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Black Friday Marketing Strategies to Maximise 2023 Sales 

Black Friday Marketing Strategies to Maximise 2023 Sales 

Do you sell a product online? If you do, then this one’s for you. Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year, and with the aftermath of a global pandemic, more and more shoppers are queuing in virtual stores instead of in brick-and-mortar shops. 

With potential Black Friday shoppers browsing the internet, you want to ensure you are prepared for the craziness and that you can maximise your traffic! 

The expected total spending over Black Friday weekend in the UK is 9.42 BILLION pounds. Crazy right?! 

We’ve put together a few simple marketing strategies you could consider in order to maximise your 2023 sales this Black Friday.  

1. Create your Black Friday Email List  

Our first tip is to create a Black Friday email list. Have you noticed an influx of Black Friday emails in your inbox? We bet you have. Create an email marketing list SPECIFICALLY for people who would be interested in your Black Friday deals. 

Did you know that 25.1% of sales during the Black Friday promotion season has originated from email marketing? If you aren’t utilising email marketing this Black Friday then what’s even the point!?! 

Tip: Create a pop-up on your website asking people to sign up for your newsletter and use an incentive such as early access to the sale. Use a punchy call-to-action to draw people in! 

Once you have created your marketing list, you need to create an enticing email campaign. Use a catchy subject line to intrigue people, include clear CTA’s (call to actions), and try to send out more than one email to remind people about your sale. Don’t worry you’ve still got time! 

Need some inspiration? Check out our EXAMPLE email campaign below!

2. Get creative with timing 

Black Friday is capitalised by businesses big and small; this can get overwhelming for consumers who are receiving the same marketing messages constantly. Try to offset this and grab your customers attention by changing your timing.  

Tip: Try starting your sale early, have you noticed anyone doing ‘Black Thursday’? 

Typically, you will have less business competition for your consumers attention and a head start on sales. Many people use Black Friday to buy Christmas presents at a good value, catching people early ensures they haven’t bought anything yet therefore more chance for you to make a sale. 

3. Extra offers 

Pop-ups draw in consumers attention and even better if they offer an extra discount. Virtual ‘scratch cards’, spin the wheel games (see image below!) and other interactive pop-ups are sure to be an attention grabber.  

Keeping customers on your site longer can help to prevent an abandoned cart and help push sales for people on the fence. 

Tip: Bonus offers do NOT need to be extreme. For example, offer an extra 10% off or next day delivery for £2. 

4. Loyalty programme 

Do you have a loyalty programme or a VIP club for loyal customers? These people are already happy customers and have familiarity with your brand. 

Target existing customers by offering an exclusive discount, existing customers are more likely to buy from your brand than new customers. This also builds a good reputation and encourages customers to continue to purchase from your business. People like to feel appreciated! 

Tip: Create a campaign dedicated to loyal customers. A common offer is early access to Black Friday deals. This can also encourage users to tell their friends about your AMAZING deals! 

5. Social media promotion 

Don’t underestimate the power of social media! Utilise all your social media platforms to get the word out about your involvement in Black Friday. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are firm favourites but don’t fear branching out into TikTok. TikTok was the fastest growing app of 2020 and is no doubt the place to be in 2023!

Tip: Different social media platforms appeal to different demographics. TikTok and Instagram will appeal to a younger demographic whereas Facebook can appeal to an older audience. Who will your product appeal to? Who do you want to target? We recommend you finding this out in order to get the most from your marketing strategy.  

We hope this information has helped you and that our tips will help make this Black Friday the most successful for your business! 

Black Friday is one day a year, but you need effective marketing all year long…that’s where we come in! Get in touch with CREATIVE in TiME to get a free audit!

The Top 10 Marketing Tools for Your Business

The Top 10 Marketing Tools for Your Business

When running your own business, having marketing tools to help with your business can save you lots of precious time and often are free or inexpensive! 

As a small business owner, your time is valuable and time spent on your marketing needs to produce results. We understand this and have created a comprehensive list of our top 10 marketing tools for your business to streamline and improve your marketing strategy.  Trust us, we’re a marketing business, this is what we do!

Later 

Social media has come to the forefront of most businesses marketing. Whether you focus on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or something else, using a social media scheduling tool like Later will make posting to social media easier. 

I’m sure you know that keeping on top of your social media posting is vital to promote your business and gain new customers, but it can be time consuming and tedious to post individually on multiple platforms. 

