The 2024 Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) sales period in Australia was a record-breaking event, with a strong focus on value, convenience, and early engagement. Australian shoppers were expected to spend a record $6.7 billion online, a 5.5% increase from 2023. Shopify data showed instead a 14% increase in the number of consumers making purchases. Similar data was reported by Shippit, a shipping business responsible for a significant percentage of Australian parcel delivery.

ABS reported overall sales growth of 3 percent year-on-year in November 2024, with Black Friday sales giving the sector a much needed boost.

Below are some of the key strategies that contributed to its success:

Extended Sales Periods: A major trend was the move away from a single weekend event. Many brands started their promotions as early as two weeks before Black Friday, a strategy dubbed "Black November." This allowed brands to build anticipation, manage traffic, and capture sales over a longer period.

Emphasis on Value and Budgeting: With cost-of-living pressures, consumers were more strategic with their spending, and many used the sale period to purchase all their Christmas shopping. Successful campaigns offered:

• Clear, High-Value Deals: Shoppers were looking for genuine discounts on items they had on their wishlists, not just minor price drops.
• Bundles and Incentives: Bundling related products at a discount or offering high-value incentives like "buy one, get one free" promotions helped increase average order value while providing customers with a sense of getting more for their money.
• Cashback and Affiliate Marketing: Brands that leveraged affiliate networks and offered attractive cashback rates saw significant growth.

Mobile and Omnichannel Experience: Mobile shopping apps saw significant traffic. Successful retailers ensured their websites performed very well on mobile. But keep in mind that the data also showed a resurgence of in-store shopping, with two-thirds of sales happening in physical stores, highlighting the importance of a unified online and offline strategy.

Building a Sense of Urgency and Exclusivity: Campaigns that created a sense of urgency were highly effective. Examples:

• Flash Sales and Countdown Timers: Limited-time offers and visible timers on websites encouraged immediate purchases.
• Early-Bird and VIP Access: Rewarding loyal customers and email subscribers with exclusive, early access to sales was a powerful tactic for building customer loyalty and driving initial traffic.

Creative and Authentic Marketing: Brands that stood out from the noise used creative and authentic marketing campaigns. Examples included:

• Short-Form Video: Eye-catching, dynamic short-form videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram were highly effective at grabbing attention.
• Unique Giveaways and Loyalty Programs: requiring a sign-up to access a sale was seen to gather first-party data, and gave vendors opportunity to build long term customers.

 

If you haven't started preparing yet for the 2025 BFCM period (Black Friday in 2025 will be on Friday 28th November), we've provided some ideas for your success below:

Strategic Planning and Preparation (Start Now!)

Plan Your "Black November" Strategy: Don't wait until the last minute. Map out an extended promotional calendar that starts several weeks before Black Friday. This could include early-bird deals, daily specials, and flash sales leading up to the main event.

You might like to use the Enudge Message Series feature to create a series of messages, so that you can more easily orchestrate the sending of each campaign, in succession.

Analyse Your 2024 Data: If you ran a sale last year, look at your 2024 BFCM data to identify your best-selling products, most profitable customer segments, and most effective marketing channels. Use this information to inform your 2025 inventory and marketing plans.

Inventory and Logistics: Ensure your inventory management is robust enough to handle the surge in demand. Communicate early with suppliers and logistics partners to avoid bottlenecks and ensure timely deliveries.

Optimise Your Technology and User Experience

Mobile-First Design: Your website must be fast and easy to navigate on a phone. Test your site's performance and checkout process on various devices.

A mobile app may provide even deeper engagement and purchase behaviour. An example of this is LSKD's mobile app which has seen customers on their app spending more per purchase, with a 51% higher value than purchases through their website. (LSKD is an Australian functional sportswear brand which launched in 2007).

Make sure your emails display well on mobile. Enudge makes that very easy for you to manage via our drag and drop editor with mobile views, and the ability to customise display and behaviour on mobile.

Stress-Test Your Website: A slow website will lose customers. Use tools like PageSpeed Insights to optimise loading speeds. Consider upgrading your web hosting or using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to handle a major traffic surge without crashing.

Seamless Checkout and Payment Options: Simplify your checkout process by offering guest checkout and a range of payment options, including popular Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services like Afterpay and Zip Pay.

Develop Your Marketing and Customer Engagement Strategy

Build Your Email and SMS Lists: Start a "warm-up" campaign well in advance. Offer an incentive (like early access to sales) for people to sign up to your mailing list. Use personalised email and SMS campaigns to build anticipation with teasers and countdowns. Enudge allows unlimited personalisation, so make sure you think about how you can better employ personalisation this year!

This was a strategy employed by Skoop in 2024. As a small business, Skoop knew that they didn't have the ability to offer “steep discounts like the big players”, and “matching their massive marketing budgets during the campaign is a whole other challenge”.

To help them stand out from the crowd, Skoop simply focused on encouraging Skoop customers to sign up to the brand's owned channels — its emailing list, predominately — and providing a 30% discount off the entire range plus spend and save offers to all Skoop subscribers between November 27 and December 2, 2024.

Leverage Social Media: Consider creating engaging short-form video content, run competitions, and partner with influencers who align with your brand. Encourage user-generated content (UGC) by asking customers to share photos of their purchases. Read more about how social media is re-shaping Australian customer behaviour, including around Black Friday.

Using Enudge's 'Share in Social' link can help you stoke social media reach, along with your organic and paid social posts. To separate the social sharing data, we recommend that you use a different internal email address, per platform, when sharing your email content on socials.

Create Urgency and Scarcity: Limited-edition products or limited-stock deals can be used to create a sense of urgency. Clear and compelling messaging about the limited nature of your offers will encourage customers to act quickly.

Focus on Post-Purchase Retention: The BFCM period is not just about a single sale. Use post-sale communication to thank customers, provide order updates, and encourage them to become repeat buyers. This is a crucial time to ask for reviews and recommend complementary products. Capturing email addresses and mobile phone numbers for growing your list on the back of your Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales is an obvious first step, but also consider obtaining customer preferences which can be done by using Enudge public categories and managing preferences.

 

If you need any help planning your Black Friday or Cyber Monday campaigns, don't hesitate to reach out.