Table of Contents
Βlack Friday is the biggest shopping event of the year!
Whether you’re talking to online retailers, brick-and-mortar stores, or businesses big and small, they’ll all tell you the same thing: Black Friday sends their sales soaring.
And the best part? It can do the same for your business!
Picture this: Stores buzzing with excitement, shoppers racing to grab deals, and e-commerce platforms lighting up with a massive surge in traffic and sales. It’s the prime moment to slash prices, put up those irresistible “SALE” signs, and watch customers flood in, eager to spend.
With holiday shopping in full swing, buyers are not just purchasing for themselves – they’re stocking up on gifts for friends and family. Now’s your moment to seize the excitement and transform Black Friday into a record-breaking success for your business!
In this resource, we have collected a list of 55 Black Friday marketing ideas for every kind of business, from physical stores to e-commerce, creators selling online courses to software businesses, and everyone in between.
You can skip directly to the section that interests you:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
When is Black Friday?
Black Friday is on November 29th, 2024.
However, most companies start offering discounts by mid-November or the end of October to get ahead of the competition.
For online sales, this window period is much bigger, giving potential customers time to explore products and experience the feeling of holiday sales.
This means that from Thanksgiving until Cyber Monday (2nd of December), you can go wild and offer special discounts to kick off the holiday shopping season sooner!
Black Friday Marketing Ideas for All Businesses
So, how can you get ready for Black Friday and get the most out of it by the end of the Cyber Monday sales?
That’s easy.
All you need is an effective Black Friday marketing campaign and get on your special deals to allow online shopping to begin officially!
Here are marketing ideas for every kind of business to rock Black Friday. Whether you run a small local store or an international business, these ideas will skyrocket your holiday sales!
Massive Discounts for Black Friday
The most proven Black Friday marketing strategy? Slashing prices—and doing it generously!
Start with 50% and then go all the way down to 70% off the original price.
Don’t be afraid to reduce your prices. This is what your customers expect from Black Friday promotions
You can reduce prices to eliminate old stock, bring more foot traffic, attract new customers, or boost sales. In the case of digital products like courses, where it is free to develop a product, you can get up to 90% discounts without hurting your bottom line!
Customers expect massive discounts. Besides, you can always upsell your other products to compensate for this.
Flash sales: A limited-time offer
Black Friday shopping is largely impulsive.
Flash sales are perfect for increasing impulse buying, and you can incentivize people to buy your courses on the spot.
Create scarcity and a sense of urgency while reinforcing FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) through a limited-time offer and last-minute deals available for a specific period (less than 24 hours) and for a limited number of new sign-ups.
Deal hunters always look for discount codes and thrive on discount seasons.
Promote early
Many businesses expand their Black Friday into a full week or month.
Whichever you choose, you need to remember that consumers’ budgets are limited. You need to be fast so they anticipate spending their budgets for your business.
The best way to do this is to start your marketing efforts and promote your discounts early on.
Some businesses start as early as October to “warm up” customers.
Use countdowns
Countdown timers are a powerful way to trigger FOMO.
As your target audience sees the hours or days dwindling before a discount disappears, the urgency influences their purchase decisions, driving faster action and increasing conversion rates.
This can be a timer or a clock on top of the website:
Black Friday Timer Example by OptinMonster
Make Offer Adjustments
Encourage customers to return for more purchases by offering different discounts every day. There are two ways to do this:
Discount different products: Offer a different category of products or lines of products every day. Let your customers know which products are going into discount every day.
Reduce discounts every day: Start with a high discount and reduce it as you go — 70%, 60%, 50% — this way, the customers will be forced to make their purchases early on and come back for more later.
Showcase your Refund/Return & Exchange policy
Impulse purchase decisions are accompanied by some fear. Countering each fear gets your shoppers closer to a purchase.
That’s where the refund, return, or exchange policy comes in.
By prominently showcasing your policies on refunds, returns, or exchanges, shoppers are more likely to give in to impulse purchases.
Very few customers end up coming back and asking for a refund (especially for digital products).
You can go one step further and offer longer refund policies for holiday shoppers. For example, increasing the refund policy of products from 30 to 60 days for Black Friday may help reluctant shoppers become impulse buyers.
One-time offers to Upsell and Cross-sell
The purpose of Black Friday is to get customers to buy in volume. Upselling (making them buy more) is the best way to increase income while making a discount.
Use the checkout to upsell to a more expensive product, relevant bundle, or other not-discounted products.
