Mobile Strategies For Black Friday

Are you ready for Black Friday?

Let’s face it – the day’s importance to a retailer’s overall performance during the holidays is diminishing. I remember lining up at 4 a.m. while I was in college just for the fun of it, with nothing in mind to buy, but buy I did. Today, a majority of Americans aren’t planning to do any shopping (according to Bankrate) on Black Friday, and among those who will, only 28% of them will do so at a physical store.

Even with a diminishing stature, Black Friday remains a very big day for most retailers, so it’s critical to maximize the opportunity. It’s no longer enough to just focus on the promotions, inventory and proper levels of staffing. Retailers have to fully leverage technology – specifically, mobile – to capture their share of spend.

Here are a couple of quick ideas, and while it is definitely late in the game, I’m pretty sure there are many mobile companies ready to work and get things set up in time.

Conquesting – Go after consumers who will line up at your competitors’ stores. It’s a pretty safe bet that they will be on their phones killing time, so that’s a great chance to hit them with location-targeted ads on their phones. According to data from MasterCard SpendingPulse, Black Friday shoppers spend 70% of their day’s budget in the first two stores they visit. If you can’t be #1, then definitely be #2.

Beacons – Once you have a shopper in your store, make sure you maximize your chances of completing the sale or increasing the sale value. If they visit the fitting room, but skip past the registers, hit them with a promo message before they go out the doors so you can get them to complete the purchase. If they are looking at TVs, hit them with a notification about cables and accessories. These are just two examples of the many strategies that could be implemented. You can do this through your own app, or work with third party apps and partners such as Shopkick or Swirl.

Black Friday’s obituary is being written by the press, but the reality is that it will be a significant contributor what’s forecasted to be a bigger holiday shopping season. Like the items being offered for sale by retailers, there is a limited window to take advantage of this opportunity, so don’t miss out.

The good news is you don’t need to wake up in the dead of night to do it.