as well as if you need to create a discount code. These things all take time, and for a lot of businesses, are all on top of the usual day-to-day marketing.
If you require assets, you’ll need to begin thinking about what they’ll look like. If you’re going to work with a design agency to create your assets, you’ll need to book them in early to ensure they can fit the scope of your work, into their workload.
To help spread more awareness, begin engaging with your consumers.
You can do this by getting creative with social media, creating a challenge or a fun hashtag, interacting with them way before the sales. Begin to increase your content by considering a gift guide either on your website or on social media. Create infographics with tips, useful information or even recipes.
Take the time to assess your messaging on your website. Be sure that all product descriptions clearly explain what it is you are offering. There’s little point sending consumers to them if they’ll be confused as to what it will do.
If you have the time, ensure your website is as user friendly as possible, checking links and web pages.
Once you’ve decided on what you’re offering, you may want to consider working with an influencer or brand ambassador.
Influencers are busy people and working around someone else’s calendar can be a struggle. But, by beginning your strategy early you can get in quickly to avoid disappointment.
Likewise, if you decide you want a video creating, whether of a product, your services or for brand awareness, you’ll need to get it booked in. It takes time to create storyboards and create and edit content, so thinking of this early will put you in a better position.
Once the date has passed, it’s time for reflection.
Look at your KPIs, assess whether you achieved them or not, and look at the possible reasons why. Be sure to check all your social media channels, looking to see if one channel was more successful than another, as this can help you decide your next steps.
It’s also worth asking customers for feedback on their experience, either by using social media or post-purchase surveys, if applicable. This valuable information can better direct your next campaign, while providing valuable knowledge on their experience with your business.
We know finding the time isn’t always easy, but we are on hand to support you.
Purpose Media is a full-service marketing agency that can support you with everything from video to websites and PPC to digital. We can help with launching, creating, and executing your Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Christmas marketing campaign, so get in touch today to see what we can do for you.