Later allows you to create posts for multiple social media accounts at once and schedule them to come out when you need them. This means instead of posting every day, you can bulk schedule your social media posts which frees up your time to do more important things. 

Ubersuggest 

Ubersuggest is a free to use tool which assists in keyword idea generation and aids in search engine optimisation (SEO). You can also pay for it which unlocks more useful analytics and allows you to search for keywords without a limit. 

You can use ubersuggest to analyse your competitors and see what keywords they rank for. This allows you to see what is working for them so that you can adopt your strategy accordingly. 

A useful feature of ubersuggest is the ability to analyse your websites SEO as it can tell you any SEO issues which need fixing such as headings and meta descriptions. 

AnswerThePublic 

Do you ever want to create a blog post but don’t know what to write about? Or not know what questions people REALLY want the answers to? 

AnswerThePublic is a free online tool where you input a keyword and it will tell you the most common questions searched in relation to this keyword.  

This is useful to understand your audience and create content that will appeal to them, no one wants to waste time creating a blog that no one wants to see.  

Canva 

Images can make or break your social media. Customers are automatically drawn to eye catching and visually appealing posts. 

Canva is a tool which allows you to create stunning posts simply and quickly, even if you don’t have a creative eye! 

By using their premade templates all you need to do is add in your own text and images. Consider picking a select few colours to tie your marketing together and use these in your images.  

Get creative and try new fonts, make your own templates and enjoy the new cohesive look on your feed. Canva is free to use but can be paid for to unlock ‘pro’ templates and other upgrades. 

Trello 

If you have a small business, organising tasks may feel overwhelming and can often leave people sat twiddling their thumbs if they don’t know what to do next.  

Trello allows you to make “boards” and add lists to them. In these lists you can include projects and tasks and ‘add’ people so that everyone knows who is assigned to a task. You can also set due dates, attach files and set reminders for tasks. 

Using an organisational tool like Trello will boost productivity, streamline your work schedule and avoid confusion between colleagues over what needs doing. 

Grammarly 

If you haven’t seen adverts for Grammarly I’ll be shocked.  

Grammarly is (you guessed it) a grammar tool which can help you with emails, blogs, social media posts, and more by checking your spelling and grammar. It is a free tool which can be installed in your browser to automatically scan your writing and show suggestions to make it better.  

This is a great tool for people who struggle with writing as it can provide them with confidence and allow for independence when creating work whilst giving you peace of mind that all work is up to scratch. 

Google Analytics 

We couldn’t write this list without mentioning good old Google.  

Google Analytics can give you a deep insight into your business and your website. You can use it to see how many people have visited your website, what pages they are looking at, and how long they are spending on each page amongst several other things. 

You can even see it in real time! See how many people are on your page at this exact moment. 

Google analytics is useful to see how well you marketing is working, if you record and keep track of your analytics you should be able to see a trend and hopefully notice it rise. If you notice your analytics going down, then you may need to investigate why that is. 

Mailerlite 

Email marketing is still alive and kicking, don’t underestimate the reach of an email campaign.  

Mailerlite is an easy email marketing tool which features drag and drop email editing and is very simple to use so don’t be scared! You can upload contact information from your computer and even separate it into groups for different campaigns. This is useful if your business is trying to market to demographics and doesn’t want to include everyone in the same campaign. 

Textmagic 

If your business is wanting to make the most out of texts then Textmagic is the tool for you. 

Textmagic is a messaging tool which allows you to send messages from your computer to your customers. It is useful if you are intending on sending reminder messages, promotional texts or for ease of contact with your customers. 

Messaging customers can benefit and your customers as it allows for conversation from both parties with ease.  

Toggl 

Whether you have a team or you are working alone, keeping track of your time is vital to understand what you are spending the most time on, it might shock you! 

Toggl is a time tracking tool which allows you to track your activities and record them. This is useful for you to see what aspects of your business is taking the most of your time, and it is also interesting to have your employees record their daily activities.  

Seeing what your employees spend their time on can allow you to pick up on any issues and streamline long processes. Recording activities is simple on Toggl and does not eat into your working day. 

These are our top 10 marketing tools for your business that can be added to your marketing strategy and improve your business.

If you like the sound of these tools but are unsure of how to use them and want someone else to help with your marketing, book a discovery call with us now to see how our marketing business can help you. 

