The Google Girls’ Guide For Black Friday Shopping AND Marketing Tips

Black Friday, Small Business Sunday, and Cyber Monday form a weekend that I am affectionately deeming “The Spending Super Bowl!”  This weekend of spending drives 4.45 billion dollars into brick and mortar stores and e-commerce alike. This gives physical and online stores not only a chance to make huge profits but to get in front of more consumers and gain loyal customers.  

Very few people understand that, besides the apparent sales goals of Black Friday, there are massive opportunities to achieve Marketing goals as well. Small and large businesses should retarget their objectives during the spending surge.

Having a “good” promotion will not be enough to capitalize on the holiday and gain the highest possible number of new customers. For every sale you have, there will be a hundred of your competitors following the same or better deal. The trick to crushing sales goals and making an excess of money during the frenzy is to start all year round!

Marketing is all about playing the long game. Tricks and gimmicks may seem like a good idea at first. However, only genuine, white hat marketing techniques will hold up and make your business the most profits over time. Black Friday is no different. If you want to expand your revenue and customer base, start now and buckle up.

Even the most impatient of people will be able to agree that once the results roll in, it is worth the wait. Here are a few tools, that if developed entirely during the year, will boost your business significantly.

Email Marketing

Think of email marketing as you would go about taking care of a plant. You start with a list of email address of past and hopefully future clients. You have to keep a close eye on them. You can water them, and keep them healthy by periodically sending them email blasts with news, promotions, or events. The trick is that you want to focus your email campaigns on only information that is relevant and interesting to them.

If you start to send them junk they don’t like or spam them with ten emails a day, people on your list will slowly unsubscribe or block you. Imagine pouring nail polish remover on a sunflower; I can’t see that ending well.

If you grow and maintain your email list during the year, it should be no problem to drive targeted traffic when Cyber Monday rolls around.  

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization, otherwise known as SEO, is critical. Your customers need to be able to find YOU. Google’s search results are a very conceptive space. All of your social media, content marketing blogs and online content need to follow Google’s best practices or else it will get buried and land on page thirteen. SEO is not something that comes quickly. It is a war between similar brands to have their website and content show up organically.

Social Media

It is proven that consumers are more likely to buy items and services that they have seen posted online by an influencer, or that have qualified reviews.

You can use this to your advantage on Black Friday by ranking up online reviews and customer generated photos all year round. During the hysteria of Black Friday shopping, shoppers need to make a split decision on either to purchase or not. If your brand isn’t developed well enough online, you could lose potential profits when they do a quick mobile search on it.

Just because I work in digital marketing doesn’t mean I ONLY care about the marketing aspects of these spending holidays. I also love to find good deals. Here are a few of my secret shopping tips to make sure the consumer wins too!

Honey

This one is going to blow your mind. Honey is a Google Chrome extension that automatically applies any online coupon or promo code to your order during checkout. Some reviews credit the tool of getting them up to 50% their online cart at Urban Outfitters where there previously was no sale. This is a game changer!

Plan Your Attack

If you’re doing your shopping in person… first of all good luck! Second, you need to have a plan. Make lists of what you want and where you want to go to get it. Hot items like Televisions, iPhones, and popular kid’s toys fly off the shelf. Make your plans accordingly.

Check Competitors

Big companies are getting desperate to undercut their competitors. This cat and mouse game can prove very lucrative for savvy shoppers like you.  An emerging trend is that buyers are asking managers for a discount, and showing them a competitor’s price.

Somehow, it’s actually working! If you have your heart set on a specific brand, you may be able to haggle them down if you bring up the price of a similar product. This has worked at places like Walmart, Lowes, Best Buy and Home Depot.  

Don’t Get Tricked

While online shopping, ignore all flashy pop-up or banner ads. Hackers are well aware of how quickly people are searching around for deals. A few wrong clicks can lead you to a potential scam.

It’s also a good idea to shop on your own, private Wi-Fi. You never know who could set up hotspots to try and steal your information.

Cyber Monday is also not the time to take a risk and order something from that super cheap but very suspicious clothing boutique that’s mailing address is in China. Only shop on trusted sites!

If you have any questions about how your business can maximize their profits on Black Friday and all year round, feel free to contact us at 215.393.8700. We’d love to chat more about “Turning Clicks Into Clients!”

The post The Google Girls’ Guide For Black Friday Shopping AND Marketing Tips appeared first on Results Driven Marketing.