Hype up your Black Friday Catalog with these tactics

Last year eCommerce revenue on Black Friday reached 9.12 billion in the US.

That's not just exciting, it's enough to make any marketer a complete nervous mess.

Big sale prospects also mean every year more and more businesses will jump on the bandwagon and push big discounts. Which means it get more difficult to stand out.

Most retailers showcase their deals in specific Black Friday catalogs, creating a curated environment where shoppers can be inspired and quickly find all available deals.

This is why I'm taking some time to share my 3 favorite tactics for hyping up Black Friday catalogs.

1: Make your catalog as interactive as possible

Most of you will have laid out your Black Friday catalogs months ago. After all, the offers and deals are usually planned well in advance to ensure there's enough inventory in time for the holiday weekend.

But there's so much you can do to leverage the catalog you've made. Make it magical. Draw people into the universe to inspire them to buy.

Check out this catalog by BAUHAUS Denmark, advertising their holiday deals. They've used animations and gifs to help their inspirational images pop.

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I mean, just look at it. It's so delightful.

2: Create hype and convert with a catalog countdown

If you iFrame your catalog on your site, consider creating a special countdown landing page to build hype for Black Friday and Cyber Monday like MISSGUIDED.

A great initiative that MISSGUIDED took here was to suggest visitors already start browsing the site to add products they really want to their wish lists.

Regardless of whether those offers will be in the catalog, when they head to check out, they've already saved the things they want and can add to their basket.

Consider adding an email sign up to the page too. Offering visitors the chance to be notified when the Black Friday catalog goes live - or even better - offer them early access to the catalog so they can see it before it goes live like Zagg

3: Reveal offers throughout the day

To entice people into engaging even more, you could also consider revealing more offers throughout the day.

Have you ever heard of FOMO? It means Fear of Missing Out and it's a really powerful psychological trigger you can use to keep customers checking in on your catalog over the course of Black Friday.

Check out Elgiganten's approach. They decided to hide a critical offer last Black Friday, promising to reveal it at a specific time.

To achieve the same, you don't have to change your catalog at all. As I said earlier on, your Black Friday catalog has probably been ready for months.

All you have to do is create a image that says "Special Offer. Revealed At XX o'clock".

Place the image over the offer in the enrichment editor (see below) and when the time comes, delete the picture so everyone can see the offer.

Of course, if you're not with iPaper, what you could do instead is create two versions of the catalog. Keep the original as is, then create a second version where you've overlaid the "countdown image" with whatever editing software you like to use.

Upload the version with the overlaid image first, then when the time comes, upload the version with the offer visible and delete the "countdown" version.

This tactic is great because it taps into another very important psychological trigger. One that you, as a marketer are probably already very familiar with. Urgency!

It's what makes Black Friday and Cyber Monday such powerful sales events. Because they're limited on time they create a sense of urgency that pushes people to act.

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Need to get the full overview?

Explore our Complete Guide to Digital Catalogs (All You Need To Know!)