10 Best Black Friday Marketing Campaigns (Strategies + Examples)

It’s your time of the year to achieve massive sales and profit from your online store. So equip your business with Black Friday marketing campaigns to make the maximum sales in the upcoming BFCM sales.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are once-in-a-year opportunities to yield more profits so don’t be just another typical online store in the market. Implement creative marketing campaigns for black friday to stand out in the crowd and achieve the most sales.

In this guide, we have hand-picked the top 10 proven black friday marketing campaigns with real-time brand examples to give you a complete overview.

Let’s get started!

10 Best Black Friday Marketing Campaigns

Here are the 10 best Black Friday marketing campaigns,

• Run Pre-Black Friday Marketing Campaigns
• Implement Black Friday Email Marketing Campaigns
• Display Upsells and Popups
• Run Flash Sales with Countdown Timers
• Offer Exclusive Black Friday Discounts to VIP Customers
• Create a Mystery Offer Campaign
• Offer Free Shipping
• Use Social Proof and UGC in Black Friday Promotions
• Create Gift Guides
• Prepare Post-Black Friday Follow-Up Campaigns

1. Run Pre-Black Friday Marketing Campaigns

Start your black friday marketing campaigns in advance to create a buzz and keep your audience hooked to secure early sales. By teasing your deals, you let your customers make purchasing decisions earlier.

Running pre-Black Friday marketing campaigns lets you get ahead of your customers by cutting through the noise. The early bird catches the worm, so start early to make the most sales this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

How to implement it?

• Tempt your customers and create enthusiasm by sending teaser emails.
• Share teasers, and sneak peeks on social media.
• Set countdown timers in emails, social media posts and websites
• Offer VIP customers early access to black friday deals.

Here’s an example of a pre-black friday promotion from Adidas

2. Implement Black Friday Email Marketing Campaigns

Implementing email marketing is the best marketing campaign for Black Friday as it is one of the affordable channels to drive sales. Plus, you can target customers through segmentation.

All you need to do is segment customers based on demographics, site activity, purchase history, and choices and send emails accordingly. This way, you can communicate directly with your customers.

How to implement it?

• Create compelling subject lines to increase open rates.
• Curate personalized emails for new customers and loyal customers.
• Schedule email series like teaser emails, reminders, and last-chance emails.
• Use countdown timers in your emails to create FOMO.

Here’s an example of a black friday sales email by Happi

3. Display Upsells and Popups

Suggesting upsells, and cross-sells is the best black friday marketing campaign to enhance customer’s shopping journey. Plus, this tactic increases the average order value of your store too.

Popups are the best option to promote last-minute deals and exclusive offers. Strategically trigger popups when the chances of customer adding extra products to the cart are high.

How to implement it?

• Suggest related products based on the customer’s recent purchase and interests.
• Display upsell and cross-sell products that complement customer’s primary purchase.
• Suggest product recommendations at all touch points.
• Design attention-grabbing upsell popups
• Encourage customers to add items through popups to utilize free shipping.

Here’s an example of upsell recommendations by Gymshark

4. Run Flash Sales with Countdown Timers

You can create urgency by running flash sales with countdown timers. By limiting the special black friday discount and deals to a specific time frame, you can trigger FOMO and drive immediate sales.

Countdown timers directly communicate with the customers on how much time is left for a deal to end and make customers make quick purchase decisions.

How to implement it?

• Run flash sales for specific products or categories
• Create a schedule of flash sales in varying time periods and deals.
• Ensure visible countdown timers both on the website and in emails.
• Promote flash sales across social media channels to create buzz.

Here’s an example of countdown timers for black friday set by Google

5. Offer Exclusive Black Friday Discounts to VIP Customers

Rewarding your loyal customers is crucial to further enhance your rapport and make high-value sales. So offering exclusive discounts to VIP customers is one of the best marketing campaigns for black friday.

But, you need to personalize VIP offers for top purchasers based on their preferences and make them feel valued.

