Black Friday is around the corner. Well, at least it seems that way when you’re engaged in creating content calendars, updating your stock, or finalising the various marketing ploys that you hope to use to take full advantage of the spending power that consumers wield on the day. Fortunately, like you, we understand that planning is a prerequisite to executing the perfect Black Friday campaign. As such, we have put together this guide to assist you in getting way ahead of the curve. Apart from generating sales, this is a guideline, a rulebook of sorts, to manage your crowds physically and psychologically. But, of course, the greatest trick here is to think from the perspective of your customer.

A quick search online will give you a whole host of gimmicks, tactics, and tricks to get your customer to spend. These include gifts, representation by influencers, and product launches.

Unfortunately, this is not that type of guide. We, instead, look at the consumer – at their spending habits, their movements, and the psychology behind the purchase. And knowing this, we simplified a successful Black Friday campaign into three rules.

Three Rules for Success 

Rule 1: Herd your flock 

It is an open secret that humans are out in droves when it comes to Black Friday campaigns, with every business under the sun having some sale in recent years. Some people queue for hours before shopping doors open. Some stay up from the night before sipping cold coffee like a lifeline to keep their eyes open, and some constantly log into the same online store from multiple devices to secure a single purchase. Humans are strange creatures, indeed.

In this instance, humans are like sheep, and similarly, you must herd your flock correctly. Push your customer too hard, and they will scatter to greener pastures, give them too much, and they horde and nibble on a little bit of everything without committing to the entire meal – or in this case, the more significant purchases. So, you, as a business owner, must be both firm and delicate in your approach.

The tip here is to separate your flock into smaller, manageable crowds. Yesteryear’s attempt to do precisely this backfired as businesses ran promotions by the hour, every hour, in the hope of keeping up foot traffic in-store and online. The amount of admin needed for this to be effective is ridiculous. However, by analysing this approach further, one can see the wisdom in the concept.

If you want to ensure a significant sales turnaround, it is advisable to offer promotions on the day in three phases. Begin with a morning sale for mum and offer the essentials – if your business stocks these. Garner mum’s interest and you can even push your perishables.

By midday, the kids should either be going down for a nap or getting a second dose of energy. Capitalise on this by offering noon, early-afternoon sales on toys, stationery, anything that can keep the little ones busy for the remainder of the day. Since mum and kids are covered, allocate the last section of daylight to sell items dedicated to dad. Men, on average, hate shopping, and after a morning and afternoon of being dragged from store to store, an appealing sale catering to his wants and needs may be the perfect ending to a long day.

This approach can be chopped and changed to suit your business – even if your company operates solely online. For example, you don’t want to overload your servers with too many requests in too short a timeframe.

Now that you have segmented your flock and separated the sales rush with adequate time spacing, you need to look at your sale items.

Rule 2: Don’t underestimate your shopper’s mathematical prowess 

You see, dear reader, whilst humans may move like sheep on Black Friday, they are much brighter. Some stores offered ‘fake discounts’ to shoppers only to receive negative publicity on being called out for the deception.

As shoppers, much before we are marketers, we understand that often, Black Friday campaigns offer us the opportunity to make purchases that we won’t otherwise consider. Whether we are furnishing a new home, purchasing a gift for a particular person, or simply treating ourselves, we look at Black Friday deals with the knowledge of cost and markup price. We save up for that new laptop, the coffee table, the spa treatment after spending weeks, if not months, comparing the everyday prices to best prepare our budgets.

Don’t claim an item is reduced by 50% when you’re offering just 5% on the product. Your shopper will know. And not only will you lose the sale, but you will also lose the customer’s confidence, and likely, lose that shopper for life.

Trust us, that isn’t a risk you want to take.

Rule 3: Preparedness and transparency

At this point, you know what you’re offering to your customers and at what times you’ll be making those offers.

You’ve dotted your i’s and crossed your t’s. You know that following the success of your Black Friday campaign, your old stock should be in the hands of your consumers, and you should generate the necessary funding to ease your business through the festive season.

Now that you have all the info, it is time that you share this info with everyone else, namely, those same consumers on which you rely.

The best practice from a marketing perspective will be to create a funnel approach using a combination of paid ads, targeted email marketing, and tailored delivery pages. We never advocate on small businesses breaking the bank, and therefore, the right approach need not come at heavy expenditure – if, of course, you started your Black Friday campaign months in advance. Yes, you should have started it by now, but we can surely help if you haven’t.

All you ought to do is click here, and we will get you to get Black Friday ready.