6 Black Friday Marketing Ideas

Black Friday is a shopping phenomenon like no other day in America, whether you love it or hate it. As this day especially affects retailers, it also has a major impact on other types of businesses such as restaurants, convenience stores, etc. As major shopping traffic flows all throughout your city, we wanted to show you a few marketing ideas to get some of that traffic to you.

1. Partner with neighboring businesses.

   Black Friday shoppers like to save time and energy when running around searching for the best deals. Take advantage of this by doing some research on neighboring retailers around you to find the best deals. Partner up with them and offer free advertising for their deals in exchange for them advertising yours. You could even have your guests show a receipt from that store for the deal in case they are not a direct subscriber to your text club. Shoppers will appreciate doing more of their business in one nearby area when they can.

2. Social Media Posts

   Advertise your Black Friday offers, deals, partnerships and events on social media. With these posts you can both promote to a wider range of potential customers and direct them to join your text club to get the real offer via text. You can also promote your partnership deals and tag partners as well to cross-promote.

3. Create holiday menu and/or special offers.

   Reusing a typical, run-of-the-mill offer may not do the trick on Black Friday. This is the one time to hit an absolute homerun with a special offer. Make it count. Restaurants could do an all-day happy hour, entree and special holiday drink specials to encourage walk-in traffic. Shoppers will be tired, after all they got up before the crack of dawn to get started. Convenience stores, coffee shops, smoothie and juice bars, etc. can really benefit by offering specials on festive caffeinated drinks to energize those tired shoppers, either in the morning or afternoon as they start to crash down.

4. Gift Cards

   If you are not selling gift cards today, it is a great time to start. Sell them now at regular price and offer a discount only on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, etc. Maybe even do a limited door buster to the first 10-25 customers on that/those day(s). These have real value to customers and will serve you well also.

5. Prepare your staff.

   Staffing is extra hard these days due to Covid restrictions, mandates and policies. So, it may be easier said than done, but it is important to be fully staffed on Black Friday when you are throwing out your best offers and best efforts to bring customers in. They should all also be fully trained on your specials, how to promote them in-store and properly keep track as needed.

6. Send two textALERTs for this offer.

   Send one textALERT the week before to let your subscribers know you are coming up with something good for them on Black Friday. Then, closer to day, send the alert with the offer. That way you build an expectation for your offer and have your customers looking forward to it. Also, note that there are many businesses doing many great offers on that day, but you have SMS marketing capabilities, so you have an advantage on them anyway!