Black Friday: How Socially Distanced Shopping Impacts Marketers
It used to be only one day a year. Then it extended to two days and then a full weekend. Now, Black Friday has already begun and is lasting all month long.Â
Black Friday is big and full of noise. Now it is even bigger.
Multiple brands, including Target and Best Buy, have raced to get ahead of the curve announcing doorbuster online Black Friday sales as early as November 1st.
Imagine you are a clothing store in California looking to promote your 25% off holiday sale. You know social media campaigns have brought in some customers previously, but you have no concrete way to know who received your ad and if your dollars were spent effectively. Ask yourself:
- How can I cut through the noise and make sure you target the right audience?
- How can I make sure that that audience is full of REAL people (not bots or cookies)?
- How much money should I spend?
- How do I make sure my dollars don’t go to waste?
Aside from these 2020 holiday tips we’ve covered previously, here are some best practices every business should incorporate into their holiday marketing strategy.
Target Real People
At the foundation of every strong campaign is high-quality data. Accurate data allows businesses to target verified individuals who have an interest in their products or services.
If you are a clothing store in California there are certain attributes that you’d want your target audience to have. For example:
- Gender: Female
- Ages: 18-35
- Location: California
- Interests: Online Shopping, Retail
Before deploying any campaign, businesses should make sure to create a target audience of REAL people who fit their customer profile.
Place your Message on the Right Channels
Now that we’ve built a custom audience for the clothing store and they know who their target customers are, the next question to ask is, on which channels do they engage with most?
Based on consumer data, you can run creative ad campaigns to reach your audience where they are most likely to engage. Example channels include Email, Connected TV, Programmatic Audio, and Mobile.
Real messages delivered to real people means no ad fraud, so you know you are spending your ad dollars effectively.
Measure Your Success
From how many people saw your message to who visited your site to who visited your store, it is critical that you can see exactly how your campaign performed.
Once your campaign is live, track results in real-time about your campaign, from the people you reached, who engaged with your message to who visited your site or your store. From there, you can make changes to enhance your campaign.