9 Black Friday Marketing Strategies No One Tells You About (2024)

In Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2023, Shopify merchants a remarkable $9.3 billion USD in sales. As BFCM 2024 approaches, the shopping world becomes fiercely competitive with incredible deals. For online store owners, this is a prime opportunity to implement innovative Black Friday marketing strategies to attract new customers and compete with major retailers.

That's precisely why we're here with this quick blog: to provide essential tips for diving into Black Friday sales. Let's explore top 9 Black Friday marketing strategies to make this your best season. 

What is BFCM?

BFCM meaning

BFCM, an abbreviation for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, is a highly awaited sales season that merchants, whether operating online or in physical stores, eagerly anticipate. BFCM encompasses a 4-day shopping event, commencing on the Friday immediately following Thanksgiving Day in the United States and ending on Cyber Monday, the following Monday.

Why is BFCM significant for online store owners?

More than just a shopping frenzy; it’s the golden opportunity when brands like Allbirds and Gymshark see their highest revenue spikes of the year. For online store owners, it’s the time to turn casual browsers into loyal customers. BFCM represents one of the most highly anticipated shopping seasons, marking the largest holiday sales event annually in November. The term 'Black Friday' originates from the tradition where retailers and companies would finally turn a profit, or 'go into the black,' on this day.

The importance of Black Friday for businesses lies in its capacity to drive sales and attract new customers. By offering discounts and special deals, companies can boost their revenue and expand their market share, capitalizing on the multitude of shoppers seeking bargains. Beyond boosting revenue, it's also a great time to clear excess inventory, especially when paired with deals that create urgency.

When is BFCM in 2024?

Black Friday 2024 takes place on November 29, marking the start of the significant weekend leading up to Cyber Monday on December 2.

Now is the perfect moment to start early preparations! Everything, from overseeing inventory and logistics to strategizing marketing campaigns, should be well-organized before the end of October.

📚 Top Read: 8 Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2024 Trends That Shape Your Success

9 Black Friday Marketing Strategies and Ideas for 2024

Warm up your Black Friday Marketing to create buzz

1. Design eye-catching BFCM banners on your website

It's the highly anticipated end-of-year sales event when everyone eagerly awaits perks, discounts, gifts, and freebies. BFCM sale banners should be designed to entice your customers to complete their purchases and proceed to checkout!

A BFCM Fashion template by Foxify page builder. Source: Foxify demo

Use Canva or Photoshop to design striking banners that fit your brand. To build a stunning and converting Shopify page, consider Foxify smart page builder for a quick, easy, and efficient experience.

Check out how you can build a modern and impressive Shopify homepage in minutes with this tutorial video.

Below are the key elements to consider when creating a Black Friday banner for your Black Friday marketing campaign:

Create a catchy headline

To effectively capture your audience's attention, consider incorporating keywords such as Black Friday, discount, exclusive, sale, deals, up to % off, or special offers.

You can also use words that indicate urgency. Consumers should perceive that they stand to miss out significantly if they don't seize the discount immediately. Use terms like Hurry, Now, Expire, Fast, Limited, Quick, and other similar expressions to convey this sense of urgency.

Keep your design simple and modern

It’s crucial to prioritize simplicity and clarity in the design of your BFCM banners. Since people tend to pass by these banners quickly, maintaining straightforward yet attention-grabbing design elements is essential.

Ensure that the text is easily readable, even when viewed from a distance or on different screen sizes. Employ varying sizes for the main headline and text on the banner. Additionally, use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters while avoiding the use of cursive fonts.

Craft strong and straightforward Call-to-Action

You can influence the consumer's decision by using specific and clear words or phrases, thus uplifting conversion rates by a significant 161%! Here are a few examples:

• Shop Now
• Subscribe Now
• Order Now
• Add to Cart Now
• and more

Moreover, you can experiment with button colors and placement. Here are some interesting facts that you should know to craft high-converting CTAs:

• Above-the-fold CTAs have a 73% rate of visibility compared to only 44% for those below-the-fold
• Increasing the size of the CTA button can increase click-through rates by 90%
• Changing the color of the CTA button can increase conversions by 21%.

If you’re not sure how to start, first decide which type of CTA you need and take it from there.

2. Optimize your efforts with Black Friday email marketing strategies

As many shoppers tend to search online for deals, allocating resources to email marketing presents an ideal opportunity to attract them to your business rather than your competitors. Let's explore some readily applicable tips to prepare for your Black Friday marketing campaign.