Image Source: OneCommerce
For example, the e-commerce store example above offers higher-end models at a discount. If discounted, it’s easy to choose a larger screen or a better model.
Gamify Purchases: Offer Additional Discounts for More
Offer higher discounts if they buy more. Incentivize more purchases by offering incremental discounts for more products:
Plan your discounts accordingly and allow your customers to add more to their baskets for higher discounts.
Be careful to offer discounts that will still allow you to make a profit.
This is easier done in digital businesses that offer seats instead of products like user access or course licenses for businesses.
But your physical store can also offer package discounts to eliminate unsold merchandise that is out-of-season.
Offer a Mystery Free Gift
Everyone loves surprises. So why not offer a gift to your customers?
Here are a few ideas to try:
Offer a Big Gift with a Lottery
You may not be giving away a car, but you can offer anything from a relaxing spa day to a gourmet wine basket. Lotteries are an effective marketing tactic year-round, drawing attention and boosting engagement.
Add a lottery to your Black Friday campaign and let your audience know that anyone who gets $X amount of products on Black Friday will go into a lottery to win a bigger gift. For example:
There are countless options for any small business. If you sell digital products, consider surprising your audience with a physical gift. It’s a great way to add a personal touch and enhance the overall customer experience.
Allow Customers to Pay in Installments
For bigger purchases, payment flexibility is essential.
If your products are $500 or more, consider offering payment installments or a buy-now-pay-later option like Klarna and Afterpay.
Enable Loyalty Deals
Do you offer loyalty programs, or are you worried that existing customers who paid a premium for the same products will be annoyed by Black Friday?
All businesses need to keep their loyal customers happy. They support the business long-term and bring revenue every month.
Consider offering a loyalty-only deal:
Physical stores: Can offer additional discounts to loyalty card holders (and increase their sign-ups to loyalty programs).
Software companies (SaaS): Can offer upgrade offers to yearly plans or additional services that are not publicly available.
Digital stores: Can offer exclusive discounts to old customers on products that might not be discounted on Black Friday, e.g., new releases.
Double Loyalty Points
Another way to add value without discount is to offer double loyalty points. If you run a loyalty program, consider giving additional points to loyalty card holders.
You can also combine discounts and loyalties.
Offer loyalty points to old stock or products, and offer double points on purchasing non-discounted products.
This way, you offer value without discounting your important products.
Work with a Charity
Giving for a good cause can loosen the tightest of purses. 👛
Add a charity giveaway and make your Black Friday be for a good cause. This will help you with more visibility cross-promotion with the charity and feel better about it.
Offer $1 per sale or per $X spent on your store to a charity.
You can also have a discount, and offer a product at full price so that you give the discount amount to charity (e.g., 30%).
Collaborate With Other Companies
Software companies and big brands do this all the time.
Don’t go into this alone. Rather, make it work with another company.
Use your email lists, SMS, or other channels to promote your business partner, and your partner will promote you.
Go the extra mile by offering a discount for both of your products simultaneously. This method works incredibly well if you are offering complimentary products!
Create a Gift Guide
Remember, Black Friday is not just for personal shopping.
Many people use it as an opportunity for their holiday shopping. Releasing a gift guide early in November can help your customers prepare for shopping.
Start with crafting a highly relevant gift guide, taking into account your audience’s demographics and the latest shopping trends. This will ensure that it resonates with your customers and aligns with their current preferences.
Then, distribute your gift guide via direct mail, email, your website, and social media.
Use Product Bundles
Why buy one item when you can buy more?
Prepare bundles of complimentary items at a discounted price, or allow your clients to make their own bundles by choosing the products they want to add to their cart.
Offer bigger discounts for bundles than individual products and services, and upsell them.
Category-Specific Discounts
Make your sale more strategic by discounting specific categories rather than applying a blanket discount across all products.
Category-specific discounts can help you manage costs more effectively and maintain healthier profit margins while keeping your profits healthy!
Checkout Discounts
We are not over with upsells!
The best way to sell more is when someone has already purchased.
You can suggest a bundle or additional discount for buying more items at the discount or after the checkout.
This way, your customers have already bought something, their credit card is in the system, and your next sale is just a couple of clicks away.
Utilise Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) Sales
Black Friday might be over, but the savings continue with Cyber Monday.
Retailers launch Cyber Monday deals to entice shoppers to explore online and focus on electronics.
Use this opportunity to revamp your offers and attract customers with fresh discounts. Make the most of Cyber Monday to capture additional sales and keep the momentum going!
