How to ensure Black Friday campaign success: Best practices and real life examples

What does a successful Black Friday campaign look like?

Whether you’re focusing on WhatsApp, SMS, email or a combination of channels for your Black Friday campaigns, the secret is knowing your audience and how to put these insights to work. 

Here are some of our favourite seasonal marketing campaigns and tips on how you can follow in their footsteps to ramp up your efforts:

1. Kwik Fit’s tactic to jump on a seasonal trend
2. Hjärtat’s coughing billboard
3. M&S Food’s pop-up tasting experience
4. Curie’s way to partake in Prime Day without being on Amazon
5. Amazon’s Black Friday Live
6. Lucy & Yak’s purchases with an impact

New Year’s: Kwik Fit’s tactic to jump on a seasonal trend

People like to use the start of a new year to work on their resolutions, many of which involve self-improvement. In 2016, Kwik Fit taps into this recurring consumer mindset with their Fit Kwik campaign. As a car servicing and repair company, you might wonder how they managed to connect their sector with this health and fitness trend.

But that’s exactly why it caught attention. Kwik Fit introduced a workout regime, dubbed Fit Kwik, to help people lose their ‘spare tyre’, involving a tyre. Featuring a personal trainer, this immersive campaign was trialled at their New Kent Road centre in London throughout January.

---

---

This is a great example of a business that managed to jump onto a trend that wouldn’t naturally be linked to their sector.

Take inspiration by analysing which seasonal trends could work, even if you take the ‘tongue in cheek’ approach like Kwik Fit did. And if a trend isn’t completely relevant, are there any other brands or individuals within a sector that is relevant that you could partner with?

New Year’s: Hjärtat’s coughing billboard

Swedish pharmacy Hjärtat launched a billboard campaign aimed at helping people cut down on smoking and live healthier, longer lives. The billboard contained a smoke detector and featured a man coughing every time he smelled (or the billboard detected) cigarette smoke. It certainly caught attention, from both smokers and non smokers alike.

Summer: M&S Food’s pop-up tasting experience

Want to create a campaign that sticks in your customers’ minds? Use as many of the five senses as possible. M&S Food, the supermarket branch of British retailer Marks & Spencer, launched their Spirit of Summer campaign to promote their new food range in August 2017.

Featuring popular dishes and ingredients from the south of France and Portugal to Italy, it wasn’t just a tasting experience. The event also included bar tasting and live music, making it an event that people will remember. 

Consider how you can make your marketing campaigns an experience. While you don’t need to organise an event like M&S did, think about what would entice your customers and prospects to engage with your campaigns. For example, alongside email and social media comms, how about hampers or personalised items that will help them remember you?

Prime Day: Curie’s way to partake in Prime Day without being on Amazon

Based on the name, you might assume that only businesses that sell their products on Amazon might participate in Prime Day. But that’s not the case. 

Take deodorant and bodycare brand Curie, for example. Using Prime Day as the angle, they offered their customers 20% off as a reward for shopping directly with them – a discount they wanted to pass onto customers instead of paying Amazon. 

Use this as inspiration for the next time there’s a big event that wouldn’t normally be totally relevant for your business.

Black Friday: Amazon’s Black Friday Live

The world’s busiest e-commerce event of the year is nothing without Amazon who brought Black Friday to the UK back in 2010. In 2021, the e-commerce giant turned the traditionally shopping-centred weekend into a four-day free event featuring live music, films, books and more.

Amazon Black Friday Live invited guests to enjoy events such as cocktail making with Laura Whitmore, a book reading with Alesha Dixon, music from Ray Blk and more. And in addition to the star-studded schedule of events, household brands showcased exclusive promotions so attendees could still get their discounted shopping fix.

This is a prime example (no pun intended) of how Black Friday campaigns don’t just have to be held online nor do they have to revolve around e-commerce. Take a leaf from Amazon’s book and plan your own in-person event. It doesn’t have to be as swanky; consider what you could do to create an immersive experience.

For example, launch a pop-up shop for a limited time only.