Test your email subject lines for Black Friday

Boosting email open rates can prove challenging, and one of the primary influencers of open rates is the content of your email subject lines. For instance, should you use the term “free” in your emails, or is it more effective to employ 'discount', or even state a specific “10%” discount?

To maximize your chances, your subject line should immediately capture the subscriber's attention. You can employ enticing words such as “Almost gone”, “Free shipping”, “X% off”, “Closeout”, etc. to enhance open rates on Black Friday weekend.

Conduct A/B testing on your email subject lines. This involves sending version A to 25% of your recipients and version B to another 25%. The subject line that performs better becomes the choice for the remaining 50% of your email list.

🔥 Further Reading: Black Friday Email Subject Lines: High Open-Rate Templates & Examples!

Personalize your BFCM emails

Personalized emails are a cornerstone of effective Black Friday marketing, increasing open rates by 29% and boosting click-through rates by 41%! Therefore, make sure you tailor your emails based on the customer’s name, past purchases, or shopping behaviors. Most email tools nowadays, like Klaviyo or MailChimp, can send personalized emails based on customer segments, such as categories of past purchases, amount spent, and online shopping behaviors. Experiment with segment-based offers to find the sweet spot to optimize your capabilities.

For instance, Amazon sends personalized emails featuring products customers recently browsed to re-engage them with their interest.

Generate a feeling of urgency in your Black Friday email campaigns

A sense of urgency kicks off the FOMO (fear of missing out) effect, motivating your customers to act quickly during the heated season of Black Friday. Countdown timers and urging phrases like “Hurry, deals end soon!” or “Last chance to get this” have been shown to boost conversions by a whopping 322%! When the FOMO effect is done well, it will be a sales powerhouse.

Besides countdown timers and urging phrases, there are multiple ways to trigger a sense of urgency effectively that you can easily apply, such as:

• Cart countdown: A countdown timer on the cart page that encourages customers to complete their purchases faster, reducing cart abandonment and boosting conversions.
• Stock scarcity: A warning bar displaying limited stock to increase the product's perceived value, encouraging customers to make faster buying decisions before it runs out of stock.

3. Light up your BFCM marketing campaign with social media

The most recent research shows that 74% of consumers rely on social media to guide purchase decisions. This is quite impressive but not so surprising since most people use social media one way or another to satisfy their quest for work, relationships, and entertainment.

Using social media can significantly enhance your business promotion, primarily because many shoppers make direct purchases via social media platforms nowadays. Here are some tips and tricks to prepare for Black Friday marketing on social media:

Upgrade your social media profiles

Optimizing your social media profile for Black Friday marketing boosts proven credibility. Update profile pictures, bios, and pinned posts with Black Friday themes and deals to ensure a distinct profile picture and a branded cover image are in place. To boost visibility, add relevant business keywords to your bio and ensure that all the provided links are functional.

This season is an ideal time for brands to use striking profile banners and pinned posts to highlight their sales. To schedule these updates ahead of BFCM, we suggest you use reliable tools like Buffer or Hootsuite.

Use the social shopping feature

Social shopping lets customers buy directly on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, reducing friction and increasing conversions. With 78% of Millennials shopping via social channels, leveraging features like Instagram Shops or TikTok Shopping is a game-changer, so customers can make direct purchases from their feeds without having to go anywhere.

Brands like Glossier use Instagram Shopping to tag products in posts, making it super easy for their followers to shop for deals. Once you activate social shops, it’s more impactful for you to promote top-selling Black Friday items with exclusive discounts. It is reported that around 1 million Facebook users buy things on the platform monthly, and consumer spending on TikTok has exceeded $2.5 billion globally!

If you haven’t set up your social shopping for your store just yet, it’s time!

📌 Related Article: Best Strategies for Social Retail and Social Commerce

Employ BFCM hashtags

Strategic hashtag use can exponentially increase your content’s reach. Prior to planning your social media campaign, conduct some research on hashtags by using hashtag generators like Hashtagify to identify relevant tags for your brand. This will allow you to gauge the sentiments and interests of your target audience, enabling you to tailor your social media content accordingly.

Although there are well-known BFCM hashtags (#blackfridaydeals, #blackfridayspecial, #cybermondaydeals, #blackfridaysales, etc.), it's valuable to discover other trending hashtags that can be included in your posts. For example, consider exploring hashtags related to the holiday season or gift guides like #giftsforher, #giftsforhim, #giftideas, or #christmasshopping.

Another secret to optimizing the hashtag effect on social media is to have the right mix of branded hashtags, trending hashtags, and user-generated hashtags.

