Increase visibility on Black Friday without offerings

Whilst a larger portion of companies begin to plan for Black Friday offerings and activations, there’s another portion who plans for how to not activate any Black Friday offerings. How do you “deactivate” a big sale happening? How do you break through the noise when a majority of companies raise their bids, shoot out never-ending emails and activate higher markdowns? We’ve got you covered.

Since Nimble have been working with both companies who traditionally have Black Friday but also companies who don’t – we’ve encountered and worked with many strategies on how to navigate when there’s a higher competition out there.

How to prepare your channels for Black Friday

What’s the case?

Firstly, let’s talk about what’s actually the issue when everyone activates their campaigns at the same time with higher bids. It’s self-explanatory but just in case anyone forgets. The higher the bids, the higher the CPC, CPM and overall CPA costs gets. On top of that, picture yourself standing in a crowd, everyone is shouting to get one person’s attention – not that easy, right? The same goes for digital activations in all platforms. That sums Black Friday up pretty well. Looking a few years back, we also see a shift in trend where Black Friday has gone from being a one day event shifted to black weekend, week and even month. This makes it even harder for companies in general, but specifically for those who plan to not have any reduced prices or offerings during this occasion.

But let’s focus on how to plan to get the most out of this when you don’t really change anything in your market strategy.

Learn more about how Nimble can transform your business.

Gear up for growth

Might sound easier than done. But truly, September is a wonderful time to start to acquire new leads, collect product reviews, A/B-test features on your site. Mainly, because the cost per lead isn’t as high as two weeks before Black Friday according to Meta, but also to plan ahead and potentially gain loyal customers in your CRM ahead of Black Friday.

Segmentation, segmentation & segmentation

Your loyal customers will be your most important during this event. If your main objective during Black Friday is to gain new customers, think again. It’s too expensive and competitive to even spend time and market budget on that. Focus on where your most profitable customers are and what their drivers are during this time.

Be honest & transparent

When wanting to gain customers’ trust during this time, it’s easy to ignore the fact that Black Friday is around and solemnly push out messaging about the brand, products or even new collections. Instead of doing so, be honest and transparent on why you don’t have any Black Friday offerings. A great example of a brand who actually profits from Black Friday even though there’s no sale, are Patagonia. They’ve had big campaigns where their messaging was to not buy from them, and if customers did, they donated the profits to organizations. Believe it or not, but they actually tripled their projected budget and did more than $10 million dollars. Why? Because they were honest and transparent on the decision to not have any promotions during this time. Sometimes, not participating in discount wars can actually boost brand perception.

Focus on quality content instead of sales

When the focus is not primarily on sales, businesses should focus on engaging with their audience and have high quality content that the audience can engage with. Maybe have interactive sessions with polls, competitions or other activations that might break through all the sales-crazy discount ads.

There’s other ways than markdowns to offer

There’s always alternative ways to discounts. Instead of having reduced prices, look at bundled offers, extended warranties or loyalty points. While focusing on brand, look into ways to still engage your audience during this time. Contact us to learn more.