Black Friday Marketing – Get on Board
Black Friday – to consumers these words should inspire joy, satisfaction, a glorious feeling of triumph at the thought of such bargains; to retail employees, dread, loathing, maybe a numbing sense of morbid acceptance; and for the business owner, they may find they’ve developed permanent pound sign emojis instead of eyes for the entire month of November.
Now we probably don’t need to convince anyone that going for Black Friday marketing is the right idea – its success is the stuff of legend – but in case you need a little encouragement, take a look at this image below:
Every year surrounding the dates of Black Friday and Cyber Monday there are huge spikes in “Black Friday” as a search term on Google. It’s a no brainer.
Now, it’s easy enough to feel that you’re above all the hullaballoo on the day after the American Thanksgiving, but the science shows that as consumers, we’re psychologically inclined to buy more on that day, and as business owners, we should be using this fact to the best of our abilities.
The Science Part
According to a study by Convertize, consumers buy more Black Friday deals because of five specific cognitive biases which major retailers and ecommerce businesses use to create that infamous buzz:
- FOMO (or Fear Of Missing Out for those of you who have better things to do than keep up with the hip youth vernacular)
With social media and press coverage of the massive sales taking place pretty much everywhere on the day of Black Friday, the whole event starts to look like an unmissable social occasion.
- Scarcity Effect
With marketing slogans like “While stocks last!” or “When they’re gone, they’re gone!” we end up placing a higher value on those items we perceive to be scarce than ones more readily available.
- Commitment and Consistency
Usually, people who enter a shop (online or in person) on Black Friday are going to exit with something – after all, they’ve come all that way and braved the crowds or skimmed the site, and they like to have something to show for it, even if it perhaps wasn’t what they were looking for in the first place.
- Anchoring Effect
This is what we call it when people buy something listed something like this “£550 Now only £349!” The first number acts as a point of reference with which to compare all subsequent numbers, thus encouraging shoppers to go for a more expensive buy because it looks comparatively cheaper.
- Social Proof
This is what we call it when people who aren’t sure how to behave look to others for guidance i.e. joining the back of the queue when you don’t know what it’s for.
Pretty interesting right? (Not to mention embarrassing, I mean we’re all suckers for this.)
How can we use Black Friday marketing to tick all the right boxes?
That’s where ADEO comes in. If you let us know well in advance, our digital marketing, communications/content and videography divisions can do what they do best and work together to set you up an airtight Black Friday marketing campaign and long-term plan that will set you up to see huge rises in your profits and sales.
Whether you’re one of our existing clients or not yet with us, but looking to get a boom in your sales this winter, call one of our ADEO Groupies to discuss what we can do for you.
*Jochen Grünbeck – Convertize
