19 Black Friday Marketing Ideas With Examples to 10X Sales 

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are commonly projected as two of the biggest pay dates business owners have in the whole year.

And the numbers speak for this claim, as last year, shoppers spent $9.8 billion online in a single day. Surprised? Well, this year, that number is expected to hit even more than $10 billion.

So, you can’t miss this opportunity & must plan your BFCM marketing campaign in advance.

But where & how do we start?

Many store owners struggle to find innovative ways to promote their BFCM campaigns. To make it easy for you, I interviewed top marketing experts and compiled a list of the best Black Friday marketing ideas they recommend to business owners—guaranteed to Boost Your Sales Significantly.

Some Black Friday Marketing Statistics to Motivate You to Start Preparing

Well, it is pretty obvious that Black Friday campaigns bring in increased sales, but how significant of a change can you expect?

As per some rough estimations, BFCM campaigns can boost sales by as much as 20-30%.

We checked the popularity of the term “black friday” on Google Trends, and as you can see, the trend is increasing exponentially as we approach BFCM.

Here are some interesting Black Friday marketing statistics for 2022 and 2023 that get you up and ready with your 2024 Black Friday campaign in no time:

• An average shopper spent a total of $313 during BFCM weekend.
• An estimated 124.7 million people browsed online on Black Friday.
• The average discount during 2023 Black Friday was around 31%.
• 54% of online shoppers start Black Friday shopping a week early before Black Friday starts.
• Email open rates increase by around 30% during the Black Friday season.

In 2024, Cyber Monday is expected to be crazy. Sales are estimated to hit  $13 billion. This would mean a 6.1% increase from last 2023. Black Friday sales are also expected to grow by 9% to reach $10 billion compared to last year.

The average consumer spending power is also expected to increase this year with people looking to spend around $1,700 during the sale, which would be an 8% increase over the last year.

This year, average discounts will be around 30% so that’s something you should keep in mind when creating your campaign. Categories that will drive the most sales this year will be electronics, clothing, and furniture.

With everything pointing in the positive direction, no matter what you’re selling, it’s a great time to launch your campaign and increase your sales by potentially 20% to 30%.

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Black Friday Marketing Ideas That Can Significantly Boost Your Sales

1. Enhance Your Best-Selling Product

To paint you a picture, let’s consider that your cost to profit margin is too slim to realistically offer a 50% discount. In this case, you can still increase your sales by bundling products to offer more value to your customers.

For example, with a phone case, you offer a “free” screen protector while still adding some percentage of the cost of the screen protector to the price of the bundle.

Here’s an example of Neutrogena’s promotion where they enhanced their existing product offering by offering a 30% discount, free shipping, and 2 free samples. And they also made sure to create FOMO by mentioning “limited quantities” under free samples.

2. Use a Countdown Timer to Create Urgency

‘FOMO’ — the fear of missing out. Creating a sense of urgency during Black Friday can help increase your conversion rate. For example, launching an exclusive flash sale, offering 50% off, can help you sell products in greater volume.

And keep in mind that your “limited time offer” doesn’t have to last just one day. You can consider segmenting your limited time offer throughout the Black Friday sale period (usually lasting 4 days).

For example—a higher percentage discount on the first day of the sale and then reduced discount percentages over the course of the sale period.

Source: coxandcox

3. Partner with Other Brands for Joint Promotions

“You scratch my back, I scratch yours.” Nowadays, a lot of businesses establish partnerships that mutually benefit each other.

In fact, as per stats, brands that cross-promote, usually see a 23% increase in new customer acquisition. You can spot examples of brands cross-promoting each other almost everywhere these days. For example, NASCAR, Toyota, M&Ms, and Monster.

Source: jayski

You can consider collaborating with brands that are not directly your competitors and have a similar target audience to your business.

For example, we have a partnership with Imunify360. With this partnership, Cloudways offers a Malware Protection Add-on to our customers. This not only benefits us but also Imunify360.

4. Only Show Customers Products They Might Like

Netflix’s recommendation engine recommends content viewers might like based on what they consumed earlier. In the same way, eCommerce businesses also show customers products they might like based on their purchase and browsing history.

This strategy works as you’re not overwhelming your customers with irrelevant products.

With AI getting smarter by the day, consider leveraging it to provide personalized product recommendations to your consumers. This can guarantee an increased conversion rate.

Check out this example from ‘California Baby,’ which shows you ‘frequently bought together’ products based on the product you are interested in.

Source: California Baby

5. Offer Discounts When Cross-Selling and Upselling

Upselling and cross-selling are great strategies for increasing sales and raising average order value (AOV). Upselling triggers customers to purchase a more expensive product, and cross-selling gets customers to buy more items that complement the ones they have already added to their carts.

