Black Friday is an essential highlight in the brand marketing calendar. Every year, more than 70% of consumers say they make purchases on this occasion, taking advantage of the exceptional promotions offered by retailers.

Imported from the United States this trade festival is becoming increasingly popular in France and abroad..
Il est donc très pertinent pour les marques de se positionner sur ce temps fort et de créer une stratégie marketing Black Friday efficace, qui leur permettra de recruter et convertir de nouveaux clients.

In this article, we take a look back at the main issues that companies need to prepare for in order to succeed with their Black Friday marketing campaigns. We also share some effective and original ideas to boost sales and prepare offers for the festive season.

SUMMARY

• The marketing challenges of Black Friday
• 3 marketing campaign ideas to boost sales during Black Friday

Black Friday is no ordinary trade fair. It offers companies a unique opportunity to hire new prospects and re-engage their existing customers (in the same way as sales). But the special feature of the Black Friday is that is takes place at a particularly strategic time of year.

It is indeed the last weekend of november the final stretch before Christmas shopping. Generally speaking, the 4th quarter of the year (the months of October/November/September) is a strategic time for companies, who generate 20 to 30% of their annual sales during this period.

Black Friday’s marketing challenges are therefore unique and brands have the opportunity to implement a strategy that will enable them to target the following four marketing objectives.

Stand out from the competition

An increasing number of companies are offering Black Friday deals. Brands must therefore redouble their efforts to make their campaign visible to their target audience

To capture attention, they won’t be able to rely solely on exceptional discounts (if they want to control the ROI of their Black Frday campaign). They’ll have to rely on other levers of visibility, such as originality and interactivity. Companies can set themselves apart by organizing a marketing competition, for example.

Engaging consumers at the right time

Brands are tending to communicate their Black Friday offers earlier and earlier. By spacing out their marketing campaign over several days, or even weeks, they can create a teasing effect and better manage consumer expectations .

Its also an effective approach to staying top of mind the big dayand guide shoppers more effectively towards the offers/products that best meet their expectations. The key is to strike the right balance to avoid advertising fatigue (and audience fatigue) by offering a variety of advertising formats that maintain engagement right through to Black Friday. A multi-channel approach will also be essential to reach consumers wherever they are.

Propose relevant offers based on customer preferences

To convert, Black Friday marketing campaigns can’t just play on discount percentages. They can also precisely target consumers’ product preferences, offering them a recommendation of items or services they are more likely to want to buy.

This means collecting, in advance of Black Friday, relevant customer data on favorite product categories, but also on the marketing channels, payment methods and delivery options that buyers intend to prioritize. To achieve this, brands can rely on marketing games such as Battle or Gift Finder.

Collect opt-ins and build loyalty to boost repeat purchases

As we’ve already mentioned, Black Friday is the start of a particularly intense period for consumers..
La fête commerciale se déroule en effet juste avant le Cyber Monday (qui a lieu le lundi suivant) et Noël.

To boost sales throughout this period, it’s very important that brands take advantage of Black Friday to collect opt-ins. Black Friday marketing formats can be used to this end (via a simple opt-in form, for example).

Brands can also take advantage of this opportunity to continue collecting customer preference (with a survey or swiper, for example), to optimize future campaigns. They can also encourage engaged prospects to create a customer account or download their application to boost their re-purchase rate for the rest of the year.

Gamification is a relevant lever for meeting the challenges of a Black Friday marketing strategy.

Depending on the brand’s objectives, these interactive and entertaining formats can help to achieve the following goals:

• Recruit qualified leads and optins to develop your customer database;
• Engage existing customers using games to showcase products and support promotions
• Increase sales by encouraging consumers to make a purchase in-store or on the e-commerce site.

1. Recruter des leads avec un instant gagnant

Simple mechanics such as Instants Gagnants are ideal for recruiting new leads and collecting optin. before or during Black Friday. Red By SNCF, for example, relied on the One-armed Bandit to boost the visibility of its Black Friday campaign.

The very simple principle of the game (aligning three identical patterns to unlock a gift or discount) is indeed perfect for engaging a wide audience. Prospects are also attracted by the prospect of finding out immediately whether they’ve won a reward or not.

What’s more, the interactive, fun aspect of this Black Friday marketing campaign helped the operator stand out at this particularly busy time of year.

2. Engage your community during Black Friday with a Shopping List

To engage existing customers during Black Friday, brands can rely on gamification mechanics highlighting their products. The idea here is to discover its offer in a fun way, the aim is also to collect customer preferences in order to offer more targeted product recommendations. The challenge is also to offer attractive prizes that capture the audience’s attention and make them want to participate.

Git, for example, offered its community the chance to win an exceptional basket made up exclusively of items that participants had already selected using a shopping list..
Pendant toute la semaine précédant le Black Friday, les acheteurs pouvaient ainsi tenter leur chance et remporter leur wishlist au tirage au sort.

3. Boost Black Friday sales with coupons

For Black Friday marketing campaigns to bear fruit, brands need to find effective levers to redirect their audience to their website (or in-store for a drive-to-store campaign).

Oui SNCF, for example, took advantage of its Black Friday gamification campaign (a one-armed bandit) to distribute 15-euro e-coupons. Participants could then win a voucher, to be used on the company’s website or app for their next booking.

