Black Friday Marketing Strategies for Craft Businesses
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I don’t want to alarm you, but…it’s OCTOBER. ? Where has the year gone?! Well, I can’t answer that question, but I can tell you my mind is completely fixated on the upcoming holiday season. I want this to be your best year yet, so let’s focus on Black Friday marketing.
This is where the rubber meets the road, my friend. We have been talking for MONTHS now about getting prepared, and this is what you have been preparing for.
When I say Black Friday marketing, I’m really talking about that whole weekend after Thanksgiving. It’s the biggest shopping weekend of the year. If you want to increase your sales, you cannot ignore it!
Disclosure: some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
By now, you should have:
- ? An organized(ish) workspace
- ? A system for batching your work
- ? A fully stocked raw materials stash and supplier list
If you don’t have those things, don’t stress too much. I’ve linked to other posts here with tips and guides to help you along in each of those areas.
But what you REALLY need to be focusing on now is MARKETING. We’ve talked about email marketing for the Thanksgiving weekend already, so today we’re diving into your overall Black Friday marketing strategy.
Shopping will start the week of Thanksgiving, with MANY people getting online to start to buy on Thanksgiving day, continuing into Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday.
What’s exciting:
- EVERYONE is going to be shopping online.
- People are looking for opportunities to support small businesses.
- You don’t have to drag ALL of your inventory around to shows.
What’s challenging:
- There is going to be a lot more competition for attention online.
- People are used to quick turnaround times on shipping: if you don’t have a product that ships quickly, you are going to have to be VERY clear about this.
- You can’t be sliding in at the last minute with products (I’m talking to the ‘making-things-at-2am-the-night-before-the-show’ makers)…your website needs to be STOCKED and READY.
So now that you’re organized and stocked up (or thinking about it), you need a plan for how you are going to get traffic to your website.
Black Friday Marketing Strategy
Hopefully by now you have started to nurture your audiences (social media, email list, etc). This means:
- Consistently posting engaging, relevant content.
- Frequently emailing your list.
- Commenting on posts (as your business) with added value to build brand awareness.
- Consistently adding value to your communities (preferably joining and commenting as your business profile).
Now, you want to start increasing the FREQUENCY with which you are doing these things. That means more posts, more emails, more comments, and more value.
Your content message should be both on-brand and seasonally appropriate. Make sure you are paying attention to what others in your niche are posting/saying/doing. Take note of what is working for them and what isn’t.
Make sure you are thoughtfully and intentionally mixing your products, website links, and email signup invitations with your other engaging content. Don’t expect people to go out of their way to search for your website. You have to constantly remind them to go there and shop!
If you don’t think you have the bandwidth to be showing up every day on your social media channels, PLEASE take the time to schedule your posts ahead of time.
This is NOT the time to leave your audience high and dry: you absolutely must have your voice out there if you want to be found.
If you don’t have the funds to pay for a scheduling tool like Later, you can try Facebook’s free Creator Studio. It allows you to schedule posts for both Instagram and Facebook.
Struggling with WHAT you should be posting? I have a great course that will get you going in the right direction – Clear Cut Content!
