The holiday season officially kicks off with Black Friday and Cyber Monday! So let me ask you, are you prepared?
It’s never too early to start planning your holiday marketing campaigns. Why? Because Black Friday can make a huge impact on your business.
Don’t believe me? The numbers don’t lie…
Crazy Black Friday statistics you need to know:
- Black Friday 2019 saw 93.2 million buyers shopping online.
- Black Friday online shopping sales hit $7.4 billion in 2019, which is an all-time high.
- 30% of all yearly retail sales occur from Black Friday till Christmas.
- On average, consumers save 37% on Black Friday specials.
- About 40% of shoppers made online purchases on Black Friday 2019.
- $2.9 billion worth of Black Friday sales happened through mobile phones in 2019.
- Millennials were the biggest spenders on Black Friday 2019.
- About 50.4% of women are Black Friday shoppers.
- Amazon accounted for 54.9% of all sales on Black Friday.
- The average adult plans to spend $400 on Black Friday sales.
Keep in mind, you don’t just have to limit yourself to planning for Black Friday. If you missed out on Black Friday this year, there are still plenty of other opportunities for you…
To help you get your holiday marketing plan ready to launch, we put together a step-by-step plan to help you with your holiday marketing campaigns!
Step 1: Figure out your offer
With Black Friday quickly approaching, it may feel like you have too much to do and too little time to do it!
The feeling of overwhelm is real. Unfortunately, sometimes, when we feel too overwhelmed, we end up getting nothing done. This is why we suggest you make a plan and solidify your ticket items to focus on by creating your offer.
Is it a physical or digital product? Do you need to order inventory? Do you have enough shipping supplies?
This holiday season, have ONE goal in mind. This could be one product you really want to sell, one service you want to fill up, or one objection to achieve.
When you have that singular goal in mind, come up with an exclusive holiday offer to help you achieve it. Of course, this offer needs to be unique and limited so that your consumers know they need to act and that they won’t find a better deal at any other time of the year.
For example, let’s say you’re a baker who’s selling a dozen handmade pastries for $40. For your limited-time deal, you can offer a free pastry to people who buy a dozen of your pastries on Black Friday. Can you see how this deal is both unique, limited, and enticing to the customer?
Scarcity drives action! It is the law of supply and demand.
So, now that you know that you need a time-limited, special offer, how do you figure out your exclusive offer?
Think about something that would delight your customers when making a purchase, the figurative cherry on top - this is your exclusive offer!
But what about if you don’t have anything exclusive to offer?
Work on your copy and phrasing!
While I don’t recommend deceptive marketing, by sharing what you currently offer with scarcity copy, you can trigger action in your holiday consumer.
Here’s an example for businesses that provide subscribe and save services...
Consider framing your exclusive offer as, “This month, get 5% off your order when you subscribe!”
It’s 100% okay if this offer is available all year round, but the language's exclusivity, scarcity, and urgency will help consumers finalize their purchase.
Creating a can’t-be-beat offer is all about how you word it.
So how will you word your offer?
Step 2: Write email content
Write a series of emails to send out to inform & remind customers of your special promotion.
And make sure you stand out from the rest of the businesses sending their holiday emails.
If email marketing is a part of your holiday marketing strategy (which it should be!), consider asking your customers what they want to hear from you.
It can be as simple as sending an email asking:
“What are you looking for this holiday season?
- Free events for the whole family
- Special discounts
- Gift guides
- An inbox break (just until the holidays pass!)”
Ask them and listen and your chances of success are far greater!
Next, begin sending out your offer in your email series.
Hopefully, you’ve gathered some new ideas for additional offers to be used this holiday season or in the near future!
At this time, it is important to start creating emails about your special offer. Make the offer sound irresistible and put a time stamp on it, creating urgency for people to buy now.
Step 3: Make social media posts
Create a series of posts and stories for customers leading up to your holiday promotion.
Spread the holiday spirit on your website, social channels, and even your Facebook Lives by designing new images and graphics and having holiday decorations in your videos!
Coca-Cola created an institution around their holiday images, including their beloved polar bear and Santa. This is a holiday image that is able to be reused year after year as it creates a sense of happiness and sparks fond memories.
Blending your brand’s mission with holiday images stirs up nostalgia, warmth, joy, charity, family, and even cheer.
Remember, the holidays are not just limited to the gift-giving season. Your holiday promotion could be Thanksgiving-themed as well. For example, think of a Thanksgiving turkey with your brand on it. Sounds pretty appetizing to me!
Step 4: Schedule posts & email campaigns
Whether you’re sharing your holiday promotions or a holiday gift guide, video allows you to easily get new holiday content in front of viewers fast!
If you’ve already started using video or not, the holiday season allows you to capitalize on its benefits in your marketing strategy. Over
4 billion videos are watched every day on Facebook, proving videos drive engagement.
Still not sure? 58% of consumers said they react to videos they see online, 60% said they visit the video's social profile after viewing, and 70% said they went to their website - that’s a lot of people ready to act!
All you need is a camera and a small message to share. Your audience is waiting to watch and act!
Another great way to reach your audience is by using email.
59% of shoppers say emails affect their purchase decisions.
Wavoto has the ability to schedule out emails way in advance. It’s something you can do now, so it’s one less thing to do later.
Step 5: Coordinate
With your list of key ticket items, start brainstorming email content, social media posts, and video posts that focus on your holiday promotions. This may entail 4 emails, 2 social posts, and weekly video content about the promotion.
Work with your team and partner with businesses to share your promotions.
Teamwork is the dream work, so make sure you delegate your content creation, email marketing, funnel building, and sales to each appropriate team member.
The next step is to share your content! Get it out there because it will do you no good sitting in your drafts.
If you’re stuck, here are some great ways to share your promotion...
1. Organically
Post to social media and send to your email subscribers to get potential customers to see your promotion. This is the least expensive way to get sales!
2. Pay For Ads
Share your promotion by paying to get viewers to see your offer with ads. This can be more costly, but it can broaden your audience.
3. Partner Up
Get your promotion in front of your ideal audience by partnering up with other businesses.
Why would a competing business do this for you?
Great question! The answer is they expect the same in return, community over competition. You have an audience they’d like to promote something to as well. This is a great way for both businesses to get more traction and more sales!
Seems like a win-win to me!
Step 6: Check-in and execute
The goal of your holiday marketing campaigns is pretty simple— get as many sales as possible.
But you can’t do this unless your online store and your team can handle it!
So before you execute your holiday marketing campaign, touch base with your team to ensure systems are ready for your promo to drop.
If your marketing is working, you should be getting a ton of traffic and a bunch of sales! (Woohoo!!) This means your store (and you) have to be ready!
The first thing to do is review your website and funnels to make sure they’re in flawless working order to deliver the best, automated service while you’re promoting your holiday campaign.
Go over everything from your inventory, reviews, customer service channels to your content, social media profiles, and current funnels!
If you want to ramp up sales during the holidays, start building and scheduling your new campaigns after you’ve done an audit of your current marketing. Evaluate your current setup, test everything your customer does in the sales process, and start your holiday marketing engines!!
Now that you have the 6 steps to plan for Black Friday and your other holiday marketing campaigns… It’s time to get serious.
Here at Wavoto, it’s our mission to help small businesses make a BIG impact!
Whether your goal is to build a website from scratch or to set up an email marketing campaign to boost your holiday sales, Wavoto can help you every step of the way!
Don’t miss out on making sales this holiday shopping season…