Have you started planning yet for Black Friday 2015?

Black Friday is a huge American shopping event offering huge savings on goods, and in 2014 it exploded across the rest of the world in unprecedented fashion. UK shoppers went crazy for bargains. Some commentators were going as far to say that Black Friday has changed the face of UK retail.

In that week John Lewis celebrated its biggest selling week of all time and Amazon UK had its biggest selling day ever. We found retailers with Connect websites who did marketing campaigns increased their conversion rates by a factor of 10! Its not just the bargains, Black Friday is usually the weekend people get paid. Added to that, in 2015 many consumers feel wealthier than in previous years. They feel more secure in their jobs than in recent years, their fuel bills are falling and their weekly shop gets cheaper every time as UK supermarkets slash prices to compete with Lidl and Aldi.

This is a super opportunity for retailers to get a pre-Christmas boost with a little planning.

This year Black Friday takes place on November 27th, 2015. So here is a quick checklist.

1. Prepare your offers. What will you put forward as your Black Friday offers this year? Maybe select several ranges or themes. Last year electricals sold well as did fashion.

2. Prepare your marketing. Your website should have landing pages that specifically promote your offers. If you have 4 or 5 different offers you should have a landing page for each one to make it highly focussed. You can create your offer pages and get them ready for go live closer to the date. In fact some retailers are securing Google positions by listing Black Friday pages with content relevant to future offers. For example you could go for “Black Friday jeans offers” and put up a holding page with content about jeans, and a countdown to when the offers will arrive. See what Very are doing here (could be improved with more content): http://www.very.co.uk/black-friday

3. Prepare your communications. Plan and even write your emails, you can send them out one per day through the weekend with a different offer in each. Most email systems like Create Send that IR recommend will let you set them up now and set a date for release. Each email will need a few links back to your website promotion pages.

4. Prepare AdWords. If you want to go that step further plan a mini AdWords campaign around Black Friday. We know people are looking around with their ‘wallets open’ and are more likely to buy than at any other time of year so your return on investment can be higher.

5. Prepare your delivery methods. Check with your delivery company to see if they have any advice as last year certain companies were stretched and deliveries delayed, so be prepared to set your customers’ expectations.

If you need help with this, Intelligent Retail’s online marketing team has a range of services to help you prepare and make the most of the opportunity.