Black Friday sale ideas for small business

3 min read

Our top Black Friday sale ideas for small businesses.

Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend is one of the biggest consumer spending weekends of the year. Businesses that can create effective sales and promotions properly see their revenue skyrocket.

This year, we will see the start of Black Friday weekend commencing November 24th, 2023.

In this blog post, we highlight the best ways to use social media to promote Black Friday for your small business. Read on to get started.

Social media to promote Black Friday

A recent statistic shows that 59% of the world's population uses social media. 2022 figures show that on average, people spend 2 hours and 29 minutes on it each day.

This means that it’s most likely your consumers will have the greatest chance of seeing your Black Friday deals through social media over any other forms of marketing.

How to get your Black Friday Deals to reach more people?

1.    Use hashtags related to Black Friday

… such as #BlackFriday, #BlackFriday2023, or #CyberMonday in order to get more exposure on social media.

On Black Friday and Cyber Monday consumers will be looking for Black Friday deals specifically. So you need to make your posts as visible as possible. Using hashtags is a great way to do this. Your posts will not only show up for consumers searching specifically for Black Friday deals but also the social media algorithm will prioritise your posts for consumers who have previously looked for similar Black Friday deals on social media.

2.   Run a Black Friday/ Cyber Monday giveaway/ competition

Social media users love competition. Let’s face it, there’s no skin off their nose, all they need to do is follow, like and comment on a post usually to enter into a prize draw to win a freebie.

On Instagram posts, the average number of comments and likes for an IG post is 10.6 percent. Those for an Instagram contest post are 64x higher.

black friday

Running your giveaway on a Black Friday weekend is genius, as it increases your exposure considerably while generating more web traffic to your page. It’s a win-win for both you and your social media audience as your increased exposure leads to more sales, while some lucky winner gets a free gift.

It can be a great idea to run a Black Friday prize draw to win either a free product or a code to your store to have a considerable discount/ free gift.

3.   Work with influencers for user-generated content

You can take your Black Friday social media marketing success to the next level by working with creators.

Social media users in a particular niche with a good number of followers, produce fun and entertaining content for their audience. These influencers use their platforms to promote products and services on behalf of their sponsor.

As such, people who follow them believe their information is authentic.

There are lots of people who make purchase decisions based on the content a company publishes- so if you're to engage with them, offering your own content is an excellent idea.

4.   Get people excited about Black Friday deals with early access to your deals

The majority of the people who follow you are your supporters that have been there from day one. You can gain their support even further by giving them early access to your offers.

Let them know that you appreciate their contribution to your business growth with exclusive offers. You can also integrate this technique into your email marketing campaign so that you run some promotions exclusively for your subscribers.

5.    Let your followers know that you offer free shipping

Every time you mention the word “free”, everyone’s ears perk up and everybody starts paying attention. …we love free stuff and we know you do too

Inform your followers of the free shipping you offer via a social media post and see the number of items in their cart increase!

A survey from UPS found that more than half of the respondents (52%) would order more items to qualify for free shipping.

6.   Offer free gifts

One of the marketing tricks employed by many brands on Black Friday is to offer free gifts with any purchase. This sounds like a pretty good idea and it seems like it would bring a lot of joy to the buyer.

At times, it can be beneficial to add a little something extra to your customer’s package. For example, if you choose to offer free extras that come in the form of vouchers for your store or other services you provide. Who doesn’t like free stuff?

A free gift always entices people to buy a product. However, this gift doesn’t necessarily have to be one of the products you sell in your store. There are tons of inexpensive items that would make great bundle promotions.

One more benefit freebies can bring is that customers are less likely to return the products they bought, as they don't want to lose the extra items. Studies have shown the rate of unnecessary returns is up by 30% on Black Friday. This means you'll likely get an effective economic boost from giving out free gifts such as these.

You may wish to consider adding a few cost-effective items to the buyer's package:

  • Mystery gift: give shoppers the excitement of unearthing a hidden gem
  • Samples of your other available items
  • A complimentary item to match your product.

7.   Create Black Friday boxes and bundles

Another idea you can do for your social media posts is to create special boxes like gift guides and sell them as bundles.

Black Friday is a great opportunity to select a few products and pack them together in hopes of selling them at an unbelievable price.

Bulk and bundle shoppers will appreciate the opportunity to make sure they have everything they need without having to visit more than one store. And employees get the chance to upsell customers on similar items!

9 . The second chance or last chance offer

Another Black Friday marketing idea for small businesses is to offer a Second chance or Last chance sale.

We do this to allow indecisive buyers to nab a Black Friday deal. This tends to work because people who have already abandoned carts and missed out on the first sale period are going to need a final opportunity.

