Nov 10, 2016 
Black friday sales, advertising and marketing ideas
Friday November 25 2016 – Black Friday!
The biggest weekend ever for UK retailers is just a few weeks away and we want to share a few thoughts, ideas and brief history of Black Friday.
Read on to see how you can profit from Black Friday, learn how to create a Black Friday Sales & Advertising campaign and of course… learn how to keep your website safe, stable and online during this busy period.
Last year, Black Friday sales broke all retail records, this year Black Friday 2016 is expected to be even bigger with records expecting to be broken again.
Black Friday was extended last year by retailers with deals being held before, during and after the official Black Friday Sales date.
Over £3.3 Billion was spent across the Black Friday period last year, with a reported £1.1 billion being spent on Black Friday alone.
So just what is black Friday and how can you capitalise on it?
Black Friday is an annual retail shopping craze that started life in America and has made its way to the UK. Starting to gain popularity in the UK during 2014, the massive sale is typically led by giants such as Asda, PC-World Currys and Argos.
Once typically a high street craze, Black Friday sales for 2015 saw the high streets far quieter than expected and online transactions going through the roof with many unprepared retailers seeing their websites crash due to the unexpected online traffic & demand.
What type of items are typically hot sellers during the Black Friday Sales?
Research shows that it is typically tech products that are the biggest sellers during the black Friday sales. Whilst not usually the biggest discounted items, tech toys such as TV’s, Laptops & computers tend to be the most sought after items.
Heavily discounted items can be found outside of the tech sales though, the black Friday sales usually sees items such as clothing, home & garden and children’s toys tend to be the best place for those discounts.
Here’s a big important key note thought, for 2016 MOBILE SALES are expected to reach and all time high and across the whole black Friday sale period sales are predicted to reach £5billion!
Special Offer: Take advantage of our FREE Black Friday Health Website Check – Ensure your website is technically able to handle the spike in traffic & is optimised for sales.
Click here now to find out more and ensure your website doesn’t let you down this Black Friday!
Here’s how you can capitalise on the upcoming Black Friday Sales.
Black Friday Sales & advertising tends to be quite an easy thing to do online with websites highlighting their discounts with big red sale banners and up to 90% off price tags dominating their websites.
Below are just a few black Friday sales, marketing & advertising ideas:
– Bundle your digital goods! As mentioned above, digital tech goods tend to be the most sought after items during the black Friday sales, so why not bundle some extra special deals together and increase the average sale/order value of your customers? If you can’t bundle in physical products, then why not bundle in free items such as free set up and installation or provide digital downloads that educate your customers on how to get the most out of their new product? Add value where you can, it will be appreciated.
– Use #Hashtags! When using social media be sure to include hashtags at the end of each of your posts. #BlackFriday is the most popular, but extend on it by adding more targeted keywords and your location such as #blackfriday #birmingham
– Use Online to drive people offline to your store. Social media is a great way to promote your black Friday sales and a great way to get your advertising and marketing messages seen by your customers. With the high use of Facebook why not use it to share photos of the deals your customers have just snapped up, showcase your remaining deals and why not go one further and use Facebook live to show the crazy activity and overwhelming numbers of people at your physical store looking for bargains. Each year the hype and news coverage is around the initial stampede, of course be safe and careful, but promote the hive of activity so others think they are missing out
– Do some Pre-Hype! Why not use Social Media and your Mailing List to do some pre-black Friday sales hype and give people a sneak peek of what to expect this coming Black Friday? You could use this as a way to target your VIP customers, build your loyalty program and create that anticipation ahead of the date. Some other ideas are that you could give an idea of the discounts you will be offer, the products you will be offering… why not use it as an opportunity to build your mailing list and give a special 30 minute pre-sale offer to those who are on your mailing list? Add value & build loyalty!
Using social media your Black Friday Sales, marketing & advertising Ideas can be executed for minimal cost and create maximum hype.
Giving the feeling of exclusivity by offering your VIP customers on your mailing list a special advance pre-sale is a sure way to lift your sales. Bundling items together – whether that be physical products or additional products that add value, again, a sure way to lift your sales.
With mobile sales expected to be the biggest EVER for this year’s Black Friday sales it is important that you make the most of mobile, mobile advertising and social media.
Your customers will be looking for the best possible deals and sharing them, the best deals will always be the most talked about so why not leverage the power of social media to do this?
Using Facebook live as a great way to build hype, showcase the products on sales, make people feel as though they are missing out and a great way to create urgency. Use video as way to showcase your incredible products that are on offer, get customers comments and this will be a sure fire way to drive online and offline traffic your way.
So, with all the hype and expected big sales and business how do you ensure your website stays online and doesn’t crash under the stampede?
Last year businesses were taken by surprise when the high streets weren’t as busy as expected as people decided to shop from the comfort of their homes on their computers and mobile phones.
Click here now to find out more and ensure your website doesn’t let you down this Black Friday!
Below are a few ways you can optimise your website for black Friday sales today, for a full in-depth report on optimising your website for Black Friday Traffic, please click here.
– Contact Your Webhost – Speak with your webhost and ask them if your website can cope with the expected increase in traffic. Ask them to check the error logs to ensure you have no errors in the background which could cause explode with an increase in traffic.
– Optimise your page load times – Don’t lose sales due to a slow loading website or slow server. Use www.gtmetrix.com to optimise your website load time, remove any unnecessary third party code, reduce the strain on your server ping time and get your website loading as quickly as possible. For more on server ping times please click here.
– Be mobile ready! – Our free Black Friday Mobile Health Check will help you dial this in. But check your website across as many mobile devices as possible, are the buttons on the website big enough?, if you are running and special offer banners are they sized correctly for mobile?, Is your navigation easy to use and can customers get to your sales items with 1 click? Is your check out optimised for an easy 1 click checkout and also to recover lost sales? To read more about optimising your mobile website for Black Friday please check out our special offer: FREE Black Friday Website Health Check.
We hope that Black Friday is a huge success for you and that the tips above help you make the most out of the sale weekend. We hope you find a way to utilise our suggestions for Black Friday Sales, marketing & advertising Ideas and should you have any questions or issues then please do not hesitate to contact our team of Birmingham Web Designers on 0121 663 0202 or email hello@altagency.co.uk
This article is part of our Black Friday Special series:
#1 Black Friday Sales, marketing & advertising Ideas
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