The early bird catches the worm - and it's no different with Black Friday strategy. Despite the shopping event not happening until the end of November, you should be planning for Black Friday by now.
We've prepared seven things you can do in the space of seven days to prepare yourself for the big day and ensure a smooth and successful Black Friday experience.
If you don't have a dedicated Black Friday landing page, then now may be the time to create one. By doing this and offering improved user experience, your brand will be taking a step in the right direction, as a promotional page offers a clear navigation route and can showcase products.
If you've made a Black Friday landing page in the past, then it's best practice to optimise this page each year, ensuring it remains relevant. This means you can capitalise on previous performance rather than starting from scratch every time.
For tips on creating a Black Friday landing page, you can read more in our recent blog.
Black Friday is awash with promotions, and your ad copy is the most essential part of ensuring your brand stands out. Make sure your ads are bold, punchy and get to the point quickly.
Black Friday brings out the shrewdest of bargain hunters, so highlighting discounts in your ads is key. Ensure you can stand up to your competition too, by promoting any extra services you are able to offer like free shipping or gift wrapping.
Getting creative briefed ahead of time will also allow you to schedule everything before the big day, ensuring everything is approved and ready to go.
Making sure your budget plans are in place, including your daily spend allocations is key. Try not to completely rely on automation to manage the budget side of things, either.
Plan an adjustment strategy so you know where you have space to manoeuvre if something big changes just before, or during the event.
On budgets and standing out via Paid Media during Black Friday, you can read more about this in our recent blog.
Knowing ahead of time how you're going to appeal to users via social media content is important. Creating hashtags, promoting competitions or running polls are all ways to get audiences engaged and ready to part with their hard-earned money.
You can also use social media to learn more about your consumers and get them engaging with your content earlier than Black Friday.
Learn how to to plan Paid Social for Black Friday ahead of time in our recent blog.
Naturally, understanding how you've performed over Black Friday is going to be a necessity.
Ensure your campaign tracking is set up correctly, Google Analytics is working as it should and that appropriate filters and exclusions have been put in place ahead of time.
Knowing how you're going to build excitement with your existing customer base is key, whether that is through a social media countdown, email marketing, or showcasing exclusive previews of deals on your website and social channels.
You can ramp excitement up with a few days to go by getting more serious - but knowing how you're going to do this well ahead of time can always help.
Statistics have previously shown that email can equate to an estimated 30% increase in revenue over the Black Friday weekend, and customers are likely to be far more engaged when receiving emails during this period.
Use email as an excitement builder, a promotional tool or even a way to build repeat custom following Black Friday.
Looking to learn more about preparing for Black Friday ahead of time? Join our upcoming webinar on how to Master Organic and Paid Integration Ahead of Black Friday.
Alternatively, get in touch with us to talk further on Black Friday strategy.