Planning Your Black Friday Campaign Creative (Month by Month!)

Black Friday is, by far, the biggest shopping event of the year:

Ecommerce stores with well-executed plans see 30% more revenue during this season than the rest of the year. Some stores create more revenue in these few critical weeks than they do the entire rest of the year!

To take advantage Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and be sure you’re making the most of it, one thing’s clear: your business needs a robust, well planned strategy. You’re not just planning for a single day; you’re orchestrating a series of targeted mini-campaigns leading up to these colossal shopping events.

How to Make the Most of the Holiday Shopping Season

Think of your strategy as maximizing Black Friday and Cyber Monday and then parlaying those new customers into momentum that will carry you forward into the New Year, to create your best year yet. 

Black Friday isn’t an isolated event that is over when it ends. Instead, it can be the catalyst that takes your ecommerce store to the next level. Here’s why:

First, customers are easier to acquire during Black Friday. A survey by Criteo found that globally 58% of consumers said they were more likely to try new online brands offering great deals. We’re all conditioned to think of this shopping holiday as the time when businesses are putting out their best deals. We’re all thinking about the upcoming holidays and everyone is on the lookout for that killer deal. You want to ensure your audience is exposed to your offer. 

Second, by launching retention strategies throughout December and January, and making sure you’re providing top notch service, you can drive loyalty, repeat purchases, and referrals from these new customers. That same survey found that consumers reported they’re more likely to make another purchase from brands that provided a positive experience and had high-quality customer service.

Where to Focus Your Time and Resources:

Most small ecommerce stores don’t have the luxury of a team of marketers in specialized roles focusing on maximizing sales across channels. Instead, they have to focus their resources into what’s most important and be wise about where they invest. 

If you have limited resources, invest heavily in paid advertising. While many small ecommerce stores will opt for free channels in an effort to save money, that comes at the cost of revenue and momentum.

Here’s why…

The marketing tactics that drove the most traffic during 2022 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales:

1. “Paid Search: 28% (+2% YoY)
2. Affiliates/Partners: 18% (+6% YoY)
3. Email: 17% (+10% YoY)”

And these are the top marketing tactics by revenue:

1. “29% of online sales were attributable to paid search.
2. 19% were attributable to direct web visits
3. 17% to organic search“

Source: Adobe 2022 Holiday Shopping report

The message for ecommerce businesses is clear: paid search is the most important marketing channel to focus on and its importance is only increasing — it’s likely to be even more important this year. 

Now that you know how important Black Friday is to your business, let’s get down to the brass tacks — planning — so that you can execute from a solid strategic foundation and set yourself up for success…

The Five Stages of Black Friday Campaigns

Here’s a high-level breakdown of the multi-stage campaign you’ll execute:

1. Pre-Holiday Warm-Up (October): This is your prospecting stage. It’s ideal for capturing email leads and gauging interest in your upcoming BFCM deals. You may even want to drop subtle reminders that your big Black Friday deals are coming!
2. Pre-Black Friday (Early November): Introduce fresh creative assets like holiday gift guides that stoke demand and get your audience thinking about how your products fit into their holiday season. Focus on growing your email list so your critical email announcement campaigns drive maximum impact.
3. Black Friday Frenzy (Late November): It begins! Deploy hard-hitting offers using urgency-based creative, with tactics like countdown timers to fuel conversions. Be sure to explicitly call out that these are your best deals of the year and NOW is the time to buy.
4. Cyber Monday Surge (Late November): Shift gears with clean, impactful designs that introduce a new set of irresistible deals for Cyber Monday.
5. Post-BFCM Transition (December): Wind down with ‘last-chance’ offers and switch focus to holiday gift guides and shipping cutoff promotions.

By focusing on each of these five distinct stages, you’ll be sure to cover all your bases and create promotions that address Black Friday holistically.

Now let’s get into the nitty gritty of what you should be doing and creating during each month…

Planning Your Campaigns: A Month-by-Month Guide

Now: Laying the Groundwork

Week 1: Break each of the above five campaign stages down into a series of campaigns you want to run and identify the creative assets you’ll need.

Week 2: Determine featured products for each campaign, and craft shot lists for photo and video content. Write your ad copy and create a template for your designs including color palettes and guidelines so your assets have a cohesive look and feel across channels.

Week 3: Complete the photo and video shoots. This is usually a big lift, so there’s not much else to do this week. Really invest into your product imagery — it’s a critical factor in attracting attention and creating conversions!

Week 4: Edit and finalize multimedia assets. Design the initial set of Pre-Holiday ads using tools like Tailwind to schedule your paid social campaigns.

October: Priming the Audience

Week 1: 

• Launch your Pre-Holiday ads, focusing on different value propositions such as bundling and discounts.

Weeks 2-5: 

• Rotate fresh creatives into your ad mix, tracking performance metrics like engagement and conversion rate.

November: All Systems Go

Week 1: 

• Finalize Black Friday and Cyber Monday ad creative.

Week 2-3: 

• Roll out Pre-Black Friday ads, optimizing based on performance metrics.

Week 4: 

• Launch Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns, applying insights from your earlier campaigns for maximum impact.

December: Carry Your Momentum Forward

Week 1: 

• Transition to gift-giving and shipping cutoff campaigns.

Week 2-3: 

• Manage and optimize all ongoing campaigns, preparing for the transition to post-holiday promotions.

Streamline your campaigns and maximize your productivity

Hopefully looking at everything involved with Black Friday Cyber Monday promotions hasn’t left you feeling overwhelmed. Just remember, you have help! Using a multi-channel marketing tool like Tailwind will help you create everything needed with generative AI for writing copy, design tools for social posts, and AI generated and optimized ecommerce ads so you can produce high-quality campaigns for every stage of your promotions.