Romanian retailers expect an increase in sales between 60% and 200% on Black Friday 2022, compared to a period without discounts, from promotional campaigns sent by email and SMS, according to data from White Image, the largest email marketing company on the local market. According to White Image, the most active companies on Black Friday are from the fields of electro-IT, fashion, beauty, travel, auto and banking.
On Black Friday, the most used promotion and sales channels are email and SMS, in which companies invest between 3,000 and 15,000 euros for communication. On average, a retailer sends between 3 and 7 emails with different content, before and during the Black Friday weekend, and two SMS, to announce offers.
To maximize their chances of doubling their sales compared to a normal day, retailers start preparing promotional campaigns 3-4 months before Black Friday, building their promotional strategy starting with their customer database.
“Regardless of the size or the specifics of the store, retailers have understood how important it is to plan promotional campaigns, especially like Black Friday. Thus, to achieve their goals of brand visibility, customer loyalty or sales growth, companies pay special attention to the quality of their customer database, investing in its growth and segment. Selling is not only done through database, which must contain valid contacts, built according to many criteria that help to target buyers as accurately as possible. Retailers who do not prepare the database for the Black Friday campaign in time and who do not have a clear and structured in this period, could lose the opportunity to have sales up to 60% higher or even higher”, explains Andrei Georgescu, co-founder of White Image.
According to the email marketing company, at this year’s edition of Black Friday retailers will include all product categories, expecting an increase in the average order value of about 20%, for almost the same number of products compared to last year, the increase values being influenced by inflation. Also, in the online stores, on Black Friday, discounts are also expected on the products from the new collections. In addition to electronics, household appliances, fashion, cosmetics and holidays, there will also be promotions for cars and auto parts, and for various services.
At the same time, during the Black Friday campaigns, banks increase the number of credit rates from 6-12 to 20 or even 36 credit rate, for purchases with credit cards in many stores.
Recommendations to maximize Black Friday 2022 sales
In the Black Friday sale campaign, retailers need to implement several tactics to increase their sales.
“Black Friday is the best time of the year to increase sales in other campaigns throughout the year. Organized in time and strategically, starting from the growth and thorough organization of the customer database, the Black Friday campaign becomes more than a few days of intensive sales, it becomes a launching pad for new sales and business opportunities in the long term”, points out Grațiela Lupu, Managing Partner of White Image. Thus, the email marketing specialist and integrated marketing campaigns recommends retailers to consider the following aspects to maximize results:
• creating an email marketing strategy, the engine of online sales, by organizing the database: retailers who do not prepare in time risk losing the biggest opportunity of the year, that of collecting important data about customers already in the database, but also data about new customers. Growing your database is not only useful on Black Friday, but throughout the year with every campaign
• continuing communication with active customers and abandoning inactive ones – those who will buy on Black Friday are those who have also bought in previous campaigns, there are too few chances that inactive ones will make purchases on this occasion
• special treatment of current customers – announcing discounts in advance so as not to face the problem of lack of stock and/or an additional discount for customers
• planning a communication during the pre-campaign period to announce the Black Friday campaign, the gradual announcement of the various products available in the offer, information on the available quantities and stock depletion
• creating dynamic content, such as updating inventory dynamically in real time in email through a new technology available, called AMP, announcing the expiration of an offer and replacing it with another offer for customers who have not yet opened the email
• using a simplified design for the newsletters sent and testing in advance – the most convincing layouts are the simple, clear, user friendly ones that invite immediate purchase; therefore, layouts with animations or overloaded content should be avoided
• choosing clear subjects for the emails that will be sent, which not only communicate the idea of the discount, but also what the discount is for, what problem it solves or what customer needs it fulfills
• empathetic communication and connecting the target audience, which encounters certain problems or has certain needs for which there are solutions: segmented communication is useful, in which the interests of the customers are identified and through which the products or services desired by them are exposed
