5 campaign ideas for the Black Friday sales

Black Friday and Cyber Monday kick off the beginning of the busiest shopping season of the year. 2019 saw 93.2 million online shoppers spend $7.4 billion in these sales alone.

As much as 30% of all retail sales happen between Black Friday and Christmas, so it’s important to have eye-catching deals ready for the typical browsing consumer. But uniquely targeted and personalized promotions will also help you get better results from your sales.‍

There are some popular promotional techniques that always give good results when implemented correctly. These include:

Developing a successful, intriguing Black Friday marketing campaign will go a long way towards gaining and retaining more customers. So here are 5 great campaign ideas to get you inspired for the upcoming sale season.

We’ll also show you how you can set up some of these promotions in our Promotion Engine, just in case you’re inspired enough to create a similar promotion of your own.‍

Credit: Live Nation

We’ll start our list of standout Black Friday promotions with Live Nation’s 2019 Black Friday ticket sale.

With this one, it’s all about the framing. As you can see, Live Nation specifically chose metal/rock bands to fit the ‘Black’ Friday theme. They also set a special ticket price of ‘$20.20’ ready for the new year.

Having a set ticket price isn’t an advanced promotion technique, but the combination of the bands, ad banner and price are an eye-catching combination.

Conditions (Validate an attribute value):

• (Current time) is between 10:00, November 29 and 22:00, December 2

• (Ticket Type) does not contain (NOTVALID)

Cart Item Filter (Filter items by condition) & (Sum up cart item attributes):

• (Item category) is equal to (ticket)

• (Item.Quantity)*(Item.Price-20.2)

Effects (Set an item discount):

• (Session total)-(Cart Item Filter 2020)

Credit: McDonald's/Uber Eats

Last year McDonald’s teamed up with Uber Eats to offer an intriguing Black Friday promotion. One lucky sweepstake winner would get an entire year's worth of McDonald’s deliveries via Uber Eats.

On top of that, they’d also get an assortment of special merchandise, including a reclining massage armchair, a McDonald’s/Uber Eats branded pillow, blanket, and more.

On top of the main prize, 50 secondary winners would also win their own McDelivery late-night prize kit containing most of the smaller goodies the main prize winner received.

The promotion was cleverly timed to coincide with Black Friday. But it was actually conceived as a way to showcase the new McDonald’s ‘late-night’ menu.

To enter the sweepstake, customers had to Tweet McDonalds and Uber Eats on their personal Twitter accounts. All in all, the main prize was worth almost $10,000.

As far as the Black Friday promotions on our list go, this is the most impressive. It has everything, including great branding, interesting rewards, and high public visibility to aid brand exposure.

Credit: IKEA

In 2019 IKEA took advantage of one of their customer favorites to encourage people to shop with them on Black Friday.

IKEA is obviously known for its huge range of home and interior products. But their restaurant has also become a big draw for customers too.

As you can see in the screenshot above, IKEA included a ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ coupon for their restaurant meals, alongside free click and collect.

This Black Friday offer isn’t the flashiest out there, but it does a great job appealing to IKEA’s customers in a simple, practical way. 

Conditions (Validate an attribute value):

• (Loyalty Tier) is equal to (IKEA Family)

• (Pickup time) is after 13:00 on Fri, November 27th

Effects (Create coupon code):

• Expires at 22:00, Fri, November 27th‍

• Coupon Attribute: Discount Amount (Cheaper meal price)

This year Levi’s are bringing back their ‘Indigo Friday’ sales event. The denim take on Black Friday has proved popular in recent years, offering customers significant discounts on a variety of items in the Levi’s store.

The Indigo Friday promotions are pretty straightforward as far as Black Friday promotions are concerned. Items have discounts up to 40% off retail value.

But the event’s branding is what sets it apart. It’s a simple concept - indigo instead of black. However, it helps set Levi’s apart from all the other brands running their own Black Friday promotions.

Credit: Lou & Grey

The final promotion on our list comes from the clothing brand Lou & Grey. As a brand, they’re not as well known as the rest of our examples, but their use of a customized GIF in their Black Friday marketing email is a nice touch.

It’s a simple idea that requires minimal effort and does a great job catching potential customers’ attention at a time when they’re being bombarded with all sorts of other Black Friday offers.

In this case, simplicity is key. The ‘50% off everything’ discount is bold and eye-catching, and there’s also a clear time limit to the deal. 

Conditions (Validate an attribute value):

• (Current time) is before 00:01 on Sat, November 28th

Effects (Set a discount):

• (Session total)*50%

These examples might not directly translate to your business. But ideas can be adapted to fit most industries with a bit of creativity.

Before setting up your promotion, you need to decide what it is you’re trying to achieve.

If you’re simply aiming to get maximum sales over the course of the Black Friday weekend, you’re going to want an eye-catching promotion with big discounts.

On the other hand, if you want to run a Black Friday promotion to boost brand recognition over the long term, you might be better off going for a more subtle branded promotional campaign. You could even combine it with your loyalty program to specifically reward your existing customers.

Because our Promotion Engine has practically unlimited customization options, our customers can set up virtually any promotional campaign they like. For more information take a look at our Content Library.