4. Lucy & Yak’s purchases with an impact

Independent British clothing brand Lucy & Yak is passionate about making positive changes. For Black Friday 2021, they launched a six-day campaign that focused not on sales but donating a third of their profits to the Fior Di Loto school, which is next door to their first factory in Rajasthan, a region in India. This money ultimately helped to improve the living conditions of and provide an education for more than 700 girls in that area.

Over the course of the campaign, they regularly posted on their social media channels, explaining how many girls they were able to help, thanks to their customers’ purchases. This campaign certainly pulled on the heart strings and encouraged customers to make purchases for a good cause.

This is a great example of how you can encourage your customers to join in with a charitable cause close to your business’s heart and use a popular day like Black Friday to promote it.

Christmas: Sainsbury’s advert inspired by real events

Timing the launch of your Black Friday campaigns

From marketing promotions to general gossip, people are talking about Black Friday earlier each year. When we surveyed over 4,000 consumers across the globe, we found 93% want to hear about Black Friday in advance, with 53% up to a fortnight before and 28% up to a month before the big day.

So, the data suggests that the best time to launch your Black Friday marketing campaign is between 2-4 weeks before.

But just how early can you push it?

If you’re preparing a Black Friday SMS marketing campaign or exploring your options with other channels, follow these tips to make sure you launch at the optimal time:

Analyse customer data to understand who will respond well to early campaigns

As it’s close to the likes of Christmas, many consumers use Black Friday as a chance to do the majority of their Christmas shopping. It’s a great time to catch a bargain, after all. But not everyone will be planning in advance to be prepared for the holidays. 

Andy Mulcahy, Strategy & Insight Director at IMRG, the UK’s leading e-retail organisation, said in one of our recent webinars: “Every shopper is a little bit different. Some people are shopping for Christmas now…they’ve been doing it for two months already. And then you have other people like my brother who won’t buy anything until Christmas Eve.”

He recommends reviewing your customer data to get a better understanding of customer behaviour. You can then segment into groups who will respond positively to early Black Friday communications. 

“Everybody exhibits different behaviours. Break them up as per these behaviours and you’ll know when is the best time to start marketing to them.”

Tailor your offers to individual customers

In addition to knowing which customers will respond positively to early Black Friday campaigns, understand your individual customer’s needs. What are they looking for? What do they typically purchase? 

“Consumers shop around more over the Black Friday period,” said Andy in our webinar. “They may even look at brands that they may not usually go to. So, it’s important to give them the experience they’re looking for when they come to you.”

Here are some ways you could personalise offers:

• Promotional codes on specific product ranges that the customer typically purchases
• Exclusive bundles depending on customer purchase behaviour
• If you have a loyalty scheme, offer discount codes that increase in amount depending on how many points customers have accrued.
• Discount codes where the amount saved depends on the basket value.

You can even reach out to the customers who often buy Christmas gifts at the last minute. Rather than offering exclusive promo/discount codes and bundles (which likely won’t work due to their buying behaviour), think of other ways you could offer them value. 

For instance, how about shopping guides based on a loved one (e.g. gifts for him/her)? While they may not necessarily hit ‘purchase’ just yet, this will get them thinking in advance.

Vary your offers in the lead-up to the big day

Another tactic you could try when creating peak season or specifically Black Friday campaigns is launching different offers in the lead-up to the sale period. For example, if you’re going to have a week-long campaign, offer different discount codes across the week. The discount can increase in value as you approach the big day.

Some retailers launch teasers in the run up to the event. For instance, Apple launched a cliffhanger campaign for Black Friday last year. Weeks before the day, they sent out emails that gradually revealed snippets of the upcoming deals. 

Varying your offers can help boost customer engagement, exciting people prior to the big sale event and encouraging them to spend money.

What’s on the agenda for your next marketing campaign?

The creative examples may have inspired you for your next campaign. What will you do to prepare? Do you know what your customers are expecting when it comes to brand engagement and the retail customer experience?

In our guide, we discuss how businesses can win the brand and loyalty battle. Download your copy here. For even more tips and tricks, reach out to our expert team today.