Black Friday is right around the corner.
That means NOW is the time to plan a winning marketing strategy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
It’s time to pick a strategy and plan your sale so you can win big in 2024.
This guide outlines what we’ve learned over the last 5 years helping 50+ eCommerce brands plan and execute a winning Black Friday Marketing Strategy.
Ready? Ok, great, let’s dive in.
#1: Inventory Planning
First up is inventory planning. In order to have an amazing Black Friday, you need to make sure you have inventory for:
- Black Friday & Cyber Monday
- Holiday Sales
The reason for this is that once your Black Friday sale starts, you won’t have time to restock. You need to plan your inventory NOW, in order to make sure you have enough for Black Friday, Christmas, and January.
So, how much inventory do you need on hand?
If you play your cards right, you should see sales go up at least 2x in November and 2x again in December.
If a client does $200,000 in a typical month, we usually see them do somewhere around $400,000-$450,000 in November and the same again in December, if not more.
Hopefully it’s not too late to plan your inventory, but in case it is, be sure to keep this point in mind for next year.
#2: Define Your Goals
Next, we need to define your goals.
When it comes to your Black Friday Sale, what are you looking to accomplish? We need to start with your goals so we don’t lose sight of why we’re running your Black Friday Sale in the first place.
At the end of the day, the goal with your Black Friday Sale is to put as much money back into your pocket as possible. We’re not looking to just give products away. We want to maximize profit and achieve the goals we’ve set for our business.
Here are some questions you need to ask in order to identify what exactly those goals should be:
- What are your margins?
- How much inventory do you have?
- How much inventory do you need left over for the holidays?
- What products, if any, would you like to clear out during Black Friday?
Answers to those questions will help you plan the perfect Black Friday Plan for your brand.
For example:
- If you have high margins and a lot of inventory, then you can be more aggressive with your sale.
- If you have lower margins and not a lot of inventory, then you should be more conservative.
Thinking through those questions and identifying your goals will help you decide how aggressive you need to be with your Black Friday Sale, which will also inform the choices you make in the steps below.
#3: Choose a Winning Offer
Once we know our goals and how aggressive we’re looking to be with our sale, we need to plan our Black Friday Offers. Here are some options to consider:
Option 1: Percentage Discounts
- Sitewide Discounts: Offer a flat percentage off on all products, like 20% or 30% off everything. This is best for brands that have consistent margins and are looking for a simple sale that is easy to plan for.
- Tiered Discounts: Increase the discount based on the amount spent, e.g., 10% off $50+, 20% off $100+, etc. This sale is best for brands who have a large number of skus and are looking for ways to increase AOV.
- Category-Specific Discounts: Apply discounts to specific categories, such as 30% off all electronics or 25% off clothing. This is best when you have multiple product categories with different margins for each.
- Up to X% OFF Sale: This sale allows you to mark some products down more than others in order to make your offer more exciting. For example, you can mark some products down 50%, in order to advertise “Save up to 50%,” while marking your best seller products down less. This creates more excitement around your sale and allows you to clear out your slow selling products without marking down all of your products 50%.
Option 2: BOGO (Buy One, Get One) Offers
- Buy One, Get One Free: This is a classic offer that works well for products that can be easily paired. Works best when people want multiple items of what you’re selling, and if it’s something they’ll need to buy again.
- Buy One, Get One 50% Off: Provides a discount on the second item, encouraging customers to buy more.
Option 3: Flash Sales
- Limited-Time Offers: Run hourly or daily flash sales with deep discounts to create urgency. This is best for bigger brands who want to generate excitement with new offers each day.
- Doorbuster Deals: Offer extremely low prices on select items for a limited time to drive traffic to your store. This is also good for bigger brands who have a large enough team to coordinate doorbuster deals.
Option 4: Bundle Deals
- Product Bundles: Bundle related products together at a discounted price.
- Build-Your-Own Bundle: Allow customers to create their own bundle with a discount on the total.
Option 5: Free Gifts
- Gift with Purchase: Offer a free gift when customers spend a certain amount. This offer is best when you have large ticket items and high margin accessories.
- Buy One, Get a Free Gift: Entice customers to purchase by offering a free item with a purchase.
Option 6: Free Shipping
- Free Shipping on All Orders: This can be a strong incentive, especially for stores that typically charge for shipping.
- Free Shipping Over a Certain Amount: Encourage larger orders by offering free shipping on orders over a set amount, like $50 or $100.
Now that we’ve run through all the offers, here are some of the top tips we’ve learned the last 5+ years on how to pick the right offer for your brand.
- When in doubt, keep it simple. Brands like Best Buy can afford to do doorbusters, different offers each day of the week, etc., but if you have a smaller team, then you don’t have the same amount of resources to pull off a complicated sale. In situations like this, it’s much better to keep it simple (we recommend a single sitewide discount).
- If you do decide to go with a more complicated offer like a tiered discount, make sure your offer messaging is super super clear. We’ve seen brands give a percentage off AND a free gift AND free shipping when you buy more, but that can become really confusing if you’re not careful.
- Make sure you choose a discount that makes you money. Just because other brands are doing 50% OFF doesn’t mean you have to. The offer you decide to use needs to make you money, otherwise it’s not worth it. Remember, you’re running your own race, not someone else’s.
- As much as possible, make sure this is your best deal of the year. If you offer 20% OFF for regular holidays, then you should offer at least 25% OFF for Black Friday (unless your margins can’t support it or you don’t have enough inventory).
- If you have a lot of inventory and want to sell as much as possible, you have room to be more aggressive with your offer. If your inventory is low, you don’t need to be as aggressive with your offer since you have less inventory to move.
- Consider running an “Up to 50% OFF” sale. This allows you to mark most products down for less (let’s say 25%) while marking down some clearance items 50% OFF. Running an “Up to 50% OFF” sale makes your ads feel super strong, even if only a small percentage of your products are marked down that much.
- Don’t be afraid of running a really strong Black Friday offer. Yes, you’re marking your products down, but the stronger the offer, the higher the demand for what you’re selling, the more you’ll sell, and the lower your acquisition costs will be. You need to make sure you’re profitable, but don’t be afraid to be aggressive since this should be your biggest sale of the year.
#4: Write Out Your Plan
The next thing you need to do is to write out your plan by October 1.
Every year, we work with brands who don’t write out their plan until the very last minute which leads to a lot of confusion.
The solution is to write your plan out ahead of time so you can clearly communicate your plan to your team.
To help with that, we’ve created a Black Friday Sale Planning Guide you can use to write down and plan out your sale. We recommend doing this by October 1 so you have your plan in writing and can start working with your ad team, creative team, email team, etc.
Wrapping It Up
Those are the first steps you need to take in order to plan out the perfect Black Friday Strategy.
First, take some time to consider your goals so you know how much inventory you have an how much product you’d like to move in November.
Next, consider your offer and come up with an offer or offers that match the resources you have available for your brand and the types of products you sell. When in doubt, be sure to keep it simple.
Once you’ve selected your offer, make sure you spend time to write out your plan so you can clearly communicate it with your team.
