Black Friday has become so popular that many websites were created just to guide shoppers on how to get the best deals on this day. TheBlackFriday.com, BlackFriday.com, BFads.net, BestBlackFriday.com, you name it.
But no matter what it is, it can be challenging for small business owners to compete against big box stores like Amazon and Best Buy.
That doesn’t mean you should resign yourself to losing customers, though. Of course, you don’t need to match Amazon when it comes to product selection and discounts, or rather, you don't have to.
The key to small business Black Friday success is to take advantage of the sales opportunities by preparing early, getting creative with your landing pages, and catering to your community.
In today’s post, we’re sharing 6 real-life Black Friday landing pages (and one inspiring Instagram post!) from 2019, and analyzing what makes them work. We've also included a step-by-step guide to help you develop a sure-fire Black Friday marketing campaign this year.
7 Black Friday landing pages to inspire your 2020 marketing campaign
Here are some examples of effective Black Friday landing pages to better illustrate what makes a successful marketing campaign that drives conversions.
1. Oh Hot GRAM
Many people think a long landing page works better than a short one. But when it comes to high-converting landing pages, what you show on the page is all that matters.
Showcase irresistible offer: discounted courses, 30+ videos, workbooks, and checklists, access to the private Facebook group, bonus valued at over $1,000, etc.
Implement urgency marketing by showing a countdown timer at the beginning of the page.
The copy mentions three pain points of business owners and how Oh Hot GRAM helps them tackle all those problems.
2. Handle The Heat
The blog Handle The Heat is where professionally trained chef and cookie queen Tessa Arias shares her baking recipes with others. She creates cookbooks and classes to guide people through making delicious cookies.
The offer is placed at the top of the landing page with high color contrast, making it attention-grabbing.
Compelling limited-time offers—save over 50% off the regular price, only available during Black Friday sales.
The bundle, including “The ultimate cookie handbook hardcopy pre-order, the magic of baking class, and Tessa’s Christmas cookies ebook,” makes the deal more attractive.
3. Spacial Audio
Spacial Audio’s Black Friday promotion campaign is a perfect example of the fact that you don’t need to offer huge discounts to gain traction. As long as you give away something valuable to your potential customers, they still come to you.
The copy is short but clear and straightforward. It tells prospects exactly what they should do to join the holiday sale (“Signup now” and like/share its Facebook page) and what they’ll get (“2 Free SAM Broadcaster Pro Software licenses” and “10 prizes for lucky winners”).
It shows a countdown timer to create a sense of urgency.
The call to action button “Get Early Access” (again) tells viewers what they’ll get by clicking the button!
4. Creative Memories
Creative Memories provides high-quality scrapbooks with the mission of helping people preserve memories through photographs. Its Black Friday landing page took advantage of the holiday craziness to drive conversions.
The copy emphasizes urgency. It highlights the attractiveness of the offer: “Limited Time,” “While Supplies Last,” “Ends Nov. 29 at noon CT,” “two NEW, exclusive, can’t-get-anywhere-else holiday bundles,” etc.
The description of the bundle is bold and sometimes capitalized, making it more eye-catching.
The headline “Pick Your Free Packed Holiday Bundle” uses the powerful word “Free,” urging visitors to take action immediately; otherwise, they’ll miss a good deal.
5. The Winery at Bull Run
The Winery at Bull Run provides one of the finest, award-winning wineries in Virginia. You can come to The Winery at Bull Run to discover a historical land, then have a picnic and wine tasting as a capstone.
The copy is straight to the point about what The Winery at Bull Run offers customers. It also makes good use of bullet points to make the information clear and easy to read and understand.
It applies urgency marketing tactics (i.e., a countdown timer, the word “online only”) to encourage customers to take action quickly. Notice how The Winery at Bull Run starts its landing page: “8 hours. 8 different specials. Online only.”, which is smart to catch attention.
It gives away different types of promotion offers, including discounts, promo code, gift cards, and free gifts (i.e., free candles).
6. Kiara Sky Nails
Kiara Sky Nails ran an Instagram ad for their Black Friday marketing campaign. It’s effective thanks to a compelling offer and copy.
The image shows products. It’s high-quality and relevant to the text “Build your own kit!”. Notice how the Free stickers are used in the image. They help pique followers’ attention immediately.
“Free” is also used several times throughout the descriptive copy.
Words “48 hours ONLY,” “HURRY,” “get yours now” create a sense of urgency.
7. Kit Dale Training
For Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2019, Kit Dale Training introduced a huge promotion program. It offered a 60% discount, plus two free bonuses valued at $98, which Jiu Jitsu fans find it very hard to say no!
It has a strong emphasis on the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales—it’s not just regular sales.
It shows the discount and free bonuses at the top of the landing page, helping capture followers’ attention.
It shows reviews of students who attended Kit Dale Training courses, a short introduction of the trainer, and a brief overview of what students will get if they join the course. All of these components are helpful in establishing trust with new audiences.
Although the copy is long, it's effective. It provides the audiences with details about Black Friday sales (what they’ll get) and why they should purchase the course (in other words, what makes Kit Dale Training special). This increases purchase confidence for prospects who don’t know the brand.
