Influencer Marketing Best Practices for Black Friday 2023
Believe it or not, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are right around the corner — which means it’s time to start prepping for one of the biggest retail holidays of the year. All signs are pointing to 2023 being the biggest BFCM we’ve ever seen, and will likely break the records of the 2022 holiday shopping season. In 2022, consumers spent a whopping $9.1 billion online during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and 73% of purchases came from mobile.
We’re predicting these trends will continue this year, with organic and paid social media playing a huge role in impacting purchase behavior. So, what’s the best way to drive product sales this Black Friday?
Lean on influencers to drive your social strategy forward and boost product sales this holiday season. Influencer marketing is the best way to meet your customers where they are and to drive meaningful impact throughout your entire funnel. Below, we’ve compiled some of our top BFCM influencer marketing tips for you to leverage this season. Keep reading or watch our webinar, Black Friday Cyber Monday: How to Partner with Creators to Drive Product Sales This Holiday Season, on demand.
1. Get a head start.
While it may seem premature to start planning your Black Friday campaign at the beginning of September, getting a head start will ensure that you can secure your influencer partners and give them enough time to plan and create high-converting content for your campaign. In fact, we typically recommend that brands have a finalized list of holiday influencer partners by the end of August.
Here’s a sample timeline for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign.
If you haven’t started your campaign planning, don’t worry — the important thing is to begin as soon as possible.
To increase your chances of getting your collaboration proposals accepted quickly, partner with long-term brand partners who you have worked with in the past. Having an existing relationship with the influencer will help your brand stand out in the sea of collaboration proposals and improve the likelihood of getting a quick response.
But if you’re still in a bind to find more creators, use a third-party influencer discovery tool like Aspire. Our search engine will allow you to explore the entire influencer universe using specific filters like keywords, engagement rate, and even aesthetic via image search. Or, you can even publish your campaign to our newly expanded Creator Marketplace, and watch as high-quality influencers organically apply to your BFCM campaign.
2. Incorporate influencers into your affiliate program.
Today, consumers are going to social media to discover new products and ultimately make purchases. In fact, 46% of consumers say they hear about BFCM deals from social media — so what better way to drive sales than through social media influencers?
Modernize your affiliate marketing program by adding influencers to it, and introduce a new revenue stream for your business. Influencer-affiliate programs are so successful because the trust between influencers and their audiences has never been stronger. In this era of lo-fi content, influencers are creating highly authentic and relatable video content, ranging from try-on hauls to “Get Ready With Me” makeup tutorials.
Consumers are flocking to social media with the intent of discovering new brands and products, so give your socially native creator partners affiliate links to share with their audience. By incorporating influencers into your affiliate program, you can tap into high-trust commerce and make the buying journey even more seamless for their audiences.
For real-life brand examples, check out our customer features of Hero Bread and Mountain Rose Herbs.
3. Get creative with your campaign ideas.
Holiday campaigns offer up the opportunity to get creative. As you’re planning your campaign, consider the following:
- What’s trending? Create a campaign focused on leveraging current trends to drive BFCM interest. Whether it’s a popular sound, dance, challenge, or anything in between, participating in trends will increase the likelihood of your content going viral and gaining more eyeballs. Craft up some ideas about how certain trends can apply to your brand and ask influencers to get creative with their content. Bonus points if it’s funny!
- How can we give back? Think of ways you can work with influencers to drive awareness and raise funds for a charitable cause that you both care about. Highlight your commitment to the causes you’re supporting through your influencer campaign.
- What are the must-haves? Ask creators to talk about the products from your brand that they can’t live without. Because audiences relate to their favorite creators, this makes it easier for them to pick and choose the most suitable products to try from your collection.
- Are we exclusive? Offer discounts only available through influencers during a specific time period to pique interest and drive urgency. This is perfect if you’re running an influencer-affiliate campaign.
4. Maximize your impact by repurposing content.
Influencers can support all of your holiday marketing efforts by providing you with the content needed to fuel all of your other channels. You’ve already done the hard work by sourcing the high-quality influencer-generated content (IGC) for your campaign. Now, stretch the impact of your campaign by repurposing IGC in:
- Paid ads: 64% of consumers say they hear about BCFM deals from online ads, so repurpose IGC in your paid ads to leverage the creators’ namesake and provide social proof. Better yet, put paid spend behind organic posts to run Partnership Ads, which have proven to achieve 3.9% lower cost per purchase and 2.4x conversion lift.
- Email marketing: Create a sense of FOMO throughout your email campaigns by leveraging influencer content in abandoned cart emails, weekly newsletters, and more. And since IGC is diverse, you can A/B test different IGC to target specific audience segments.
- Website: Add IGC on your product pages to improve conversion rates and turn influencer posts into testimonials on your site.
As Black Friday and Cyber Monday quickly approach, work with influencers to scale your seasonal content creation, hyper-target your audiences, and boost sales. If you’re ready to kickstart your campaign with Aspire, book a demo to set yourself up for success throughout the entire holiday season.