How to Make Your Marketing More Cost Effective

How to Make Your Marketing More Cost Effective

Businesses are often misled into believing that effective marketing must be costly. This misinformation can lead to losing money fast when it is unnecessary. 

No matter if you are B2C or B2B, you can market to your ideal client without paying for advertising, some of these are even more effective than paid advertisements. About 94% of search traffic is more likely to click on an organic result instead of a paid ad! 

Read on to find out 7 ways to make your marketing as cost effective as possible. 

1. Google my business (reviews) 

Having reviews available to prospective customers is vital as 88% of consumers trust online recommendations as much as personal recommendations.  

Reviews also are shown to improve where Google ranks your business. A recent Google Local Rankings Survey found that reviews accounted for 14.44% of how Goggle will rank a local business. 

For reviews to be effective cost effective marketing, you must respond to your reviews and ensure your response is relevant. Responses to reviews show that you value your customers and it builds trust. 

2. Blogs 

Blogs are viewed by 77% of internet users. Businesses that blog, receive twice as much email traffic than businesses that do not. So why wouldn’t you blog? 

Blogging allows you to share information about your business and its services but it also allows you to share opinions and thoughts on relevant topics. It can allow you to add personality to your business and can make it seem more approachable and credible. 

Blogging is a great form of cost effective marketing, want to know more? Click here to see our blog post on the importance of blogging. 

3. Website SEO 

Website SEO (search engine optimisation) is an effective way to attract customers to an online platform. With 74,000 individual search terms being typed into Google every second, it is vital to ensure your website is ranking high.  

This is a great form of cost effective marketing as making content, optimising this content for voice searches and mobile-friendliness, and creating videos does not require a large expenditure and is ideal for getting your website recognised. 

If you would like to know our top 5 SEO trends in 2023, click here! 

4. Referral Marketing 

Referral marketing is a method of product/service promotion using customer-customer referrals. This can occur organically with or without your involvement and is the new-age word-of-mouth. Referral marketing is a very cost effective marketing strategy as a large portion of it can be done with no/little cost. 

Referral marketing can be done by asking other businesses or professionals to recommend you, use incentives for your customers who refer other people to you and offering monetary deals to businesses who send you referral business.  

If you want to learn more about referral marketing, click here to read our blog. 

5. Email Marketing 

No platform can rival the potential reach of email! It is still very effective as 4.03 billion people around the world use email in 2021.  

Using emails to send newsletters, deals/offers, and other email campaigns will not hurt your bottom line and can bring in new business whilst encourage previous customers to return. This can be especially useful if your product/service is something that people will continue to need rather than a one-off. 

Not convinced that email marketing is right for you? Check out our blog post on why email marketing is still important here. 

6. Video Marketing 

Video marketing is a useful way to keep your marketing costs down whilst appealing to your audience. 

Did you know that 90% of people say that product videos help with making a decision? Or that 92% of mobile video consumers will share videos with others? 

To get started with video marketing, consider using Instagram stories and YouTube videos. If you are promoting a product, consider product videos to how its use. Webinars and educational videos are excellent for informing your customers and showing your expertise. 

7. Influencer Marketing 

Using influencers in your marketing is a tactic that is here to stay. B2B influencers can be analysts, consultants, and industry bloggers and are great to support your business.  

94% find that influencer marketing is effective for boosting sales. This has increased by 18% since 2019. This shows that influencer marketing is only growing in effectiveness. Adopting this can improve your sales and reputation whilst still being cost effective marketing due to the revenue it can produce. 

Now you know methods to make your marketing as cost effective as possible, and why it is necessary, you should be able to implement these techniques in your marketing strategy. 

If all of the above SOUNDS fabulous but you simply don’t have the time, patience or resources to roll them out consistently within your business, book a discovery call with CREATIVE in TiME. It’s kind of our thing, we are a marketing agency after all!  

How does blogging help SEO?

How does blogging help SEO?

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the way in which you increase your website’s visibility and chances of being found in search engines.

SEO drives organic traffic onto your website. A recent study found that 28.5% of people click through on the first organic search result demonstrating that people trust an organic result more than a paid advertisement.  

What is blogging?

Blogging is the act of posting content on a website. They are informal articles written for the purpose of showing thought leadership and expertise on a topic.

Did you know that 77% of internet users read blogs regularly?

Or that over a third of all websites are blogs?

There are estimated to be over 600,000,000+ blogs on the internet today!

How does blogging help SEO?

