Top Ways To Successfully Market on Black Friday

By: Jay Osterholm, Founder and CEO of the ODM Group

Black Friday is roughly 48 hours away. Most people prepare for this retail-centric holiday by scouring ads for the best deals, making lists, and setting the alarm clock for 3 a.m. Black Friday is, for many people, the beginning of the holiday shopping season.

With an estimated 152 million shoppers expected to hit stores this year, the shopping frenzy will certainly continue. However, over the years, I have found that many of the guidelines that apply to finding deals apply to not only shoppers, but also us as marketers.

Here are the top ways we as marketers can best engage customers on Black Friday:

1. Preparation While this may seem like an obvious recommendation, it should not be overlooked. Preparation is the key ingredient to successful holiday marketing plan. Recent studies show that more than 17 percent of shoppers are searching for deals on social media sites. Are your social sites fully-optimized? If not, it is time to get moving. Create your Facebook and Twitter profiles in keeping with your brand, and most importantly, make sure that consumers can find them.
2. Collaboration Now that you know your channels are all set up, make sure they work together. Include a Twitter tab on your Facebook page, so fans see messages from both channels at once. Also, it is important to prepare a content calendar with key messages for each channel. E-mail and print ads are no longer viable ways to reach your target audience. To successfully sell your brand or product, you must reach every channel with tailored messaging.
3. Attractive Deals In order to reach your target audience, and ultimately get the sell, your items must seem exclusive. This means generating attractive, timely, and exclusive deals that will sell your products. That is the ironic thing about deals; they do not actually have to be the best deals to garner attention. However, it is imperative that your deals still generate profit. Use catchy phrases such as “Shop before noon!” and “Limited quantities!” to generate a sense of urgency and “right now!”
4. Adaptability Make sure you have a solid marketing team in place on Black Friday. With a strong increase in online and mobile shopping on Black Friday, deals can expire, become exhausted or simply not work. For every promotion you run, have a back-up plan. To survive the day, be patient and adapt to circumstances as they arise.
5. Monitor This step is very time consuming, but also very important. You must monitor your social sites throughout the day for activity, feedback and commentary and respond accordingly. If a customer tweets at you saying they are upset about the deal running out, respond to them. If a customer thanks you for a deal, respond as well. This is the reason you set up your social sites, and the goal of your holiday marketing campaign – customer engagement.

Be sure to harness the power of the Internet, as an instantaneous communication tool, and keep your target audience informed and happy. If you implement and follow the above steps for your Black Friday marketing, your campaign can be profitable, allowing you to interact with customers and drastically increase your social footprint and brand awareness.