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Black Friday Marketing strategies to maximize sales

4. Enhance BFCM sales through incentives

By now, you have decorated the storefront, set up the email drips, and get ready to rock on social media channels. Your customers are equally eager, and they’re waiting for a single thing left from you: a good reason to buy! Incentives are the last hitch for customers to indulge themselves in holiday shopping, encouraging them to make more purchases and to spend more per transaction.

75% of consumers say they are likely to make another purchase after receiving an incentive. Offering customers benefits such as discounts, early access, free gifts, free shipping, or loyalty programs assures them that you’re all in this shopping holiday and you commit to elevating their experiences into something satisfying and memorable.

Incorporate gamification with a lucky wheel

Beyond the usual 'add to cart' or 'checkout' options, there are alternative ways to engage with shoppers. An effective Black Friday marketing strategy is to introduce a gamified Spin-the-wheel, where customers can play for the chance to win discounts. Allowing customers to play and win not only boosts engagement but also creates a memorable shopping experience that lingers in the minds of shoppers. Almost 50% of online stores have been using email capture pop-ups like discount wheels. As a result, the conversion rate has reached the plateau with an average of 3.75% conversion rate!

In addition, the gamified lucky wheel is an excellent method to build an email marketing list for future marketing campaigns to nurture and turn leads into loyal customers.

Here are some expert tips for successful Spin-The-Wheel marketing this BFCM:

• Add a delay or display the Lucky Wheel as an exit-intent pop-up instead of triggering it immediately when visitors just land on your website. 30% of customers hate it when pop-ups appear too soon, so find a sweet spot not to annoy them, and you’ll be able to collect more emails.
• Match the design of the wheel with your brand style. Modern, vintage, or futuristic - any pop-ups should look like they belong to the website, strengthening customers’ trust and interest.
• Send a dedicated email flow for Lucky Wheel subscribers. Customers who have interacted with your website are likely to do that again, so keep them in the loop for future campaigns.

Set a free shipping goal

Establishing a free shipping goal can have a significant impact on online sales, particularly during events like BFCM. The purpose of the free shipping goal is straightforward: to encourage higher cart values. You can offer free shipping for orders above a certain amount, which can boost average order value (AOV) by up to 30%.

How do you set the target price for the free shipping goal? Base it on your profit margins, and feel free to experiment with different prices to optimize your revenue. For instance, if your average order value is $50, set the goal at $75 to drive higher sales.

Here’s how FoxKit All-in-one Upsell Cross-sell helps merchants set up a free shipping goal in minutes.

📌 Pro tip: Don’t let the free shipping offer sit in the corner of the cart page forgotten! Prominently advertise it on your website, emails, and social posts.

Implement volume discounts

Discounts remain a highly effective BFCM marketing technique for attracting and retaining customers throughout the sales season. Consider generous offers on complementary items or bundles, such as a "Buy 3 Items, Get 10% Off" deal. This encourages customers to make larger purchases, thereby increasing the overall cart order value.

💡 Pro tip: You might wonder how to incorporate these Black Friday marketing ideas into your store. Luckily, Shopify offers multiple upsell and cross-sell apps to help you achieve this goal!

Try FoxKit, an all-in-one sales boost app with 14-day free trial. With FoxKit, you can easily set up high-converting sales tactics in your store, ensuring a significant increase in revenue during the BFCM season. Besides the popular volume discounts, FoxKit offers diverse upsell, cross-sell, and sales boost features, such as product bundles, countdown timers, free shipping goals, and more.

🎁 Expert Tips & Gifts: Maximize your revenue potential with volume discount bundles with Kaching - get a 20% lifetime discount

5. Recover abandoned carts to optimize holiday conversions

Did you know that during the Black Friday season, the average rate of abandoned shopping carts stood at a staggering 70.19%? Imagine being able to bring back this 70% of lost customers, thus boosting a significant amount of your revenue! According to Baymard, amongst the customers that got away, the top 3 reasons are:

• 48% say the extra costs (shipping, tax, fee) are too high
• 26% claim the reason is because the site wants them to create an account
• 25% says they didn’t trust the site with their payment information

With those reasons in mind, let’s provide tailored solutions to recover abandoned carts, thus converting lost sales into revenue and optimizing conversions for your store.

Use exit-intent pop-ups

Amongst the many tactics, exit-intent pop-ups are still an effective way to win back abandoned carts. When your customer is about to leave, show them a pop-up message like:

• Coupon code
• Special discount with an expiration date
• Invitation to chat with an agent

Trigger emails to win back abandoned carts

Incorporate automated abandoned cart emails into your Black Friday marketing for BFCM 2024. These emails target customers who left items in their carts, offering reminders or personalized deals to re-engage them and boost sales. It has been found that over 40% of cart abandonment emails are opened, and half of the recipients who open these emails go on to complete their purchases!

