I know it's only October, and to speak of Black Friday 2021 might seem as if I am ushering time to move faster and bring the holiday season crashing down around us....

But stirring up panic is not my intention, I assure you.

Instead, I hope this article's contents provides you with some peace-of-mind, because following it will mean...

1.  You've taken care of your Black Friday Marketing Strategy as soon as possible, which means you can start your promo earlier (which is KEY this year as you'll find out below)
2.  With a proven strategy in place, you can save stress while beginning the end-of-year holiday season with strong numbers in your pocket.

Black Friday 2021 will be on November 26th, but major retailers will begin promoting deals much earlier.

Here's what you can expect...

Let's get into my Black Friday Marketing Strategy, revised and updated with my "Predictions and Tips for 2021!"

With those tips out of the way, let's dig into our proven Black Friday Marketing Strategy for 2021.

The whole reason my Black Friday Strategy works is because it starts early. I've made a few small updates for it to work with 2021's continuing COVID conditions.

Timing has always been its strength, which is vital in the last two years of month-long Black Friday Sales and primarily all-online shopping fiascos.  

Speaking of timing...

Now, let's get into the strategy!!

The first email you send out will ask your customers what THEY would like to see deals on.

You can even suggest a variety of options and see what they like best. You don't have to give away details of how much or anything else, but you can just give them a simple survey of products or ideas to see what they say.

No one does this! 

Most people love to provide their opinion, and asking your audience engages them before the actual "big sale," making sure that your business is on their radar. 

And with the number of sales happening during the month of "Black Friday," it's smart to get creative!

By asking for your audience's input, you are already crafting orders and sales they want to see. And depending on their answers, you can adjust your bundles or offers accordingly. 

In this email, if someone hasn't answered your question, you want to incentivize them to engage.

And just repeating your question is an easy way to bubble back into their inbox. 

• Repeat the request to answer the question.
• Remind of incentive for answering.
• It's because "I want to help make you better at __________________ and solves _______________.

If you use intelligent automation such as HubSpot, then you will have automation that will make this easy as you'll be able to see who has answered it and who has not. 

At this point, you're excited to share some of the details about the sale with your audience, but you don’t want to give it all away.

You’ll want to leave out some key details to intrigue them and pique their curiosity, also while letting them know there’s some scarcity. This offer isn't going to last forever!

• Share some interesting details about the sale
• Create curiosity, mystery and intrigue
• Emphasize the exclusivity 
• Products make you better at __________________ and solve __________________.

This email should continue to build hype, curiosity, and momentum. 

By providing a "sneak peek," you will continue to stoke your reader's excitement all the way up to when your sale finally launches. 

Some tips for your sneak peek:

• Reveal some of the products included
• Share actual savings for some of the offers (numbers are better than percentages) 
• Continue to emphasize limited quantity and timing

The point of this email is to make all the shopping details of the sale as easy to find out as possible. 

Always remove obstacles to purchase by answering fairly simple questions.

• What time the sale starts (be sure to list multiple time zones)
• Payment options
• Return/refund policies

Momentum is building and your audience has been getting offers from your competitors, as well.

At this point, our timing will be getting more aggressive.

This email keeps your audience's mindset in mind: they're busy, they're overwhelmed, their inbox is overflowing.

So, we want to keep it short and sweet and just remind them... 

• LINE 1: Early bird starts soon
• LINE 2: Here’s the date
• LINE 3: Here’s the time (always give a few time zones unless you are strictly local)

You will want to launch your Black Friday Sale BEFORE Black Friday.

Remember, you're competing for a finite share of resources, as well as mental space.  

You don't want to launch your Black Friday Sale on November 1st, because that's too early. You don't want to get lost in the exhaustion. 

But you also don't want to wait until after Thanksgiving, either, because this day in age, that's just too late. 

So, you want to hit during the week of Thanksgiving! Either the Monday of, or Wednesday, the day before. 

These are the days people tend to be really settling in for the holiday week and doing some browsing.

In the email, you'll want to tell them that the sale is live and give them an obvious link to click. 

Mention products and savings in dollars and then give them a button link to the same page.

In between your first few days of your sale and Black Friday, you will hit Thanksgiving.

Even though it's a day committed to relaxing with family, it is also a day committed to online shopping.

In 2020, shoppers spent $5.1 billion, up from 2019's $4.2 billion, and up again from 2018's $3.7 billion.

So, in the Thanksgiving email, you'll want to wish your readers a Happy Thanksgiving and remind them you have great sales going on.  

Give them an obvious link and say they should check out after dinner and fun with family and friends. 

Send the email a little later in the day, too. This thoughtful touch can go a long way. 

Black Friday is here! 

By now, we're already several days into our sale...

Which means if someone hasn't purchased yet, then they're probably not going to. 

Remember, they're getting tons of promo emails from everyone and their mother at this time.

So, what you want to do is introduce NEW offers.

This will freshen up the sale and keep it interesting.

Just make sure you call out the new offer in the subject line to entice those who haven't bought yet to take a look. 

As its name indicates, "Small Business Saturday" is intended to highlight small businesses. 

On this day, I like to incorporate another strategy that is designed to address your customer's objections. 

You do this through Frequently Asked Questions.

By asking specific questions about common concerns, doubts, or hesitations to buy, you can directly answer that question with a slight sales slant. 

For example, one question and answer could be:

• QUESTION:  "How long will it take for me to receive Product XYZ?" 
• ANSWER: "With our quick fulfillment, you can be enjoying your new Product XYZ within the week!"

 And, as always, be sure to link to your landing pages or website product/services pages. 

I like to accomplish this step by asking and answering the below:

• QUESTION: "Where can I find out more?" 
• ANSWER: Click here (link to landing page) to find out more, or contact us at (email address) to get all your questions answered. 

This is the last day of the Black Friday sale, so you'll want to push scarcity in this email, e.g. only a few hours left, last time you'll see this sale, once-in-a-lifetime offer, etc. 

Keep it short and of course, have an obvious button or link they can click to shop.

No Black Friday Strategy is complete without a Cyber Monday promotion.

While plenty of competitors will be taking advantage of this day, you can too.

My recommendation is to repeat what we did on Black Friday.

Introduce more NEW offers.

You do this for 2 reasons.

1. You want to keep things intriguing.
2. Yesterday you told your prospect it was the last day they were going to see that sale. You don't want to give reason for distrust, so you'll want to change up this bundle or offer something brand new.