What is Black Friday?
It is the day after the US holiday of Thanksgiving, regarded as the first day of the holiday shopping season, on which retailers make major discounts to online and offline shoppers.
It also has its equivalent in the Middle East with White Friday (Souq.com, now Amazon) and Yellow Friday (noon)
| Black | Term coined in Philadelphia, USA in mid 1900’s due to the crazy traffic on the day after Thanksgiving which has now become the busiest shopping day of the year. Namshi’s sales event is a month long and named Black November. |
| White | White Friday was introduced by Souq.com [Now an Amazon Company] in 2014 replicated after the Black Friday in the United States the day after Thanksgiving. Since Friday is a sacred religious day in Islam and the Middle Easterns don’t observe Thanksgiving as well as the color black being associated with mourning, White Friday seemed to be an ideal alternative. |
| Yellow | Introduced by noon.com in 2018. Noon.com aims to attract 25 million unique shoppers as part of the 2019 ‘Yellow Friday’ sales push. They also revealed that their revenue increased eightfold during Yellow Friday 2018. |
Tip 1: Plan Early
In the past Black/White/Yellow Friday was typically a one day sale event. In recent years, merchants have extended the sale for several days and even weeks. It is important to plan and strategize before November begins so that you can start informing your customers of what to expect during the month and build excitement for the sale event.
Tip 2: Collaborate + Partner up
‘Together we are stronger’ Get other companies, brands and influencers to collaborate with you. Your brand will increase its online reach and customers are more likely to be influenced by a third trusted party. Partner with an Influencer that will align with your product. By driving an authentic connection your prospect customer is more likely to make a purchase.
Tip 3: Use both online and offline Marketing techniques
Although e-commerce is growing fast in the Gulf/Middle East, we find that trust is a factor in the decision to buy online and you need to be present for your prospect customers offline as well. Find out what locations are most frequented by your prospect customers and/or what print magazine they like reading and invest in traditional advertising to raise brand awareness through billboards, print media, etc.
Tip 4: Make sure you site load speed is optimized and no broken links
It takes a maximum of 3 seconds for a person to decide whether or not he or she will stay on your page looking through your content. A landing page is a place that’s intended to make your audience end their browsing session with a conversion. So, the faster your content loads, the more effective your sales will be.
Likewise, broken links cause irritation and frustration to a user. It’s simple, if a link doesn’t work, your audience’s trust in you will diminish.
Tip 5: Mobile Friendly
People are increasingly turning to their screens for Black Friday deals, rather than battling crowds in retail stores ensure your site is friendly to all screen sizes.
Tip 6: Learn from the past and watch your competitors closely.
Study your sites performance during last years sale event. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are great tools to help your success for the 2019. Which pages drove the most traffic, highest conversions, and highest keyword rank for your marketing campaigns. Build off of these successes and use these pages as a model for your marketing strategy this year.
Tip 7 Identify Relevant Keywords
Black Friday is the highest ranked keywords term during this period, leverage these terms in combination with your product to increase organic traffic. Other related keywords include deals, sales, discounts, coupons.
Tip 8 Create Landing Pages
Landing pages are a great way to attract leads for your business and also specifically market products you wish to push for the Black Friday sales event, it can potentially double your e-commerce sales.
Tip 9 Inserting visible calls-to-action for easy conversions
For an eCommerce sites on Black Friday, the action is to purchase. Now that a potential customer is on your site, we want them to convert into a paying customer . ‘Buy Now’, ‘Add to Basket’ are some clear action words.
Sandstorm Digital ® Worldwide helps clients surpass their goals through effective digital marketing tactics and strategies. We can help you reach the right customer and convert them into loyal paying customers. We would be happy to provide you with a quote, contact us to learn more about our All-In-One Digital Marketing Services.
