Black Friday Campaign Ideas
Increase your Black Friday sales and stand out from your competition using the Black Friday campaign ideas below. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try as many as possible to discover what works for your business. Have fun and be creative—then sit back and watch the sales roll in.
Own the Month
Start marketing for Black Friday early and before your competition. (This goes for any holiday.) And instead of focusing on the actual day or even the week of Black Friday, own the entire month.
Strive to own all of November instead of just the week surrounding Black Friday. This includes promotions and content marketing.
Loop in your customers early. Share what you have planned for each week or day, even if you are not selling anything that day.
Run Black Friday Ads to Grow Email List
Start running targeted Black Friday ads to build an email list weeks—maybe even a month—before Black Friday.
That email list will come in handy as you educate your lead on your brand over the course of a couple of weeks. Once you have done that, you can present them with multiple offers during the campaign.
The key is to start before your competition in order to build a relationship with your customers. It’s pointless to acquire those email addresses in advance and then not communicate with them until your Black Friday deals go live. Start building the relationship now and share the value of your product before you try to sell them.
Don’t forget to leverage previous customers’ product reviews in your ad creatives.
Partner with a Nonprofit Organization
The holidays are all about giving. This is a great opportunity for you to join in and partner with a nonprofit to give back. The details are up to you and the nonprofit. Campaigns can be as simple as a donation from your company to the nonprofit when specific sales targets are reached.
Build a public gauge showing how much you have donated or will donate at the end of the campaign. This helps build a community around the shared goal of donating to the nonprofit organization.
Partner with Other Companies
You likely share your customers with other companies who are not direct competitors. These companies offer a unique partnership opportunity.
One possibility is to create co-branded products that each of your companies promote. Another opportunity is to create promotional cards for both companies that each of you include in shipped packages to all of your customers.
Be Different and Stand Out
Being different from your competitors helps you stand out and acquire attention in a more cost-effective way than if you did the same thing your competitors are doing.
REI’s #OptOutside campaign in 2015 was a great example of this. REI opted out of running Black Friday sales and even closed its stores that day to encourage their customers to spend the day enjoying the outdoors.
While the campaign did not drive Black Friday sales, it did gain them a significant amount of press—and we’re still talking about it in 2020.
Offer Gift Cards
If you don’t already offer them, you should. Gift cards are a fantastic product to add to your stores and promote during the holidays.
Gift cards are easy for shoppers to purchase for their friends and family, especially when they don’t know of a specific item to buy for a person.
You can stand out from your competitors by generating a unique experience for how the recipient receives the gift card. Most stores offer email, which is great. However, you have an opportunity to make the gift card delivery special for the recipient by creating beautifully designed printable certificates or including a buying guide with each gift card that helps the recipient choose the perfect item.
Live Stream Your Promotions
Live Streams offer a fun way to build a community and connect with your customers in a personal way. You can use the Livestream to promote special deals that are not shared anywhere else.
Live Streams are especially useful for new product releases in the future. Keep that in mind as you start building your community during Black Friday and the holidays.
Run a Deal Every Hour
This is a fun campaign and something you can implement along with Own the Month. For every hour, you run a specific time-bound deal.
There are two ways to run this: You can offer a surprise deal each hour, or you can publish the entire deal calendar at one time.
Either way, you’ll need a real-time communication method such as SMS messaging. SMS messages are delivered in real time, making them a great alternative to email for time-sensitive promotions. They also tend to have a higher open rate than emails.
Give a Free Gift with Purchase
Everyone loves getting something for free. This one requires more preparation. There are numerous ways to approach this idea. A free gift can be gated behind a specific minimum spend, or it can be given away with every single purchase.
You know your business and customers the best and can decide what would be more enticing to them.