Creative Black Friday Campaigns: 7 Ideas for Marketing Black Friday[+Examples]

Consumers spent $9,12 billion online on Black Friday last year,  and that number is set to increase this year. With more people spending online, you need to have a Black Friday marketing campaign in place that will help you stand against your top competitors and help you earn more sales for your business. Creative Black Friday campaigns can help your business to stand out from your competitors.

To help inspire your campaign, here are seven ideas for making the best Black Friday campaigns.

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1. Create a gift guide

First on our list of Black Friday marketing ideas is to create a gift guide. Gift guides are an incredibly useful tool for helping people find the perfect gift for their family and friends. It’s an organized way to present all your products and make recommendations for your audience.

The type of gift guide will depend upon your business. You can create an all-encompassing gift guide, or you can create individual gift guides for specialized groups. Amazon is an excellent example of utilizing gift guides effectively.

They created gift guides for electronics, fashion, toys, and more. Similarly, Target created a toy gift guide to help parents, family members, and friends find the perfect gift for children of all ages. Creating a tailored gift guide is a creative way for you to help shoppers find the best products, and it’s especially helpful for shoppers who may not know what they want to buy for someone.

Creating a gift guide, like a “top gifts for men” or “top gifts for women,” can guide people to find the right gift for everyone on their list. When you’re trying to drum up ideas for creative Black Friday campaigns, think about how you can make your gift guide stand out from your competition. Something as simple as using interactive elements to guide people to the product page can create a unique and engaging experience.

2. Offer mystery savings

Next on our list of ideas for creating creative Black Friday campaigns is to offer mystery savings. Mystery savings can help boost engagement with your brand and create a sense of playfulness and fun. When you offer mystery savings, you provide the user with a multitude of potential savings options.

Once they click the link, spin a wheel, or complete some other action, they can see the mystery savings they received. Logitech’s email campaign is an excellent example of this concept. They used a spinning wheel that reveals how much they’ll save after “spinning” the wheel.

It’s one of the best Black Friday promotion ideas because it lets users interact with your business to find out their special offer. Then, once they know the offer, it may be just enough to encourage them to shop with you.

3. Give a loyalty offer

Want to develop creative Black Friday campaigns? Try centering some of your marketing around your loyalty program, a sales promotion idea that increases customer retention. Offering special perks for your loyal fans is a great way for you to generate more buzz around your business on Black Friday.

You can opt for this creative Black Friday campaign if you currently have a loyalty program for your customers by offering them a Black Friday perk that only they can receive. A great example of this is Sephora. Sephora has a loyalty program broken down into three tiers: Insider, VIB, and Rouge.

These tiers are based on spend amount and offer different levels of perks, from shipping perks to insider cash. However, for the holidays, Sephora adds a discount for shoppers, depending upon their loyalty program status. So, if you want to have creative Black Friday campaigns, consider creating a way for your loyal brand lovers to get extra perks.

It’s a great way to get new brand lovers to join your loyalty program, too! Some great loyalty perks include:

• Free shipping
• Gift card with purchase amount
• Special discount for loyalty members
• Special gift with holiday purchase
• Double points on purchases

4. Offer early access to deals

Next on our list of Black Friday promotion ideas is to offer early access to sales. You can intertwine this marketing idea into your loyalty program, or you can use it as a strategy to get people to join your email list. Offering early access deals are a great way to encourage shoppers to shop at your store before your competition.

It can also help them avoid the crowds and get exactly what they need. Target offers early access for both their loyalty program and their RedCard holders. Target’s loyalty program, known as Target Circle, gives shoppers access to select deals the night before Thanksgiving.

RedCard holders, on the other hand, get access to hundreds of deals all day Wednesday. This strategy is a creative way to encourage people to shop with your business. When people get exclusive access to your deals before everyone else, it makes them feel special and encourages them to cash in on the bonus they’ve been offered.

5. Offer special discounts through hourly deals or flash sales

Next on our list of ideas for creative Black Friday campaigns is to create hourly deals or flash sales. These two mediums are a great way to create a sense of urgency and get people to shop with you during the holiday weekend. With hourly deals, you offer a special price or discount each hour.

So, if you’re a clothing store, you might offer a deal on your jeans in one hour and your sweatpants the next hour. You can use this opportunity to promote your most popular products and increase sales. Hourly sales can also help you put lesser-known products in front of your audience and help people discover them.

On the other hand, flash sales can help you generate sales quickly for your business. In this example from Old Navy, they only gave shoppers six hours to snatch up an extra 40% off clearance online. Putting a time frame on your sale compels more people to shop before the deal is gone.

You can use this idea with your Black Friday marketing campaigns to help generate more buzz around your business and get people to check out your limited time offers.

6. Offer deals on gift cards

Some of the best Black Friday campaigns revolve around gift cards. Companies often get swept up in  promoting their products that they forget people like to buy gift cards too. In fact, the National Retail Federation found that gift cards remain the most requested item on wish lists.

So, if you want to create creative Black Friday campaigns, consider offering a promotion on your gift cards. Taco Bell opted to take a “get-give” approach to their gift-card deal. When people bought a $15 eGift card, they got a bonus $5 eGift card for free.

Some companies may offer a free $10 gift card for every $50 gift card purchase. Other companies may offer 5% off gift cards.

7. Try something out of the ordinary

Last on our list of ideas for creative Black Friday campaigns is to try something out of the ordinary! Sometimes doing something unexpected or bizarre can help you earn more sales for your business. Take Cards Against Humanity as an example.

They raised their prices for Black Friday by $5. You might think that this would deter people from buying, but the gag actually increased sales for the company! When you do something out of the ordinary, though, make sure you know your customer base first! In the case of Cards Against Humanity, this Black Friday promotion worked because their audience found it funny and wanted to buy the game.

A strategy like this won’t always work for other companies. If you want to use this Black Friday marketing idea, try to brainstorm ideas of something unusual that you can do to appeal to your audience or make them laugh.

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Get help with your creative Black Friday campaigns

If you’re brimming with ideas for creating creative Black Friday campaigns, it’s time to execute them. But if you don’t have extensive experience with marketing, you may not know how to start.

That’s where WebFX can help. We have a team of over 500 experts that can help you craft Black Friday marketing campaigns that drive results for your business. In the past five years alone, we’ve driven over $6 billion in sales for our clients.

Give us a call today at 888-601-5359 or contact us online to speak with a strategist about our marketing services!