Usually, Cyber Monday discounts are smaller and different categories of products. Offer something new over the weekend or Cyber Monday to get a few more sales in the door!
After-Black Friday sales
And the sales continue!
The best customers are the ones who make repeat purchases. After a customer has bought your products, wait a few days and offer some upsells or suggest other products that complement them.
Think of combining:
Another option is to finish Black Friday and have a plan to launch your holiday season sales one week later 😉
Go Against the Flow: Anti-Black Friday
Going against the flow and above the clutter of Black Friday.
Whether you don’t like consumerism or want to make an impactful campaign when everyone will be focused on sales, there are great ways to offer alternatives:
💡 Here are some great anti-Black Friday ideas here and here.
Social Media Marketing Ideas for Black Friday
Never underestimate the power of social media marketing.
Social media can create anticipation by publishing posts announcing upcoming special offers on your accounts (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn) well in advance. You can also promote your offers as they happen.
Run a Social Media Contest
Run a social media contest to inform your audience about your offers.
A pre-Black Friday giveaway will increase your profile’s engagement and bring new followers to show your offers.
Be sure to use nicely designed banners and instill the “spirit” of Black Friday so they know you will announce your offers soon.
You can also share gift cards with every participant in the contest.
# Don’t forget to use the right hashtags!
Use influencers
Search for and find influencers with whom to collaborate. Ask them to share your offers through a sponsorship or affiliate deal.
Influencers can create stories and posts, pose with your products, or share your marketing material and gift guides with your products.
Work with micro-influencers
Big influencers are expensive and probably not the best choice for your niche audience. Instead, find and work with micro-influencers who are local or already talk about your products.
For example, if you sell sports equipment, talk with popular local athletes, football players, gymnasts, or even school teams.
Sponsor their posts or work with them to create videos around your products.
Use Design & Video
Visuals matter a lot, especially when it comes to social media.
A few weeks before the offers, you can ask your creative team or agency to change the design of your posts, profile pictures, and banners to reflect the Black Friday colors.
This is a strong signal to your followers to expect the offers.
Then, match those designs with your offer banners.
Unique, eye-catching creatives will also attract more people. Do not just use black banners. Use contrast and try video content on stories & posts to attract more attention.
Sell Directly on Social Media
Some social media platforms allow you to sell directly to your followers.
Instagram shopping and TikTok shopping might be the most popular platforms for social selling.
While social shopping works better for Asian audiences, there are opportunities to sell to Western audiences.
Try to launch your social shop on Black Friday to boost your sales 🙂
Email Marketing Ideas for Black Friday
As research shows, email marketing is a very powerful strategy. It has a huge positive impact on the revenue of eCommerce business owners who use a multi-vendor eCommerce platform, especially during the holiday season.
The fact that 50% of people buy from marketing emails at least once a month shows that email marketing is an excellent choice to increase your online school profits.
Start working on your Black Friday email marketing campaign at least two weeks before the big day.
Decide what you want to focus on:
Before you hit the send button, personalize your emails and subject lines. Use popular keywords and phrases that will catch the attention, such as ‘Black Friday,’ ‘Cyber Monday,’ ‘Holiday,’ ‘Free,’ ‘Don’t Miss Out, ‘Save,’ and ‘Now.’
This should help attract more people to your website and increase your conversion rate.
Grow Your Email List Early
Encourage site visitors to opt-in to your email list to keep up with your course launches and updates.
If you don’t have one yet, make sure you create your own email list of useful contacts.
⏳ Don’t wait until the last minute. Create website banners or opt-in forms in-store to collect emails.
Let your customers know about upcoming offers and email-specific offers.
Abandoned Cart Emails
Before you launch any campaign, be sure you have set up cart abandonment emails. Abandon cart rates can reach up to 70%, and if you can re-engage a percentage of those, you can increase revenues significantly.
Abandon carts remind your customers to finalize the order or give an extra incentive.
That might be an additional discount, a reminder that the discount is expiring, or another reason to return.
Set Up Email Marketing Funnel for Black Friday
Another marketing idea for Black Friday is creating an email funnel specific to warm your audience.
Start at least a week earlier, even up to a month in advance, warming up your audience, preparing them for the offer, and increasing the email cadence on the week of the offers.
💁 Download our email templates for Black Friday here.
Email Exclusive Offers
An exclusive offer to your email audience can help grow your email list and increase the open rates of your emails.