Additionally, create compelling subject lines. Nowadays, people receive a lot of emails, and breaking through the cluttered inbox is increasingly difficult. To capture their attention, you need to craft subject lines that are both concise and engaging. Here are a few examples of captivating subject lines:

• Left Something Behind? Let's Complete Your Purchase
• Unload Your Cart with a Special XX% Discount
• Time's Running Out! Your Cart Is About to Expire
• Undecided? {Product Name} Is Eager to Join You
• Surprise Awaits Inside – It's a Gift Just for You

Provide reliable payment methods and alternatives

As nearly one-fifth of customers abandon their carts because they don’t trust the retailer, this speaks volumes about the importance of a website’s look and feel being professional. Ensure that your design is up-to-date and you follow a consistent color scheme and layout across all pages. It is highly recommended that you include positive reviews and testimonials on key pages like the homepage, product page, and checkout page to enhance trust with your customers.

Another solution is to offer customers the option to return the product after a certain period (7-day, 14-day, or 30-day free return). The return and refund policy is especially beneficial for high-ticket items, such as furniture, jewelry, and electronics, creating a sense of security for customers.

💡 Expert Tip: There are multiple ways to build a beautiful and high-converting store. The easiest is to start with a professionally-built theme like Zest Shopify theme with a focus on mobile conversion and utilizing Foxify Smart page builder for complete freedom and advanced functions.

Foxify provides a feature-rich and beginner-friendly editor. With this tool, you can craft your banners and any page layout from the ground up, or select from stunning pre-designed templates tailored to your offerings and discounts. You can customize the layout with elegant fonts, captivating animations, color schemes, backgrounds, and more.

🎁 Save more and win big this BFCM with special offer for Foxify: 20% off for 3 months with our discount code BFCM2024WIN. Deal ends before December 24th 2024

📌 You Might Also Like: Secrets to Stunning Ecommerce Websites - A Complete Guide

6. Collaborate with influencers to win over customers’ hearts

Influencer partnerships can amplify your Black Friday marketing campaigns, with 69% of consumers trusting recommendations from influencers over a brand’s marketing messages, helping you reach niche audiences effectively. Moreover, up to 36% of brands confirm influencer marketing outperforms branded content.

Influencers are broken down into 5 groups, from nano-influencers (with 500 followers) to mega-influencers (with over 1 million followers), with diverse price ranges for you to choose from. If you’re new to influencer marketing and want to give it a try, you can start with nano-influencers (those with 500 to 5,000 followers). Although their reach is the most limited compared to others, they have the highest engagement rates. Once you’ve narrowed down your pick, here are several Black Friday promotion tactics you can kick off with the influencer.

Promote exclusive discounts

The simplest way to evaluate and maximize the influencer’s reach is to give them an exclusive discount. Their followers will feel more connected to both the influencer and the brand by having access to deals that aren’t publicly available. This exclusivity can increase the perceived value of the offer and encourage followers to purchase faster. The effect will get even more significant if the discount is quantity-limited and/ or time-limited.

Take Gymshark as an example. Gymshark has become one of the most noticeable fashion brands on Shopify, and it has grown its massive community with a long list of brand ambassadors known as Gymshark Athletes. These influencers will show their latest haul and their exclusive discounts, promoting a healthy fitness habit and the products.

SopheAllen tries on her Black Friday haul items and directs her followers to use her affiliate link to get up to 60% off for the holiday season. Source: SproutSocial

By creating more opportunities for influencers to engage with their followers, working with influencers also opens more space for user-generated content that amplifies the brand’s reach. So, pick your influencers carefully. Their audience should align with your brand’s customers.

Giveaways

Who doesn’t love free stuff?! Giveaways are easy to do and perfect for brands who are looking to increase their social engagement. Furthermore, they benefit all parties involved in the picture: Followers and viewers get nice gifts; influencers and brands receive increased interest, views, engagement, and likely loyalty and sentiment.

To spread the giveaways and contests even wider, you can make it extra exclusive with a time limit or stock limit.

📌 You Might Also Like: Best Tips for Successful Instagram Giveaways

Takeover in live shopping

Familiar with live shopping yet? If your answer is no, you’re already lagging. While China accounts for almost 80% of the global live shopping market, the live shopping market in the US is projected to hit U$55 billion by 2026, and Europe has seen 86% growth in live stream shoppers. The reason behind this massive jump is brands have realized that 73% of consumers are more likely to purchase after watching a live shopping event, with 47% of viewers making an impulse purchase.