For Black Friday sale ideas, you may put together sets of three to five products that work well together and sell the entire thing for a discount. For example…buy a makeup pallet and get brushes and beauty blenders at 30% off.

Be creative with your offers.

Here’s an example of a “complete the look” cross-selling offer from Adidas:

Source: Adidas

When consumers are actively looking for package deals at a lower price, such as on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this kind of combo promotion does quite well.

Suggested by: Bhargav Bavarva – Founder of NextPinnacle

6. Optimize Landing Pages for Conversions

Holiday landing pages will not only help you acquire organic traffic from those looking for specific deals, but they will also help you better match the intent of shoppers who come via your ads, social media, and email campaigns.

Consider how searches for laptop sales surge around Black Friday each year—you can capitalize on this by developing an SEO-optimized landing page for this search query, running PPC and social advertisements promoting your laptop discounts, and driving people to that page.

Because a landing page like this is designed for conversion, it will outperform a generic product listing page or homepage:

• They concentrate on a single offer.
• They’re jam-packed with information.
• They address a well-intentioned audience.
• The majority of the time, these pages employ FOMO and urgency methods.

Here’s an example of a landing page optimized for Black Friday:

Source: Sundays

Suggested by: Gerrid Smith – Chief Marketing Officer at Joy Organics

7. Let Customers Create Wishlists

Wish lists are comparable to abandoned shopping carts in that they indicate interest and indicate that the customer is at or near the decision stage of their purchasing journey.

Wish lists can be used in various ways throughout Black Friday and Cyber Weekend, including to encourage app downloads or account registrations, expand your email subscriber list, improve your drip email marketing, and cross-sell and upsell relevant items.

Here’s an example of H&M that allows customers to add products to a wishlist.

Source: H&M

Suggested by: Jason Feldman – Founder at Immigrate Me

8. Use Videos to Showcase Your Deals

Because there is so much text online, video is a simple format to consume and offers our eyes a break. As a result, many companies are upgrading their Black Friday marketing plans by adding video-based content.

However, many business owners view video marketing as an expensive, time-consuming strategy. In actuality, the reverse is true.

You can create engaging Black Friday video content without going overboard with your marketing spending. There is no requirement for expensive or skilled video photographers. Most of the time, you only need a smartphone and an original concept!

Here’s an example of a Black Friday video marketing from JCPenney:

Suggested by: Jeff Romero – Founder of Octiv Digital

9. Create a Must-Have Offer

It can be difficult to choose a discount rate and develop a campaign around it. Yes, we desire cheaper pricing, but you can’t tell me you’ve never seen a product on sale and thought to yourself, wow, that’s a wonderful deal, but why is it so cheap?

You can’t simply lower prices and expect a 500% return on investments in the long run. This would result in exaggerated margins, costing you later when your competitors follow your strategy and decrease their prices.

Try the shoe salesman method. It’s quite straightforward. When it comes to shoes, most consumers are content with any deal as long as they receive a satisfactory product.

Customers who strongly desire a product will either buy it used or wait for a Black Friday deal. It’s essentially the same with SaaS tools. Because each tool is different, most people won’t be able to tell which one has greater features, so they’ll just take the first offer they come across on Black Friday.

Here’s an example of a Black Friday offer that’s too hard to miss out on:

Source: Asos

Suggested by: Ryan Dalal – CEO & Founder at Merge PDF

10. Run an Email Campaign Leading Up to Black Friday

Create an email marketing campaign, then watch your ROI soar. On average, email generates a $36 ROI for every dollar invested. That surpasses every other channel.

Who doesn’t enjoy daily discounts and offers in their inbox? Create one with deals for your subscribers a couple of weeks before Black Friday.

Here’s a great Black Friday email marketing example from Bonobos.

Email subject line: G’morn: Here’s 30% Off All Black Friday Weekend

Source: Bonobos

Suggested by: Paul Somerville – Editor-in-Chief of Electric Scooter Guide

11. Create Deals that Match Customer Needs

If you’re not targeting the right people, you might as well pack up your store and call it quits.

It’s crucial to know your audience and understand what they’re looking for. The key is to think about what your customer wants and deliver that message in a clear, concise way.

Here’s an example of a Black Friday promotion from Urban Outfitters that shows visuals that complement the holiday season—warm clothes and winter with a strong 50% off offer.

Source: Urban Outfitters

I would also recommend offering a limited-time discount to new customers. This can be a good way to introduce new customers to your business without spending too much money.

This approach can also help with new customer aqusition and help you build your email list which you can use for future marketing campaigns.

Suggested by: Brett Krauss – V-Count

12. Make Your CTAs Clear and Actionable

A landing page is a single web page that acts as a hub for all your Black Friday information. It should be designed to entice customers and explain what they can expect from the promotion.

This includes telling your customers about the products that are on sale, how much money they’ll save, and when the offer will end.