Other than just using the extended sale to attract customers in the after-Black Friday shopping month, you can use it as an opportunity to keep your customer engaged for long periods afterward. In order to keep a customer's purchase active, you are going to have to come up with incentives for them. You also want them to still be engaged and present in the sales period so try using a sale or other incentives at the end of the sale or promotional offer

10. Email marketing campaign

Email has been the go-to for communicating with consumers about Black Friday deals for years. This is why we recommend that marketers curate and send out exciting Black Friday email announcements, lists of items on sale, or gift ideas this time of year.

A segmented email marketing strategy is crucial for a successful Black Friday campaign. By showing customers the right products, you enable them to buy what they want with ease and thus improve their shopping experience.

It's the holiday season, which means there is lots of competition for your customer's attention. You want your subject line to stand out, so it's a good idea to focus on quality instead of quantity.

When it comes to the content of your emails, it's best to keep things concise and avoid overthinking. This will allow you to get straight to the point and maximise your eCommerce engagement.

11. Build your customer’s anticipation

Most of the Black Friday ideas are actually psychological triggers by design. Smart businesses make an attempt to build anticipation and curiosity for their customers before the event.

Promotions can be teased as early as in the first emails or countdown social media posts.

It's crucial to keep customers engaged and aware of the upcoming day. When they are more excited, they will likely buy your products faster, which gives them a chance to promote your products better

12. Compile a Black Friday sales report for analysis

Your sales performance report is an important resource that will allow you to improve your strategy in the future. This is particularly important around Black Friday, as your buyer audience becomes more diverse and purchasing increases. You'll have a greater understanding of what they want and how they can be persuaded to buy from you.

It's never perfect, so use our analysis to work on the areas that need improvement. You can also use it to find out what you did well on Black Friday and make preparations for next year's campaign which will save you time and money.

13. Extend your sale from Black Friday to Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday is very similar to the Black Friday sales and has been around for years. It was created with the intention of getting consumers to buy from online stores, which have deals available just like Black Friday. Black Friday has become a symbolic shopping holiday around the world. People are increasingly buying a lot of digital items while they're at it.

Take advantage of the entire 4-day period between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You can offer deals for your products across this time period. It'll help boost your sales during what is traditionally a low sales period.

14. Start selling digital e-vouchers for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

gift cards

Every year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the two busiest shopping days of the year. why you should sell gift vouchers for black Friday.

Gift vouchers are the perfect solution for shoppers who are unable to find exactly what they want as well as those who need to shop for more people than they could afford. If a shopper can't find what they're looking for, then a voucher may be the answer. They also make perfect gifts for friends and relatives because of their convenience.

E-gift vouchers are an easy and quick way to give a gift. These can be purchased online and sent via email instantly, saving the trouble of having to go out shopping for a physical gift. They are also a more personal choice as they can be sent to someone's inbox so that they can choose what they would like instead of being surprised with one item that they may not be happy with.

They also make an incredible last-minute gift if you’ve forgotten to purchase something, but want to take advantage of any cost savings. They can be bought now and redeemed later, so as long as the end user cashes in their voucher before the expiry date, then they will have ample opportunity to use their gift vouchers.

If you’d like more information on how you can set the expiry dates for your gift vouchers, then you’ll find out post on Expiry Date on Gift Vouchers Law extremely helpful!

Black Friday ideas for small business

Frequently asked questions for Black Friday ideas for small business

What to do for Black Friday small business?

For the run-up to Black Friday, there are a few things you can do to increase sales:

  • Use social media promotions
  • Discount your products and services for a limited time
  • Heavily promote online sales as well as in-house. people enjoy the convenience of Black Friday shopping.
  • Use gift cards to increase the sales of your products AND services. Creating gift experiences around your services is a very clever way to do this.
  • Use email promotions to past customers.
  • Run competitions on social media to increase interest and engagement

Is Black Friday good for small businesses?

Black Friday is a great opportunity for small business to increase their revenue. Even if your business is a service.

How do you attract customers on Black Friday?

Build anticipation on the lead-up to Black Friday. This will not only create excitement and desire for your customers to purchase your goods, but also it will attract new customers curious about your business.

To reach new customers you can promote more on social media and doing the following:

  • Using relevant hashtags
  • Run social media competitions which require tagging friends and following your account
  • Check your abandoned cart rates
  • Create sales directly on social media to minimise the steps involved in the purchasing process
  • Improve your SEO so you can appear on the top of search engine results from pages. Find out more about SEO here.
  • Use referral codes with your existing customer base.

What sells the most during Black Friday?

Gift cards are an increasingly popular team bought on Black Friday, with sales of gift cards increasing year on year.

One reason for this increase according to Rob Bates is that a gift card is an elegant solution for men not knowing what gift to buy their women. Women can choose their own present ensuring their 'gifts' from their men send the right signal that they have a devoted partner.

gift giving

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