Encourage your visitors to sign up to your email list for an additional 10% discount for Black Friday.
Sneak Peeks at Discounts
This is one of my favorite warm-up email marketing ideas. Show a small sneak peek into your offers.
Here’s what you can do:
A little mystery can intrigue your customers and create anticipation, but the trick here is to give out a tiny bit of information, enough to excite but not enough to show the full picture.
Black Friday Marketing Ideas for Online Stores
Some marketing ideas work much better for online stores than brick-and-mortar stores. We have collected the best Black Friday marketing ideas for selling online, especially if you are selling digital products.
Send Digital or Tangible Gifts
We all love to feel special and have access to staff that other people don’t.
For your most frequent buyers, give something extra to keep them happy:
Some ideas for promo gifts are merchandise with your branding, a book you have written, or an activity book. It’s a great way to express gratitude and boost your relationship with loyal customers, and it will also surprise them!
As a digital-first business, sending a physical gift is a big surprise and a great way to connect with customers.
Send Out Digital Coupons
Coupons are one of the best promotional tools you can use to increase your course sales. And they are great at creating a sense of urgency because they have an expiration date.
Share digital coupons through your social media, affiliates, influencers, or email list to get people back to your store for Black Friday.
Optimize Your Homepage/Product Page
It is essential to instill the spirit of Black Friday during the offer period. Many businesses even redesign or change their websites for the occasion.
Focus on your brand colors, add powerful CTAs, and use pop-ups wherever appropriate. Don’t overdo it, or your website will look tacky and salesy.
Your product pages should clearly show the discount and its value to the customer, e.g., “Save up to $500.”
💁 If you want to sell online courses, LearnWorlds comes with the Site Flavors functionality to change your entire online school into a Black Friday theme for a short-term period.
You can turn back to your original theme instantly.
Use Referral Marketing
If you are already selling, why not sell some more? This is one of the best days to launch a referral program and get even more people to discover your online courses.
Referral or affiliate programs work best for online stores.
Introduce New Products or Pre-Sell
Black Friday offers the best opportunity to introduce a product.
Whether it’s a new product line, feature, service, or an online course, a brand-new product will get more visibility on the year’s busiest day.
You don’t need to offer a big discount, but you can pre-sell it (if it’s launching soon) or showcase it alongside your offers.
Gather Reviews
Use Black Friday to get reviews from current and past learners while boosting sales. Email and announce on social media that people who leave a review will get an additional discount on their purchase.
Put it smartly to make it enticing by saying something like “spend 5’ to get a 50% discount.”
Your customers will be happier than ever for getting a product at a discount, it’s an excellent chance to improve your ratings by asking for reviews from happy customers 😄
Optimize Your Page for SEO
Many people look for Black Friday offers through Google. Add your offer as text on your home page or create new pages showcasing your offers.
A dedicated landing page for Black Friday with all the offers (with category filters) will help you appear on Google Searches.
You can also write a blog post announcing your offer a few weeks before. This will get your article indexed.
➡ Remember to update the article with the complete details when your offer starts.
This way, your pages will rank for Black Friday search terms, and you will receive additional traffic that day.
Use a ChatBot
Black Friday is all about impulse purchases, and you need to reduce the uncertainty as much as possible.
Having a ChatBot available at online stores is one of the best ways to address last-minute customer questions and worries.
It also signals excellent customer support and gives more confidence to customers about return or refund policies.
Here at LearnWorlds, we suggest Tawk.to as the best option for a ChatBot. It’s free and integrates well with our LMS software!
Use Retargeting
Another advantage of online businesses is the capability to directly target their core audiences in a measurable way directly.
You can create remarketing campaigns targeting previous visitors and announcing your offers if you have enough traffic.
This could be combined with abandoned cart audiences or simply showing the discounts on specific products.
Offer Free Shipping
Shipping tends to be a big cost for both consumers and businesses alike. Adding free shipping to orders over a specific amount of products can be a great addition to any offer.
Think of messages like this: “30% off all products plus Free Shipping for purchases above $200. Only for Black Friday orders.”.
Prepare for High-Traffic
One major problem of e-commerce stores is website crashes on days with high traffic.
If you expect higher traffic than usual, ensure your e-shop can handle it.
If you use e-commerce software like Shopify or Wix or a cloud platform like LearnWorlds for online courses, you won’t have any issues.
However, if you have a cheap server package, self-hosted solutions like WordPress might run into issues.
Multiple Payment Options
Credit or debit cards are one of many options in the market.
