Ask Aaron: How should brands market for Black Friday?

Dear Aaron, This will be the first Black Friday for our retail franchise.  Are there any local-marketing tips that will help us? Signed, Seeking Local Advice Please Dear SLAP, Ah, Black Friday: the dreaded day in which I try desperately to hide out at home to ease my turkey-filled belly and relax, only to be roped into going to the mall. The day after Thanksgiving is often regarded as the beginning of the holiday shopping season. The day’s name originated in Philadelphia and was originally used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic that occurred every year on that date.  A modern definition that began to see broader use explained that retailers traditionally operated at a financial loss (“in the red”) from January through November, and “Black Friday” signified the point which retailers began to turn a profit, or get “in the black.” Needless to say, this is a day that retailers have to step up and capture as much of the share as possible.  Large retailers can boost their collective year-to-date net profit by billions in those short 24 hours. Many local businesses have been getting into the game by offering things their competitors don’t or can’t. To think you can compete by pitting your marketing dollars against the big retailers’ war chests for advertising is an exercise in futility. Instead, focus on what makes your business local and unique. Here are some ideas. Brian Mattingly, founder and CEO of Welcomemat Services, recommends offering free giveaways to new customers to get them to give the business a try. Welcomemat’s clients are local shops like pizzerias, salons and dry cleaners, and those businesses have had great success in turning the person who redeemed the gift into a long-term customer. For instance, small-business owner Angie Shafer offers all new clients a free haircut or half off a hair coloring at her hair salon, Suite Hair in Indianapolis. On average, she says that three out of four clients turn into long-term customers. Capturing information of customers’ birthdays, anniversaries and number of times they visit your location give small businesses opportunities to reach out to customers to get them to come back again after Black Friday. “More and more small businesses are utilizing software to organize big data that can be used to increase sales and get repeat customers,” said Keith Gerson, president of FranConnect, a leading provider of franchise management systems that serve more than 500 brands at 75,000+ franchise locations. “Make sure that the software you choose can provide a suite of applications that can execute and track your marketing efforts in one place.” For example, FranConnect’s Zcubator Tool Kit simplifies local marketing for franchises with one centralized customer database that provides management of marketing assets, email and direct marketing, customer relationships, online ads, social media, and websites. The dashboards report marketing ROI and can supply reports and analysis. Small businesses know that their customers are constantly on their phones and devices and want to reach them there, so they are creating personalized mobile apps that offer mobile payment, provide special deals and send notifications to customers directly on their devices. Your Pie, the world’s originator of the quick-service, brick-oven, customized personal-pizza category, has a mobile app that allows customers to pay from their phone and tracks how much money the customer spends at their locations and gives them $10 off after spending $100. Founder Drew French said creating an app for customers gives small businesses opportunities to contact the customer directly where they spend most of their time: on their mobile devices. Direct engagement between the owner-operator and each customer is a simple way to create loyal customers. When owners provide handouts or promotional materials that encourage repeat business, they’re making that connection and demonstrating that they appreciate the customer by offering a token of their appreciation. “Our customer loyalty program, Customer Appreciation Day, has increased our average sales growth by 11.9 percent and increased our stores’ average customer count by 11.1 percent,” said Chris Elliot, CEO of Beef ‘O’ Brady’s, a family sports franchise with more than 200 locations across the United States. “There is a sincerity element which makes the biggest difference. You could, as an owner, just take cards and leave them on the counter and say, ‘Take one when you leave.’  That won’t make a difference. The difference comes in the fact that the owner of the location is the one making the connection, thanking customers for their patronage, and inviting them to come back. “There are a lot of deals out there, but people like to do business with people they like,” Elliot said. “So, if they feel like they matter, if they feel valued, the overall value of the deal increases.” The emotional engagement is the key. If you know the customers, if you know their families and their kids’ names, and engage with them on a personal level, you’re going to form a connection that is going to give you an edge and lead to a lifelong customer. I hope these ideas will help you have a successful inaugural Black Friday, SLAP. Best Wishes, Aaron