Black Friday PR Strategies for Startups and Small Businesses

15 mins read

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the most anticipated days for millions of people worldwide. It’s the time when retailers, small and big companies can generate billions of dollars while slashing the cost of their products and services. With brands doing their best to present their customers with lucrative deals, it’s worth taking care of Black Friday PR well in advance to build brand awareness and generate more income when sales start. 

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the most lucrative events for people of all ages and in different countries. To ensure your promo campaigns run smoothly and your company generates the maximum income, you should take advantage of using the whole marketing mix of tools, strategies, and approaches, which let you achieve the maximum exposure for your offers. If you are too busy with planning your campaigns or look for a team of experts who will handle Black Friday PR on a professional level, you may feel free to rely on PRNEWS.IO. One of the largest content marketing platforms lets you spread the word about your promo campaigns and other branded materials while getting your content published on reputable blogs, websites, and media outlets in the chosen niche.  

A well-thought-out Black Friday PR campaign covers many powerful tactics, including email marketing, influencer marketing, paid and organic social media, optimizing websites for mobile devices, delivering better UX to online customers, keeping a close eye on users’ shopping experience to rescue abandoned shopping carts, etc. In this blog post, we will focus your attention on the digital PR steps and strategies that let you achieve a wider online exposure for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, thus earning more income at the end of the day. 

Getting Ready for Black Friday Weekend 

Every promo campaign requires thorough planning, especially when it comes to preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday promos. That’s why it’s vital to pay special attention to the steps you take before the campaign launches. It includes the following fundamentals. 

Finalize Key Messages and Deals in Advance

Businesses should develop the final versions of their Black Friday and Cyber Monday promo campaigns well in advance of November. It includes deciding on the discounts, products/services, promo messages, terms, conditions, etc., that you will promote. Also, think about the tone and language that you will be using. Adding a sense of urgency has helped many businesses to engage more clients and close the deals on the Black Friday weekend. 

You may also consider positioning your offer as scarce, transmitting the message like “One the deal is gone, it’s gone!” Strong calls to action and written promo messages are the sure-fire elements that help the audience hear and understand you. 

Create a Compelling Black Friday Press Release

Writing a Black Friday press release with your discounts and special deals and sending it to key media contacts is a proven way of getting wider online exposure for your promo campaign. It’s a good habit for companies to create press releases every time they launch a new product or highlight some notable events in their corporate life. While getting ready for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday promo campaigns, you may write a series of press releases that would highlight different deals that your business provides. These may be comparisons, reviews, round-ups, and other useful pieces of content that PR people should be targeting. 

While working on the press release, make sure that your text is clear and easy to follow. As a rule, PR people and journalists do not have much time for scanning through the information. Ensure that you gather all the needed details into one easy-to-digest package that will be sent to the top target media outlet popular with your target audience.  

While working on your Black Friday press release, summarize your deals, include any URL link to let users make quick orders, feature relevant product names and the titles of your services, and make a clear statement about your discounts and the final price of your deals. People don’t like it when brands play tricky. You’d better be honest if you want to multiply your sales during the Black Friday promo campaign. 

To win the favor of time-poor journalists, you’d better send them WeTransfer links to download your promo files, images, and banners instead of attaching high-resolution images to your email. 

Creating Strong Relationships with Journalists 

Expanding the Black Friday coverage is twice more effective when you know the media and establish strong relationships with journalists in your industry. 

It’s always a wise move to create a media database before you start working on the Black Friday PR campaign. However, you can also come across journalists and media contacts simply through Googling and searching through hashtags on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. 

Write a Pitch 

Now that you have written your press release and made up a list of contacts you will reach out to before the Black Friday weekend, it’s time to work on a strong and catching pitch that would make them open your email. 

Word on a strong subject line that would clearly say why your readers need this deal, how much they can save, and what offers/services you promote. The discount and final price of your deals are the major drivers for consumers. Also, pay attention to making the body of your email convincing and appealing. You may also use quality images that will support the subject of your email. 

