What did we learn from last week's Black friday?

The “Black Friday” first appeared in 1932 in the United States. It is the day following Thanksgiving Day and as you may know, it signs the beginning of the christmas shopping season with big promotional sales in the stores. With the Internet, this phenomenon spread its visibility online, with an increase of online shopping. The convenience of online shopping has increased the number of cross-border shoppers seeking bargains from outside of the U.S., especially from Canada for example. How do websites and retailers use social media, advertising and mobile optimization during this period that applies customer-centric marketing campaigns. 

Social media strategy

Alongside email marketing, which is the priority of the marketing strategy, social media platforms are a solid foundations to reach customers with. Using the #Blackfriday hashtag on Twitter to introduce new products or support promotions; or making the best out of Facebook advertising, as long as companies are able to monitor their social media channels, every path can be taken. One important thing is to be responsive to customers by addressing their issues and questions, it supports a company's’ competitive advantage and increases its customers’ loyalty.

Mobile optimization
Promoting offers has never been so easy with mass marketing. The use of databases of customers has become a very powerful tool to raise awareness regarding the offers. Moreover, it is very important to make sure that the website is optimized for mobile use since the number of users buying products on their phones is increasing; and it is even more important since shoppers will be looking for great deals easily just by using their smart phones. This is why sending customers coupons and promotions straight to their phones is important to trigger the call to action (like on the screenshot). Retailers spend extra money to make sure they will triumph over competitors that are not “mobile-friendly” and do not have a mobile optimized version of their shopping site. 

E-Commerce strategy

The E-Commerce Strategy is a top priority to invest in since starting sales earlier than traditional brick and mortar stores brings a strong advantage over the competition. Fast and free shipping, flexible payment options and coupon codes are all nice incentives to encourage customers to invest in a small company’s online products. Adjusting to the customers by adopting friendly language, addressing them by their names and adding an additional discount code or a small gift with their purchase will make customers appreciate and reward you with their fidelity.

Shopping trends

It is very interesting to see the results of the efforts made last week for this big event, and Google released recently the Black Friday Shopping trend data. With such an event, there’s no more opportune time to reveal shopping data with insights into what to expect during the biggest retail season of the year.

This was verified this time: Mobile shopping has take the lead by surpassing desktop shopping. Google expects that trend to continue next year, which can be looked at as a good thing whether you are an online retailer or a physical retailer. Another important data to point out is that 59% of mobile shopping searches happen before the stores open and continue long after they close.

Last, it was shown that women purchase early while men wait it out to complete their purchase.

Shopping behaviours have changed and businesses of every size can benefit from Black Friday if they focus enough on adopting a solid E-commerce strategy and operate through their online channels. Stand out, invest some resources and be creative - customers will appreciate this and will be back. 

Anna Lefèvre

Sébastien Fors

sources: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/black-friday-marketing-campaign-strategies/178622/

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-releases-data-consumers-shopping-holiday-season-infographic/179245/?ver=179245X2