It’s important to have prominent call to actions on your landing pages so your customers know exactly what action to perform. If you want people to sign up for your email list, use this opportunity to ask them!

Make sure you include social media sharing buttons so that customers can easily share their excitement with friends on Facebook and Twitter.

The most important thing is that your landing page is clear, concise, and compellingly written—so it’s easy for customers to understand what’s going on and why they should care!

Take a look at an example of one of our landing pages. We have highlighted the features our customers will get if they sign up for Cloudways. We also made sure to use CTAs that are clearly visible and not obstructed.

Suggested by: Kader Meroni – Founder at Atlas Tea Club

13. Give a Free Gift with Every Purchase

People love free stuff. That’s just a fact. If two stalls sell the same product, but one stall offers a free sample with every purchase, which one do you think would do better in business?

The answer is pretty simple!

A rule of thumb for this strategy is to offer free gifts that cost no more than $2. However, you can make an exception for SaaS products by offering free gifts of higher value.

When leveraging this strategy, remember to enforce a minimum order value for this offer. For example, create an offer that requires customers to make a purchase of $50 or more to get a free gift.

Here’s an example of this strategy from True Classic (clothing brand).

Source: True Classic

14. Offer Buy-One, Get-One 50% Off Deals

This is a classic upselling technique. Offering a “buy one get second one at 50% off” exclusive deal during Black Friday might not seem like a good idea, especially when many people may be looking for special deals and offers. However, you must remember that this strategy encourages people to buy multiple products.

With a high AOV, you’d be making substantial profits. But to get maximum results, remember to market this offer as a “limited-time offer” to create a sense of urgency.

Here’s an example from Fillipo Loreti:

15. Create Social Media Challenges

Social media challenges are great for building customer relationships and increasing sales. You can get a lot of eyes on your BFCM campaign if you plan your social media marketing efforts properly.

By simply hosting an interactive social media event, you can get people to participate in fun challenges to win free stuff. For example, you can host a live Instagram session and have people participate in different challenges to win prizes.

Ultimately, this strategy would attract a large audience and allow you to leverage the opportunity to market your Black Friday offer.

Here’s an example of Glossier, which ran a tag-a-friend contest on Instagram.

Source: glossier

16. Host a Live Shopping Event

I’m pretty sure you’ve come across live shopping events nowadays. Platforms like Instagram and TikTik are great for hosting virtual live Black Friday sale events. With such events, businesses can engage with customers, showcase their products, and offer ‘Live Exclusive Offers.’

Why does this work?

Customers can ask questions about a product during the live sessions, which helps them in decision-making, and if they also get exclusive offers, well, that just further seals the deal.

Source: Pinterest

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17. Offer Financing Options to Your Customers (Buy Now, Pay Later)

This option may not be suitable for SMBs, but it is definitely something worth exploring, even if it is for a limited time period, such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Offering your customers an option to buy products on installments has two main benefits:

• Higher chance of selling products
• Higher Average order value (AOV)

Since customers do not pay upfront for products and there are no hidden charges, they feel comfortable purchasing as they can own a product after a certain period by paying installments. Plus, according to stats, customers spend 48% more during Black Friday sales if they get an option to buy now and pay later.

So if you can, consider offering an option for BNPL this Black Friday.

Here’s an example of BestBuy offering financing options on their website:

Source: BestBuy

18. Send SMS Reminders for Flash Sales

SMS marketing is probably the most underrated Black Friday marketing idea. But it is still relevant in 2024 and can definitely increase sales. Like leveraging an email list, you can also send promotional offers through SMS.

However, unlike an email marketing campaign, where you’d build a drip campaign to send emails to your subscribers before, during, and after the campaign, SMS marketing best works if you send promotional texts while the campaign is already running.

Here’s an example of SMS marketing by Bed Bath & Beyond.

Source: smsarchives

19. Promote a No-Hassle Return Policy

‘Easy returns’ or ‘no questions asked refund policy’ is something every online shopper expects these days. If you prominently advertise “how easy it is for your customers to get their money back if they are unsatisfied” in your ads and on landing pages, your customers will feel like they have nothing to lose.

Result = they’ll be more likely to purchase from you.

Sure, this might seem like a loss for your business, but if your customer ends up liking your product, that customer will more likely buy from you again.

Here is an example of Nordstrom advertising “Free returns” on their checkout page.

Source: Nordstrom

Summary

This wraps up our guide on the best Black Friday marketing ideas for 2024. In this post, I tried adding some of the top marketing strategies relevant to BFCM. I also added a lot of relevant examples so you know exactly how to leverage each strategy.

If you haven’t started promoting your BFCM deals yet, you’re missing out. You need to start right now to make the most out of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions! You can also check out Cloudways coupon codes as well.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below.