Talia Datt gives some practical advice for creating brand awareness and converting leads during the busy Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping season.

To say it can be tricky to stand out from the crowd during the Black Friday sales frenzy would be quite the understatement. Situated the day after American Thanksgiving, Black Friday was created to mark the beginning of the holiday shopping period for consumers. Across almost all categories, brands and retailers heavily discount offerings and increase promotional activity both online and in store to entice shoppers to purchase products in the lead up to Christmas. While traditionally an American holiday, Black Friday and its accompanying Cyber Monday have now become mainstays in the Australian retail marketplace in late November.

So, if you’re wondering how to best market your brand during this crazy weekend, here are some useful and actionable recommendations to get you started:

Align with brand values

First and foremost, it is important to consider whether a sales period such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday aligns with your brand’s values. Say your product is luxurious, ethically made kaftans. It may not necessarily make sense to begin heavily discounting your products during this time when you go to great lengths otherwise to communicate the quality and exclusivity of your garments. Creating a clever explanation as to why you won’t be participating in Black Friday can be just as effective at targeting your customers and promoting conversions if they are of a particular psychographic. However, if your brand does suit a Black Friday Cyber Monday promotion, this is the perfect opportunity to get seen and heard ahead of the Christmas period.

Build a database

Secondly, have a think about your advertising. In order to stand out from a social media standpoint, building an audience in the lead up to the big event is crucial. Advertising is extremely saturated and to compete with big names can be an expensive endeavour. However, having a database of users who have engaged in the top stages of your funnel or who have signed up to your email newsletter already gives you the perfect audience to target during this sales period. They are already familiar with your brand and therefore more likely to purchase, making your campaign more affordable and producing a higher ROI. Start building this database early so that come Black Friday, you’ve already locked in as many warm leads as possible.

Create your sales funnel in advance

Thirdly, create your funnel in advance. At The Social CliQ we primarily focus on small ecommerce businesses. To ensure they have the best chance of cutting through the noise, we plan ahead to build up a database of prospects that can then be targeted during Black Friday Cyber Monday. Using a range of promotional activities and a strategic funnel that is regularly monitored for performance, we are able to drive traffic and warm up leads in preparation for the big weekend.

Other practical techniques

While the points I outlined above are slightly more conceptual, there are a range of other practical techniques that can be used to maximise your sales during Black Friday Cyber Monday. These can be mixed, matched and tailored to the needs of your business. They include:

• Preparing with pop-ups: Make them attention grabbing and easy to read so you can effectively build hype around the sale.
• Sending personalised Black Friday deals and discounts to increase email open rates.
• Using urgent messaging and social proof to ease any concerns or hesitations a customer may have about purchasing from you. This could be done through an ad carousel containing testimonials and reviews.
• Ensuring your store is mobile ready so that customers can access your sale from any device.
• Highlighting your returns policy to avoid pain points or barriers to purchase.
• Highlighting products that are on sale or offering a sneak peek in your email marketing.

And a great one for encouraging customer loyalty and standing out from other businesses:

• Offering more benefits than just a percentage off. Loyalty points, rewards or a free gift with purchase are great ways to give your customers more than just a discount and will help endear them to your brand.

Lastly, the best advice I can give you as a business owner is to adopt a multi touch point marketing strategy. Often, businesses look at marketing activities as separate components when the truth is that they work better as parts of a whole. Utilising social media, your website and the affordable, scalable abilities of email marketing together as an integrated campaign is the winning ticket to raising brand awareness and converting leads this Black Friday Cyber Monday.

Remember, Black Friday is not a battle of discounting, it’s a battle of attention. Think about how you will best get the attention of your audience and you’ll be on your way to a great sales period.

Talia Datt is the founder and director of The Social Cliq.

Photo by Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash.