Black Friday tips for service-based businesses

For most eCommerce businesses, Black Friday is the biggest shopping event on the calendar. It is estimated that UK shoppers plan to spend £4.8 billion over Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year.

As a service-based business owner, you may be wondering how your business can take advantage of the holiday period?

Whilst retailers can simply offer a discount on selected products, for service-based businesses, running a Black Friday promotion may not seem so straightforward.

In this article, we’ll share our Black Friday tips for service-based businesses and how you too can run promotions in the holiday season.

5 Top Tips for Black Friday

Know your goals

First of all, it’s very important to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve from running a Black Friday promotion, and how this aligns with your wider business objectives.

Do you want to use Black Friday for a short-term boost in revenue?

Or are you thinking more about the long-term benefits of acquiring new customers through these promotions, that will have life-long value through repeat purchases.

You need to have a clear goal in mind at the very beginning in order to determine the promotion you will offer.

You will then be able to measure the success of this at the end of the promotional period.

Start planning early

Plan early.

Many businesses start thinking about Black Friday promotions as early as June!

It’s important to give your business time to properly plan your Black Friday strategy.

This way, the message will be very clear from the outset and everyone in the business will be better prepared for the promotional period.

Planning early also gives you time to forecast properly - so you will know if running a promotion is the right thing to do.

If you’re not in a financial position to offer a discount on your services, then you will identify this early.

Don’t fall into the trap of offering a promotion for the sake of it - only do it if it's right for your business.

Offer service bundles, packages or add-ons

A great way for service-based businesses to offer a promotion is through creating service bundles or packages.

An example of this could be a Barbershop.

As a Black Friday special/limited time-only offer, you could offer beard grooming along with a haircut - for the price of just a standard haircut.

You can also include add-ons in your promotions - like a free pot of hair wax or beard oil.

Get creative to find what packages and bundles will really entice customers.

Spread the word on social media

Use social media to spread the word that you are going to be offering a promotion over Black Friday.

Whilst many shoppers expect to see deals from retailers, they may not be looking out for an offer from your service.

It’s important to generate a buzz around your business at this time and social media is a fantastic way to do this.

This can lead to people recommending you to their friends by tagging each other or sharing to their newsfeeds.

Create bold graphics, photographs that are of a high quality, videos etc. things that will get people excited about your offer and your brand.

Most social media platforms offer boosted posts from £10 - make the most of it!

Bring customers back through remarketing

Remarketing is a powerful marketing tool - especially for promotional events like Black Friday.

If you are offering a promotion on your services - then this would be a great opportunity to tell customers who have previously used your services that you have a sale on - to try and bring them back to you.

Let’s use a physiotherapist as an example.

You could send a remarketing email to all clients who have had a sports massage in the past 6 months, 12 months, etc., and say ‘15% off sports massages for a limited time only’ to try and entice them back to you.

It’s also important to consider your regular customers - you could use Black Friday as a way to reward them for their loyalty, and strengthen your relationship - ‘20% off for existing customers only’.

If you’re using your promotions to acquire new customers, then you can use remarketing later down the line to try and ensure they become regular, long-term customers.

It’s all about recognising what is going to add the best value to your business.

Black Friday isn’t just for Amazon, locally-owned businesses can take a piece of the pie too. Speak to our Local SEO and eCommerce experts for any guidance or tips.