Blogging keeps your website fresh and current: Websites that are regularly updated signal to Google that the website is alive and offering fresh content. After all, Google is King.

A blog keeps people on your website for longer: While Google hasn’t said outright that dwell time, or the time that people spend on your website once they land on it, is definitely a ranking factor, they’ve made other statements that make it clear it’s something they pay attention to and impart value to.

A quality blog gives others sites more reasons to link back to your site: For Google to see your website as trustworthy and authoritative, other sites (and respected ones) have to link back to yours. HubSpot has found that companies that have a blog on their website earn up to 97% more inbound links.

To find out how many inbound links your site has, we recommend using ubersuggest.

A blog helps you connect with your audience: When your audience reads a post they love, they’re more likely to share it, drive more traffic to it, come back to your website again to see more of your content and maybe even sign up for your email list!

When you get lots of traffic and repeat visitors, that shows Google that people like your website and raises your authority level in their algorithm.

A leading figure in the world of SEO and blogging is Neil Patel. Neil Patel is an entrepreneur and marketing specialist. We would highly recommend looking at his blogs (click here) to see how his content is structured and learn how he optimises his content for SEO.

Blogging SEO tips

The importance of blogging should now be clear, but how do you begin? Here are some of our tips for blogging.

  • Use websites like Answerthepublic and Ubersuggest to find keywords and the top questions in your industry.
  • Use engaging RELEVANT titles. There is no point catching someone’s attention if they aren’t going to actually be interested.
  • Use images with relevant alt-text (this allows search engines to know it is relevant).
  • Use internal links to draw your content together and to help search engines know their relevance to each other.
  • Keep old content up to date.

Now that you know the importance of blogging for SEO, do you want to start but don’t know how? Stuck for blog ideas? That’s where we come in.

Book a discovery call with us today to find out how our marketing business can help you!

How Blogging Helps your Business?

How Blogging Helps your Business?

What is Blogging?

Blogging is the act of posting content on a website. They are informal articles written for the purpose of showing thought leadership and expertise on a topic. 

All sounds pretty serious right? But don’t worry, it’s not that difficult!

How Blogging Helps your Business

Blogs help your business in a number of ways. They are a great way to generate fresh new content on a website and provide a catalyst for email marketing and social media promotion to improve your SEO and drive search traffic to your website.

Is Blogging Still Relevant?

Yes! Each month, approximately 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages and 77% of internet users, read blogs. That’s a lot of people. This is why 53% of marketers prioritise blogging as their primary content marketing strategy.

Why is Blogging Important?

You will have been told, if you run a business, how important it is for your company to have it found, and to have blogs on your website.

Blogging allows you to share information about your business and its services but it also allows you to share opinions and thoughts on certain topics. It is also a great way to create a personality for your company and makes your business more credible and approachable.

How Blogging Helps SEO

First, what is SEO?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. 

But how can blogging help SEO? 

  • It keeps your website fresh and current
  • It keeps people on your website for longer
  • A quality blog gives others sites more reasons to link back to your site
  • A blog helps you connect with your audience

Blogging: Where To Begin

Here’s our top tips for getting started with blogging:

  1. Create engaging titles and DO NOT make them misleading! They’ll only bounce straight off the blog post once they realise it’s about something completely different to what they thought it was going to be. 
  2. Use long-tail keywords throughout. These are extremely important for any SEO strategy. Half of all searches are for terms that are four words or longer. But these can be difficult to put into your pages. Don’t know how to use long-tail keywords in your blogs? Click here.
  3. Write about trending topics/questions in your industry. You can do this by searching a keyword e.g. ‘marketing’ or ‘manufacturing’ into Answer The Public or Uber Suggest and see what people are talking about. Create your content around it! 
  4. LINK LINK LINK! So much of SEO is about links and internal links are the easiest one’s for you to get since you can create them for yourself. Link to another blog post or a pricing page that’s relevant to the information you’re writing about. 
  5. Always include a Call to Action (CTA)!

Already Blogging?

Got some smashing blogs? Great…but don’t stop there! Market your blogs. Update your blogs. Back link in your blogs. Collab with your blogs.

Use blogs to look like the authority in your industry. Use blogs to answer questions your customers have, and ones they didn’t know they had. If you’re too busy to work out how to create, format and promote your content…let us!

CREATIVE in TiME are here to help. We audit, advise, mentor and manage your marketing requirements (and all your blogging needs). Click here to book a discovery call with us.

CREATIVE in TiME
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