Black Friday and Cyber Monday Survival Kit 2020

There is no point in denying this: there are less than 2 weeks left before the start of the main sales events of the year. You may feel that this time is not enough to prepare a full-fledged marketing campaign for Black Friday or Cyber Monday. But at Depositphotos, we are ready to challenge fate!

In this Black Monday and Cyber Monday survival kit, we’ve provided a quick overview of our top articles on this topic, including new content that explores the impact of lockdown on the holiday sales season 2020. Moreover, to save you time, we’ve compiled links to all of our beautiful, hand-picked Black Friday collections in one place including design templates for any purpose.

‘When is Black Friday?’ and other important points

The marketer’s calendar this year looks like this. Black Friday — November 27th, Small Biz Saturday — November 28th, Cyber Monday — November 30th, and Giving Tuesday — December 1st. This means that pre-Christmas sales will peak during the second week of December.

Please note that Black Friday is the start of the sales season, not a peak sales day. In other words, you still have time to prepare promotional offers for the moment when organic traffic on your site reaches its peak. By the way, if you are wondering why it is called Black Friday, here is the answer. Historically, Black Friday was the name given to Friday, during which traffic jams in shopping mall areas in major US cities blocked passage for hours. The second version says that on this day businesses move ‘into the black’ (become profitable).

Go to our newest article on this topic to learn some golden rules of seasonal marketing and time-saving tricks for entrepreneurs and managers — Get Ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Marketing Checklist to Drive Sales.

See Black Friday checklist

Black Friday Sales Season Trends of 2020

#1 Online global migration

The COVID-19 pandemic has a huge impact on the economy and marketing. Retail, offline services, multimedia entertainment, and training experienced the most noticeable transformations under the pressure of a new reality. And since your customers are more likely to be online in 2020 than spend time at brick and mortar stores, it makes more sense to invest in online advertising and presence than offline campaigns. Black Friday goes cyber this year!

Read our ‘Procrastinator’s Guide to Black Friday and Cyber Monday’ to find out which last-minute deals you can integrate into your online campaigns to make them compelling even if you’re pressed for time.

Read Black Friday guide

#2 Extended Black Friday sales season

This year, the largest retailers that own offline stores decided not to create a buzz in stores and, if possible, avoid crowds of people at the checkout and store entrance.

One popular strategy is to opt for a ‘discount’ week instead of one or three days of low prices. Another strategy is to drive online sales instead and encourage the so-called ‘pre-selection at home’. What does it mean? Companies released intuitive applications that help users either buy a product without visiting the store or spend as little time in the store as possible after having studied the desired product at home.

In this article written back in 2018, you will find 12 brilliant Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing ideas that are still relevant. Use them to schedule your long-lasting sales event.

Learn Black Friday tricks

#3 Improving customer experience with videos

Shopping is not just about finding the right product, but also about emotional relief. Customers love to walk through spacious and bright sales areas, touch products, communicate with a neatly dressed and polite consultant, and check out their unusual outfits in front of the mirror. How can you provide all of your customers with this experience if your offline store’s client traffic has plummeted due to COVID-19 sanitary restrictions? Take an immersive approach!

Use video banners to advertise your products online, display your products on models that move no Facebook and Instagram, and use sound whenever possible. In two weeks before the start of sales, you are unlikely to develop an AR app for your products try-on. However, you can use ready-made videos from Black Friday and Cyber Monday video collection on Depositphotos to boost user experience in a budget-friendly way.

See video collection

#4 Flash Cyber Monday sales campaign

The sales season for your products or services can be 3 weeks-long, but this doesn’t mean that during this period you shall offer customers to buy just one thing. Every year, Internet users consume more and more content per hour (compare average scroll speed in 2020 and 2019). In other words, users tend to process information and make purchasing decisions faster.

Thus, instead of following the ‘one offer—long sales scenario’ strategy, you can appeal to users with a variety of express offers. This will help drive interest to your brand, as well as provide richer analytics on user behavior considering the products you offer.

Daily production of visuals for flash sales is expensive if you create them from scratch. Luckily, we’ve done some of the work for you! Choose a customizable offer template from our Black Friday and Cyber Monday template collection and go to the online graphic editor Crello by Depositphotos. You’ve got at least 10 free template downloads now!

See template collection

#5 Collaborations to exceed expectations

This trend emerged at the beginning of this summer. The idea behind it is that it is easier for small and medium-sized businesses to stay profitable if they join resources. Competitors can temporarily become friends to keep the industry from dying, and mid-sized companies can collaborate with small manufacturers to gain reputation bonuses and help those who typically push the boundaries of the industry.

If you are not sure that you can single-handedly generate a hype wave around your brand on the eve of the sales season, remember the answer to the question ‘What is Black Friday?’.

Black Friday (as well as Cyber Monday) is always about collaboration. Together, the brands create an atmosphere of pleasant shopping anticipation. Thus, even those companies that didn’t invest in advertising experience traffic encreasing.

For collaboration, we recommend that you choose unexpected partners whose audience is wider than yours. You can create a joined offer, a new collaborative product (‘Black Friday special’), or offer something really amazing. For example, buying goods from your customers, not selling them (this is Ikea’s ‘Buyback’ Friday case).

Use Black Friday and Cyber Monday image collection to stay flexible with your single or collaborative campaigns.

See image collection

Wrapping Up

The sales season will end but your need for regular customers won’t. One of the common mistakes that entrepreneurs make on Black Friday or Cyber Monday is not to think strategically and perceive this day as an opportunity to sell a lot of one-time goods. And the winners are those who managed to acquire new regular customers by luring them with an irresistible Black Friday offer.

The main Black Friday trend and the most important piece of advice we want to give you is the following: fight for the loyalty of every customer you attract with your Black Friday sales offers. Try to immediately establish a warm relationship with a new client and get maximum information about this person while they are making a purchase.

After Black Friday, try to reach your customer again and get their opinion on the product, as well as suggest another one that might be useful for them. And the Depositphotos library of images, videos, and templates will help you keep communication with clients authentic and memorable.