CASE STUDY PERFORMED DURING MY TIME AS ART DIRECTOR AT MAXMEDIA CREATIVE AGENCY.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are not only some of the biggest shopping days of the year, they also kick off of the holiday shopping season. Creating a Successful Black Friday Campaign is an important part of advertising during the holidays for both retailers and marketers. For Hogan’s Beach Shop, Black Friday 2017 was the perfect opportunity to finish off the last quarter with a big sales boost, gain some exposure for their Orlando location, and drive traffic to their new e-commerce site. We made use of various digital marketing techniques from email marketing to social media campaigns to make this campaign a success.

Starting Early

To make an effective Black Friday Campaign, starting early is vital. Using the power of Hulk Hogan’s voice and his fanbase, we began planning and laying the ground work in early October to grow our mailing list. The first wave of deals and savings would only be pushed through the e-newsletter, so we encouraged fans and followers to join the mailing list building excitement for these incentives. This grew our list, adding thousands of emails and allowing the hype to skyrocket.

Using the Timeline

A benefit of a Black Friday Campaign is the short timeline and high sales rates inherent in the holiday, which instills a sense of urgency and scarcity in the consumer. We began our sale at 6pm on Thanksgiving Day and ended at midnight on Cyber Monday. Because these deals had a strict time limit, consumers were pushed to make purchases readily. Furthermore, these products were in high demand, especially items like signed belts and memorabilia which were in limited supply and selling quickly.

Website Functionality

Streamlining the user experience was one of the first steps we took early on. We wanted to make sure the buying process was simple and the website could handle the influx of customers. We went through the buying process from beginning to final purchase to be sure the process was simple. We knew if it was difficult, customers would bounce out. Additionally, we added a countdown timer to keep the pressure on during the build up and browsing phases.

Social Media Presence

Additionally, we updated all of the Hogan’s Beach Shop social channels to prominently display the campaign message and used Hulk Hogan’s personal account to further push to sale. The HBS profile picture and cover photo were changed to match the campaign art. We added links in all descriptions to redirect users to the Black Friday landing page, and pinned a Black Friday post to the top of the profile so it was easily seen. We wanted all of the messaging to be front and center for the duration of the campaign.

Creative

Naturally, social media channels contain a lot of static images or text, so video content tends to break up the feed and engage more viewers. For Hogan’s Beach Shop we utilized simple, animated, brand-aligned graphics and GIFs to capture the consumer’s attention. Multiple versions of these campaign graphics were used, featuring different products and the various sales. This allowed for A/B testing to determine which ads performed the best and fresh content that was not overexposed.

Newsletter/Email Marketing

To supplement our social media advertising, we sent out regular email newsletters beginning in October. These e-mails were sent to previous, potential, and loyal customers. We took the time to design clean, simple, and well-structured newsletters. The CTA button was a vibrant and contrasting color, encouraging engagement. A bold headline drew in customers, and eye-catching images and captivating GIFs got them to click through to the website.

All in all, the success of our campaign was determined by the number of sales. Compared to Hogan’s Beach Shop’s 2016 November sales, their November 2017 revenue increased by nearly 300%. Our 2017 Black Friday Campaign was so successful because we started early, designed engaging creative, encouraged the right buying environment, and shared the messaging through multiple channels.

Casandra Hill assisted with the research and writing of this case study.

Creating A Successful Black Friday Campaign