Offering different payment options is essential for a worldwide audience. Consider addressing your audience by adding more options like:
Lucky Draw or Random Discounts
Sometimes, gamifying payments is an excellent way to keep your audience engaged.
Spin-to-win example by Privy.com
Spin-to-win pop-ups, for example, are a great way to engage your audience and get them coming back for more. Have different levels of discounts and allow them to re-spin every day.
This way, your visitors will return daily and increase your purchases.
Add FAQs
Reduce the uncertainty and support costs by pre-answering the most common questions.
Whether it’s costs, returns, refunds, shipping, or any other common question.
Add the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) on your products’ landing pages to reduce the questions to your support team.
This will also reduce the time your customers need for an answer and get them one step closer to purchasing!
Black Friday Marketing Ideas for Online Courses
Digital products like online courses are great for discount seasons like Black Friday as the marginal cost of producing and delivering them is nearly zero.
Of course, it’s a good idea to discount your older courses and keep your new ones as premium offerings.
Sell Course Bundles
Prepare a bundle offer with three courses sold at the price of two, e.g., “2+1 free” or “3+2 free,” etc. depending on how many courses you have available and can promote.
Offering course bundles is a win-win: you get to upsell, and customers buy at a better price. This trick will increase the average order value and is a good alternative to huge price drops.
Group similar products together so that your students will get a complete bundle. For example, if you are offering cooking courses, think of a “Complete Baking Course Bundle” where you group all your recipes on baking together.
Offer a Free Course
Another promotional idea is offering a free mini-course during the sales period. This can be either a complete mini-course or a course teaser. Use SEO and paid ads to get as much visibility as possible to make the most of this offer.
Free courses are a great way to introduce your work to your audience without asking for any commitment, capture leads, build excitement for upcoming courses, and upsell later on!
💁 Don’t forget that Christmas and Hanukkah are just on the way 🎁
Friends & Family Offers
Create a “plus one” offer, where your customers can buy a course and get a license to share with a friend or a family member.
That could be a couple’s course, a parent-child license, or a gift to their best friend.
You will be offering them a way to connect with their loved ones, and it’s a way for you to increase the visibility of your offering.
Add Value Instead of a Discount
You can avoid discounts by adding more value to your offering.
Consider offering a one-to-one coaching or private workshop to your online courses. Adding premium value allows you to avoid discounting and giving an extra incentive to your customers.
Offer a Physical Gift
Surprise your customers by offering a physical gift related to your course. Paid it correctly, and you can get a loyal customer for a lifetime:
The options are plenty, and the choice is yours.
Black Friday Marketing Ideas for Software Companies
When you think of Black Friday, you imagine the huge queues in the malls and e-commerce discounts on consumer products.
But big and small software companies have joined the Black Friday craze over the past few years.
Consider these marketing ideas for your SaaS Black Friday offer:
Extra Licenses/Users/Credits
Consider offering additional licenses, users, or credits for Black Friday.
It’s cheaper for a software company to give more usage-based offers than discounts on price.
This way, you get more product usage and avoid impacting your bottom line with huge discounts.
Bundle Up With Other Software
Many software companies collaborate to offer a co-offer, where your product is being bundled up with another.
Decide a collaborative marketing campaign and a common price for both products.
Gift Another Software
For premium software, consider offering a cheaper complimentary product for free.
Consider which one of your integrations your customers are mostly using, and offer a license to that software in collaboration with them.
Introduce New Features
Are you launching a new feature before Black Friday?
Delaying the launch and offering the feature as an added value to your audience might be a good idea.
If the feature was intended to be sold as an add-on, it’s an excellent opportunity to get new users to upgrade from a free to a premium version with a free add-on.
Ready to Get Started With Your Black Friday Planning?
Take time to check out your inventory of products, pick the ones that need a boost or already sell well, and get them out to the public.
Whether you create a new course or offer one as a giveaway, there are many Black Friday marketing strategies to try out, and the choice is yours.
Besides, you know your customers better than anyone else.
Deep dive into your shop’s analytics to make data-driven decisions. Choose the marketing strategy that best serves your learners’ needs while increasing their chances of responding to your offers.
Start working on your Black Friday deals today, and don’t forget about Cyber Monday, either!
Further reading you might find interesting:
Nick Malekos is a Senior Digital Marketer in LearnWorlds. He is a results based and well-rounded Digital Marketer with years of experience in the education industry, writer and digital literacy trainer.
Back to blog
Scroll to top