Influencer or creator takeovers bring an authentic and engaging dimension to your brand's livestreams by showcasing your products through a trusted, relatable voice. By inviting influencers aligned with your brand values, you can tap into their established audience and benefit from their credibility, which can significantly boost sales and brand awareness.

The makeup giant Sephora is excelling in influencer takeovers. Through live streams featuring beauty influencers and makeup artists, Sephora offers tutorials, makeup tips, and product demos, creating an interactive shopping experience. These live product demos help consumers make informed decisions about beauty and fashion products, increasing sales and enhancing influencer’s expertise.

Other Black Friday marketing strategies to retain customers

7. Attract customers with an irresistible loyalty program

Transform your BFCM shoppers into loyal customers by intiating a loyalty program, which may include punch cards or referral rewards to retain their business throughout the year.

Provide exclusive discounts and complimentary gifts based on their spending. This strategy will motivate them to continue shopping, and the loyalty program will serve as a means to maintain customer engagement even after the holiday sales season concludes.

Loyalty programs extend beyond mere discounts, enabling you to establish a more profound and personalized connection with your customers. Additionally, they represent an excellent Black Friday marketing idea, especially for small businesses.

8. Send post-purchase emails and ask for feedback

Now that you have your customer's email address, use it wisely! Don't send too many emails cause you may annoy them, but it's a good idea to send a follow-up email after they've made a purchase. This not only shows you care about their shopping experience but also gives you a chance to ask for a review.

Reviews represent a highly effective method for increasing sales without incurring substantial expenses. Whether you collect reviews directly via email, through social media, on Google Reviews, or with an impartial review platform, positive reviews can be one of the most effective ways to maintain a strong return on investment (ROI).

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• Best Testimonial Design Templates & Examples
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• How to Add Reviews to Shopify Stores

9. Run last-minute or extended Black Friday promotions

For some brands, Cyber Monday can be a bigger celebration. Image: Foreo

You can expand your Black Friday sale offers to include Cyber Monday as well. Make a social media post to notify your audience that they still have the opportunity to access some of your top Black Friday deals on Cyber Monday.

To incite a sense of urgency, incorporate a countdown element to encourage prompt action. Additionally, ensure that you promote your late Black Friday offers across various marketing channels to ensure your customers are well-informed and don't miss out. This BFCM marketing strategy can also alleviate the pressure of creating distinct promotions for your followers during the holiday shopping season.

Extra: Use Black Friday marketing promotions from FoxEcom’s partners

As you gear up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, don’t forget the power of customer engagement in driving conversions. FoxEcom has partnered with some incredible platforms that can help you elevate your BFCM sales. Whether you're looking to gather authentic feedback with top-rated review apps or seeking an all-in-one customer engagement solution, our partners offer tools that can maximize your store’s performance during the busiest shopping season of the year. Take advantage of exclusive deals from our partners and ensure your store is fully optimized for a successful Black Friday Cyber Monday season!

🎁 Expert Tips & Gifts:

• Boost Customer Loyalty and Repeat Purchases with Growave - geta 60-day free trial and 20% lifetime discount.
• Turn Happy Customers Into Brand Advocates with Trustoo - get a 30% discount.
• Grow Your Customer Engagement, Lifetime Value, & Sales Faster with AiTrillion - get a 20% discount.
• Build the Most Solid Trust from Product Reviews & UGC with Judge.me - get a 45-day free trial.
• Boost Eco-friendly eCommerce Sales Growth with Ryviu - get a 30% discount.
• Power Social Proof & Boost Conversions with LAI AliExpress Review - get a 30% discount.
• Skyrocket Sales using Stunning Reviews with Air Reviews - try free now!

Are you ready for the upcoming Black Friday shopping season?

Black Friday signifies the busiest shopping period of the year. Therefore, creating a robust Black Friday marketing plan is essential to capture attention and increase sales. Implement the exceptional holiday marketing strategies shared in this blog to secure the highest revenue for your store during this festive BFCM season. Gear up for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, laying the foundation for your most successful holiday sales season ever. Good luck!

Black Friday signifies the busiest shopping period of the year. Therefore, creating a robust Black Friday marketing plan is essential to capture attention and increase sales. Implement the exceptional holiday marketing strategies shared in this blog to secure the highest revenue for your store during this festive BFCM season. Gear up for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions, laying the foundation for your most successful holiday sales season ever. Good luck!