With more than 2K clicks driven to its site, Oui SNCF boosted sales over the period..
Mais en plus de générer du CA pour le Black Friday, l’entreprise en a aussi profité pour collecter des adresses emails et des optins afin d’enrichir son CRM.

Conclusion

Gamification is one of the most effective strategies for creating an impactful marketing campaign. By choosing a playful, interactive mechanism to animate your audience, you can not only present your discounts more effectively, but also significantly boost your sales. Discover our catalog of playable formats to boost your Black Friday marketing strategy.

Promoting a product requires a distinctive marketing strategy of a classic brand awareness campaign. Indeed, the brand will need to focus its content on a very specific item, to highlight its features and make its audience want to buy it.

But a campaign to promote a product can also serve other strategic objectives for the company. It can be an opportunity to :

• gain notoriety,
• recruit new leads (especially if the brand extends its product range),
• retain existing customers,
• collect opt-in,
• or attract the public in-store (with product demonstrations, for example).

In this article, we propose 6 effective ideas for gamified marketing campaigns to promote a product.

SUMMARY

• 1.Offer an exclusive preview of your product
• 2. Answering customer questions with an interactive quiz
• 3. Share UGC to promote a product
• 4. Product launch: 100% winning coupons
• 5. Present the benefits of the new product
• 6. Immerse customers in your brand universe with a treasure hunt

The launch of a new product is a major event for brands. Some brands use the occasion to organize a physical event to present the new product to their audience. This is the case, for example, with Apple and its famous Keynotes.

Live shopping also offers a digital alternative to this product presentation, giving buyers an exclusive look at the item being used (or worn, for example, in the case of fashion marketing).
Les marques peuvent elles aussi en profiter pour répondre aux questions des internautes et présenter ainsi les caractéristiques et la valeur ajoutée de leur produit de manière beaucoup plus interactive et pertinente.

This product presentation, whether physical or digital, can take place before the launch. In the case of a digital product (such as software or a video game), the company can create a form of teasing by presenting a demonstration of its service, or by having its most committed users test an MVP (for Minimum Viable Product, i.e. a beta version). This is an excellent way of collecting feedback to improve the final product, and also of rewarding loyal customers.

The main added value of a new product, and what will make it stand out from its competitors, is its ability to respond to the problems faced by consumers. To encourage the audience to take an interest in a new product, and make them want to buy it, the brand can present its main features and what makes it unique, through an interactive quiz for example.

Consumers can discover the product interactively, through a gamified format at the end of which they can win a voucher or discount. This is what Savencia did to promote its 2 brands Giovanni Ferrari (mozzarella) and Islos (Feta) during the summer. The company shared a Mediterranean-themed quiz in which participants could test their knowledge while discovering the products.

Participants can ask questions via a shared form at the end of the quiz.
L’entreprise peut ensuite garder les questions les plus fréquentes et/ou les plus pertinentes pour organiser un Q&A et ainsi répondre aux préoccupations ou aux attentes de ses prospects.

What better way to promote a product than to share visual testimonials of the value it already offers your existing customers. In marketing, this is called UGC, i.e. buyer-generated content.
These could be photos or videos of your customers using (or wearing) your product.

This authentic content is highly effective in converting new customers, all the more so when shared with a dedicated hashtag on social networks. To collect UGC, brands can organize a contest (again, video or photo). Customers will be encouraged to enter for a chance to win an attractive prize fund and the chance to be rewarded on their favorite brand’s account.

This is what GoPro does, for example, to highlight the quality of its cameras.

Companies can also organize a promotional campaign to give visibility to a new product and boost sales at launches. Visit 100% winning instants, which distribute e-coupons, is particularly effective in this case.

All participants can win a discount (by a greater or lesser percentage depending on their result in the marketing game). The brand can do this via an interactive mechanism such as the A slot machine, for example, with motifs representing his new product, or a pinata, again in the shape of the item in question.

Many brands promoting a product tend to focus on its features and functionality. However, a much more effective marketing strategy is to present the advantages of a product and the added value it can bring to users. Users are thus encouraged to imagine themselves with the product in their hands, and better visualize what it can do for them.

An excellent gamification mechanic for presenting the added value of your product or offering is the Memory.
In fact, it makes it possible to showcase promotional content in an original way and informs consumers and maximize the time they spend with the brand.

Shuttle Freight, for example, has opted for this marketing game to highlight the benefits of their loyalty program. and recruit new members. By clicking on a new card, participants could discover the rewards to which they would have access according to the number of points accumulated (birthday gift, free crossing, etc.).

The game was followed by an instant win to earn loyalty points, a particularly engaging mechanic, since prospects knew exactly what these points would unlock.

When brands promote a product, they often use static formats that don’t engage consumers. Gamification allows you to create interaction and to encourage customers to interact with the product. They are no longer the passive spectators of a classic ad or tutorial video presentation, but the actors in the campaign, discovering the product from every angle and even in action.

The treasure hunt is a very interesting format for creating this interaction between customer and product. Participants are immersed in the world of the brand and can discover the product in a gamified environment linked to the article. This may involve a classic hidden object, in which the user searches for the object in a virtual world.

The brand can also opt for a more complex version, in which the user has to assemble the various components that make up the product. (like the ingredients of a beauty care product, for example). The customer discovers for himself the full potential of the product, its different functionalities/properties and use cases.

Conclusion