The Before, During and After Black Friday Plan

Black Friday and Cyber Monday may be a 4-Day promotional period, but did you know your business can benefit from this crazy time of the year both before and after. Get started right now.

In this handy guide, we’ll show you how businesses can succeed with media monitoring, and be prepared before, during, and after the Black Friday Weekend.

Here’s what’s ahead of us today:

• How to be prepared before Black Friday?
• What can you do during Black Friday?
• What can you do after Black Friday?
• How to manage your reputation after Black Friday?

How to be prepared before Black Friday?

Last year’s Black Friday sale took place on 23rd November, and it would be a fair assumption to think that most people wouldn’t be thinking about 2019’s Black Friday discounts just days after the 2018 sale weekend.

But you’d be very much mistaken!

You only had to check out Twitter in the days immediately leading after Black Friday 2018 to understand the community’s commitment to finding a good deal over the holiday weekend, is a year-round effort.

In fact, 43% of people who bought something on Black Friday, said they researched the deals in advance. Consumers are aware that these deals are limited, and want to be the ‘first in line’ for the products they usually wouldn’t be able to afford.

What does it mean for your business?

With the cost of acquiring new customers being up to 7x more than keeping an existing one and reports that businesses have to prepare for a minimum of 2.6x increase (per 1000 impressions) for adverts on platforms like Google and Facebook, due to the increased competition around the BlackFriday weekend.

Setting yourself up in advance of Black Friday will help you identify lists of potential leads to reach out to once your deals go live, immediately giving you a competitive edge.

Monitoring your brand online should be the first step in your Black Friday Survival Guide.

Marketers would be right to consider alternative options that would help them reach their potential clients around this time of year.

These ‘alternatives’ don’t have to be complicated. Media monitoring can help spot the low hanging fruits you could benefit from.

With efforts pushed into content creation, paid social strategies, smart growth hacks brands tend to forget to reply to their own customers.

These are the dream, leads reaching out to you to spend ‘hefty amounts’ on your Black Friday deals.

This seems like just a simple mistake, right? Surely brands aren’t just ‘not replying’ to people who want to buy from them?

Wrong. Believe it or not, it’s estimated that 6 out of every 10 customers who mention a business online get zero replies.

Using Brand24, multiple departments from Sales to your Customer Success team can manage, respond and discover mentions of your business in one place, on one account!

We’ll also want to track all those customers discussing the weekend itself, so don’t forget to set up another search looking at those people discussing Black Friday & Cyber Monday in general:

What can you do during Black Friday?

So, now we’ve covered monitoring your own brand, we can now focus on the potential customers your competitors don’t know exist.

Over 44,000 people every month ask for help online. Using Brand24 we can see that around Black Friday this increases dramatically (as shown below):

By searching for terms such as the above. Your business can now access conversations like these:

So, when potential future customers are mentioning a product, like ‘Snow Blower’, that you stock, you can reach out and offer your help! (Especially when your competitor doesn’t offer a solution).

We already know that they need help, so don’t feel afraid to get in touch and support them.

With that being said, monitoring your competitor around Black Friday is equally important!

Identify potential unhappy customers that your sales team can later convert with your amazing Black Friday Discounts.

You can monitor your competitors using the same technique we used earlier monitoring your own business online.

What can you do after Black Friday?

As we established earlier, consumers aren’t afraid to get vocal around Black Friday.

This increase in conversation can be a gold mine for businesses looking to continue riding on the successes of the weekend or just push past those pesky sales targets!

Using the projects we’ve already set up to collect posts of people discussing your industry, competitors, and people looking for products/services, from all over the web during the Black Friday Weekend.

You now have a list of people who are guaranteed to be somewhat interested in potentially becoming your customer.

We can now use the search box in your mentions center to narrow down the search to people who have:

1. Bought a product/service similar to yours
2. Discussed their interest in buying a product/service similar to yours
3. Missed out on grabbing a Black Friday Deal

By entering purchase orientated terms into your projects, you can focus on people who are discussing their Black Friday orders:

Let’s consider customers who fall in category 1 or 2, like the example below:
(In this example you’ll have to imagine you own a company who sells video games and accessories).

Now STOP.

Don’t reach out to them just yet.

We’re going to consider a different angle here than earlier.

They’ve just spent their money, and by the looks of things, it was a big purchase and one that didn’t come without considerable thought.

Instead, turn this person into a lead.

As you would if you qualified this person via downloading a white paper, or from your website.

But, instead of having their email or phone, you have their social profile. And you can follow them, build relationships on a channel you are sure they use because it’s where you found them.

And when the time’s right, or during future promotional periods, you’ve got a qualified lead that you know could use your products and is more likely to engage with you.

Moving on, now let’s consider those who fall into the third category.
The unfortunate few who missed a deal on Black Friday weekend! Like the person below:

Using our ‘Black Friday’ focused project from earlier, and the search bar above, we can now look for terms like ‘missed out’, ‘gutted’ to find leads similar to the above.

With no reply from the business he’s mentioned, and money to spend, this is the perfect time to pass this leads to your sales team and help him spend his £5!

How to manage your reputation after Black Friday?

Your new customers still expect the same experience and level of customer service available as if they were buying your product/service at full price.
Using the project we created monitoring your own business, you can now do this with ease!

In 2018, UK Businesses lost approximately £326m in product returns after Black Friday.

Now, obviously a portion of this can be put down to impulse buying, or a sudden change of heart when they see their post Black Friday bank account.

But it’s important to have your business ready to handle, and resolve these issues from the second your sale starts, so that you can minimize the long term effects these issues cause brands online. In other words, manage your brand reputation.

It’s estimated that 57% of people stopped any future business with a brand due to a poor digital customer service experience.
And considering that only 3% of posts online directed at businesses being ‘tagged’(@).

Using Brand24 so that you can identify ‘untagged’ mentions of your business, is vital! 

Businesses should be aware that bad customer service during Black Friday, could be viewed by potential customers in the near future, with 93% of consumers admit to researching a brand online before purchasing a product from them.

Using Brand24’s Negative Sentiment filters, businesses can easily identify any potential problems (if and when they occur) and react in real-time.

Avoid ending up like the businesses below with unanswered customers, and manage your online reputation the whole Black Friday Weekend.

Here at Brand24, we’re ready to help your business maximize its potential, both before, during and way after Black Friday.

Your dedicated account manager is ready to help you get set up, so if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Get Your Business Black Friday Ready Now

Good Luck this Black Friday 2019!
We’ll be rooting for you here at Brand24!