The job doesn’t end when journalists and media outlets agree to public your press releases when the sales start. Ensure that you get in touch with the media channels before the big day. Besides researching the campaign’s launch, it’s also vital to report after the campaign ends. It lets you check if the results match your goals, thus making it clearer whether your Black Friday PR strategy works. 

Black Friday PR Strategies for Small Businesses

The last couple of years significantly changed the way people make orders. Instead of rushing into their local stores, most customers have shifted online. It gives startups and small businesses a great opportunity to grab their market share and boost sales rates during the Black Friday weekend. 

Online shopping provides small and developing companies an opportunity to expand their reach and attract more buyers. While working on your Black Friday PR campaign, you can achieve better results while implementing the strategies described below. Let’s check them out. 

Google Black Friday Deals 

Before starting your Black Friday PR campaign, you need to research the market to see what other businesses write and how they present their offers in the market. The research also lets you make up a list of journalists and reporters who publish press releases and similar information about Black Friday deals. Make up a list of such contacts and reach them out while getting ready for your future campaign. 

To make the research more effective, use as many niche-specific keywords as you can. Target blogs, websites, and media outlets that are relevant to your niche. Don’t be afraid of trying to land your products in the articles that have already been published in the media. Whatever makes sense for your brand will work. 

Promote Your Deals On Local Media 

If you are running a small business, gaining support from local media outlets lets you gain wider exposure for your deals. Local media commonly support local businesses and attract local buyers to try the promoted deals.

While searching for contacts for your media database and sending pitches to reporters, mention that you are local in your email subject line. It will grab the recipients’ attention and encourage them to open your message if it appeals to them. 

Focus on Black Friday and Cyber Monday 

Besides the Black Friday deals, people expect discounts to be extended throughout the weekend and until Cyber Monday. While working on your pitches, prepare offers for those days as well. The more pitches you have, the more opportunities of getting your brand noticed and the deals tried. Reporters and journalists may be interested in coming across additional deals for their Black Friday roundups. Even though they do not add your Black Friday deals on their list, your Cyber Monday offers may sound more appealing to them and their audience. 

Nail Your Offers and Imagery 

Once you approve the discounts and the final cost of products and services that will be included in your Black Friday campaign, prepare promo texts and imagery. Besides featuring texts in your pitches, ensure that you attach a couple of promo banners made in your branded colors and featuring catching CTAs. While working on your promo campaign, use emotive language and create a buzz around your products. For example, phrases like “last chance to buy” or “once it’s gone, it’s gone!” always work. Using strong and catching calls to action, you can grab the attention of potential customers and encourage them to impulse buying. 

Go for Your Media List 

The Black Friday PR campaign is not the last opportunity for your small business to gain wider online exposure and build strong relationships with blogs and media outlets in your industry. Journalists and influencers prefer the personal approach. While creating a media list, find their email addresses. It’s easy to do while running a simple Google search. You can also use social media platforms for this purpose. A personal pitch gives you more chances of being noticed and makes your offer stand out. 

Another mistake that small businesses make is forcing journalists with phone calls. You may irritate or distract them as they may be writing something or working on the pitch from another startup. It’s better to describe your offer in the email using clear language. Speak to the point, emphasize the amazing discounts you offer, highlight the most outstanding characteristics of your product or service, and attach outstanding stats that would convince the journalist or influencer to accept your pitch.

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Bottom Line

Black Friday PR campaign requires thorough planning well in advance before the start of the busy shopping season. Proving Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are always a great opportunity for small businesses to reach out to more potential clients, grow their customer base, and earn multiple. Instead of visiting local retail shops, a growing number of users have shifted online. It gives your business an incredible opportunity to reach its online marketing goals in a short time. Provided that you follow the Black Friday PR steps and strategies described above, you can significantly multiply the earnings of your brand when sales start.  

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