How to implement it?

• You can offer early access to purchase
• Offer high-percentage discounts and bundle deals
• Provide limited-edition products only to VIP customers
• Launch special products only for loyal customers.

Here’s an example of early access promotion by Summer Solace

6. Create a Mystery Offer Campaign

Customers love surprises and mystery offer campaigns provide a way to make big. This campaign works by offering surprise deals to the customers. It might be discounts, freebies, or other special offers. The mystery deal will only be revealed upon specific actions like adding items to the cart or opening an email.

This enhances customer engagement and increases sales or open rates. Mystery offer campaign is a unique black friday marketing campaign that helps you stand out from the rest.

How to implement it?

• Send emails on mystery offers with catchy subject lines.
• Implement ‘spin the wheel’ feature to spin and unlock random rewards or offers.
• Offer mystery deals on successful completion of an order.
• Offer mystery gifts for orders over a certain amount.

Here’s an example of Mystery offer campaign by Fatty 15

7. Offer Free Shipping

High shipping rate is a primary reason for cart abandonment which you can tackle by offering free shipping, especially during black friday. Free shipping is a game-changing incentive that subtly encourages customers to complete the purchase.

This is a simple yet witty black friday marketing campaign to boost sales. Plus, it’s a cost-effective way to drive more sales during the black friday sale.

How to implement it?

• Clearly highlight the free shipping offer on the home page.
• Offer free shipping on all orders throughout the black friday sale.
• Provide limited-time free shipping to create urgency.

Here’s an example of free shipping offer by Neutrogena

8. Use Social Proof and UGC in Black Friday promotions

Customers tend to trust and believe the opinions of fellow users over promotional content. This makes integrating social proof and user-generated (UGC) into your BFCM promotions a creative marketing strategy for Black Friday.

This not only builds trust but also credibility and predominantly increases conversion rates.

How to implement it?

• Encourage customers to share photos and videos of their recent purchases.
• Create a common brand hashtag for customers to use whenever they share UGC.
• Highlight customer reviews and ratings on the black friday deals pages.
• Share UGC content on your shop’s social media.
• Popup notifications on the number of purchases recently made by customers.

Here’s an example of social proof integration in email campaigns by Bite Toothpaste Bits

9. Create Gift Guides

Gift guides are a creative way to enhance your customer’s shopping experience in this black friday sale.

With so many deals available, shoppers can feel a little overwhelmed to make a choice. But with gift guides, you can showcase the best products for different customer segments and help them find the perfect gift quickly.

Gift guides promote and drive targeted sales without straightforward promotions.

How to implement it?

• Create targetted gift guides based on customer preferences like ‘Gifts for mom’, ‘Christmas gifts’, etc.,
• Include best-selling products in the gift guides.
• Bundle related products and promote them as gift sets.
• Integrate gift guides in your black friday email campaigns and social media posts.
• Provide clickable links in promotional content to let customers shop directly from the guide.

Here’s an example of Black Friday gift guides promoted by National Geographic

10. Prepare Post-Black Friday Follow-Up Campaigns

Many customers look for exclusive deals even after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You can use this opportunity by promoting post-black friday marketing campaign. This way, you can maintain the enthusiasm and re-engage with customers who didn’t make their purchase earlier.

How to implement it?

• Send thank you emails by subtly suggesting complementary products.
• Segment customers and send follow-up emails on Cyber Monday deals.
• Send follow-up emails featuring gifts and freebies.

Here’s an example of post-black friday email campaign by National Geographic

Summing Up!

Implementing these 10 best black friday marketing campaigns will work wonders and help you achieve target revenue on this Black friday sale.

But beyond these, what matters the most is staying unique in whatever campaign you run to attract shoppers and turn them into loyal customers.

Get ready with black friday marketing campaigns and hit straight at your target in this BFCM 2024.

Related reads on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

• Top 10 WooCommerce Black Friday Plugins for 2024
• Black Friday tips and tricks (2024 Checklist)