Black Friday marketing checklist for small businesses
So, now you know what a great Black Friday landing page looks like. It’s time to apply what you've learned to your own Black Friday marketing campaign.
We want to make it easy for you. We’ve created this simple 5-step checklist to guide you to Black Friday marketing success. No matter what type of marketing campaign you want to run—ad campaigns, email marketing, social media contest—you can use this checklist as your planning guide.
1. Define a goal for your promotion
Don’t launch Black Friday sales just because others are doing it. Also, don’t just set a goal like “driving more sales” or “making more money.”
Take time to think about what you really want to achieve. As a small business owner, you may have the following goals:
Acquire new customers
Retain current customers
Increase the lifetime value of customers
Build brand awareness
Expand your potential customers
Grow the email marketing list
Select one from this list and make it as specific as possible. For example, if your goal is to have more first-time customers, identify a number, and ensure it’s achievable. If you have a small budget of $300, you’re not going to get 5,000 new customers on Black Friday. But 80 to 100 new customers might be feasible, depending on your industry.
A rule of thumb: Your goal should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound).
2. Determine a target audience for your offer
A marketing campaign is more practical and effective when you focus on a specific target audience. Eventually, it may not be a good idea to sell yoga mats for those who love climbing.
The key is to understand your target market. Conduct thorough research on what your prospects want. What are their problems? What are they looking for on Black Friday? What are their holiday shopping behaviors? What motivates them?
Ensure you target the right audience through segmentation—dividing your customers into groups by factors like gender, location, personality, and purchase history. Tools like Drift can help by automatically segmenting customers based on your settings.
3. Craft a compelling offer
During Black Friday, people come to you because you have what they need, but also because you offer them a good deal. Among hundreds, if not, thousands of retailers selling the same item as yours, your offer (and how you promote it) is what makes you different.
Strong copy will not overcome a weak offer but…in many cases, a strong offer will succeed in spite of weak copy written by marketing morons. Gary Halbert
If you have a good offer in place, you’ll find it easier to create an ad that pays off.
Take a look at the 7 examples above again, and you see this pattern: All of them offer an irresistible deal to which shoppers can’t say no.
“Does that mean I have to offer steep discounts like Amazon? I’d rather die.”
Absolutely not! Discounting isn’t just one of them. Here are some other ways you can try.
Offer coupons or discounts with purchase. While customers get a chance to save, you get another opportunity to make more money. Not sure whether to offer a dollar discount (for example, $50 off) or a percentage off (for example, 30% off)? Research shows that “dollars off” helps drive more conversions than “percentages off.” However, you should do some A/B tests to determine which type of offers works with your target customers.
Offer buy something, get something free. Not all customers can do math, but most of us understand the value of “free.” A restaurant can offer a free dessert for first-time visitors. A hairdresser can offer a free eyebrow shaping session with an additional service. A buy-something-get-something offer can also help retailers free up cash by selling unwanted inventory.
Offer free shipping. You can provide free shipping for local shoppers or those who live within a certain distance.
Offer free wrapping. During the holiday, shoppers buy a lot of gifts, so if you can help them wrap gifts for free, they’re more likely to buy from you.
Bundle relevant products and sell the bundle at a lower price than when selling the products individually.
Other types of promotions like buy one get one or more items for free or on discount, buy and earn loyalty, buy and pay a fixed price.
4. Think about your promotional strategy
Not all marketing channels and tactics are equal. Some will require you to spend less but would hardly yield any business. Others will cost you more, but might maximize your sales.
To determine where and how to promote your sales, ask yourself:
Which platforms are most of your target customers on?
Where does most of your traffic come from? Search engine, social media, etc.?
Which marketing metrics help you define success effectively?
What sort of activities and campaigns was the most successful last year? And which didn’t perform well?
What is the marketing trend now?
For marketing campaigns and promotions, you have a wide range of options. You can choose to do email marketing, run PPC ads, and/or partner with social media influencers.
Another way to promote your offer is to conduct an SEO strategy. Start with identifying trending, relevant keywords for your products. Then, create SEO-friendly content like gift guides and Black Friday-themed blog posts. You can even create a dedicated landing page for your Black Friday sales and then use it to run PPC ads.
5. Create a sense of urgency
You can blow away your potential customers by providing a compelling offer in a limited time.
The best practice is to add a countdown timer on your website—homepage, product pages, collection pages, cart pages, checkout page, landing pages, alert bars, pop-up forms—to tell shoppers how much (or little) time they have left to take advantage of your offer before it ends. You can do this using tools like Leadpages.
Alternatively, you can use these words and phrases to create urgency without being pushy:
Time (for example, last minute, today only, over, end)
Speed (for example, now, hurry, rush)
Scarcity (for example, exclusive, unique, only for you, never again, last chance)
FOMO (for example, price going up, now or never, final sale)
Sale words (for example, clearance, final close-out)
Time to practice!
Now and then, you may feel stuck while creating a marketing campaign for your Black Friday sale 2020.
Chances are, the same thing happens to almost all small businesses.
That’s why checking out other small business' strategies is a great way to get inspired.
Start your planning, building, and testing early, so you’re more than ready when the time comes to start implementing your promotions.
