If your Christmas marketing starts in December, a lot of your customers have already done their shopping.

Black Friday isn’t an American import anymore. For Aussie shoppers, it’s become the unofficial start of Christmas shopping. The ABS says consumers now bring forward some of their usual December spending to November to make the most of the sales, and a quarter of Black Friday shoppers say saving on Christmas gifts is one of their main reasons to buy.

That’s the opportunity. The catch is that everyone else knows it too, so inboxes and feeds fill up fast and attention gets expensive. Here’s how to make your offer stand out.

Short on time? Grab the BFCM tip sheet at the end of this post.

Tip 1: Make the offer worth it

Give people a decent amount off, either in dollars or as a percentage. A token 10% off won’t cut through when everyone else is discounting.

If heavy discounting doesn’t suit your brand, add value instead. A bonus session, a free upgrade or an extended warranty gives people a reason to act now without training them to wait for your next sale.

Skip the “buy now and we’ll send you a voucher later” offers. Delayed value feels like a catch, and shoppers can tell.

Yes, your margins will be lower. But your volume should be higher, and you’ll pick up new customers who can buy again, leave reviews and talk about you. Do the maths first so you can afford what you promise.

Tip 2: Make it obvious

If your offer takes a paragraph to explain, it isn’t clear enough. Someone scrolling on their phone should get it in two seconds: what they get, what it costs and when it ends.

A few more things that work right now

• Start early. Tease the offer, build a waitlist or give VIPs first access so you’re on people’s radar before the weekend.
• Email your list. These people already know you, and reaching them costs next to nothing while ad prices climb. Put the offer in the subject line: “Buy one, get one free this weekend” beats “Our Black Friday sale is here”.
• Tailor the offer. Past customers and first-timers need different reasons to click.
• Fix your mobile checkout. Most Black Friday shopping happens on phones, so slow pages and fiddly forms cost you sales.
• Be clear on shipping. With Christmas close behind, spell out cut-offs and delivery times.
• Link it up in store. If you’ve got a shopfront, make sure your online and in-store offers match.

Plan for the pressure

Black Friday puts more strain on a business than most people expect. Stock runs out, websites slow down under the traffic and returns pile up in the weeks after. And if you discount too hard, too often, customers learn to wait for your next sale instead of buying at full price.

None of that is a reason to sit it out. It’s a reason to plan for it.

Should you jump in?

The businesses that do well out of Black Friday plan early, use what they know about their customers and don’t trade away their brand for a discount. They also treat it as the start of a relationship with new customers, not a one-weekend transaction.

If that sounds like you, go in with a plan. If it doesn’t, sitting this one out and putting your energy into a campaign that suits your business better is a perfectly good strategy too.

Ready to make your offer stand out?

Download the tip sheet below and work through the checklist. Rather we did it for you? See our Black Friday campaign packages and get your campaign live in time.