How to Leverage Black Turkey Week

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Last week launched the start of the holiday shopping season – retailers launched cross channel marketing initiatives to drive foot traffic in stores, cross channel sales, and an attempt to grow their consumer connections.

The overall performance for most retailers was a little better than last year, and consumers too were also a little more optimistic – a lot of opportunity still remains to build continuous engagement.

Go back to the mid 90’s – Thanksgiving day was an actual day off with the consumer having the opportunity to plan their shopping strategy in retail stores. Each store also had two or three key items that were expected to lure the consumer in – hard to find deals that were of real value to the consumer.

Take a look at some of the messaging from the past week:

Shop Our Pre-thanksgiving Specials

Thanksgiving Week Arrives

It’s Super Tuesday

It’s Black Wednesday

Our thanksgiving sale has started (Thursday)

Kickoff Bonanza for Friday

Missed Black Friday? No Problem, Here’s More…

Monday Previews (on Sunday)

Final Hours: Black Friday Weekend Savings Expire @ Midnight

The consumer was kept engaged for the entire week with specials that were available for the asking. Perhaps Black Friday should now be called Black Turkey Week.

I believe Cyber Monday will just continue on the same theme as the past week – but here are a few good lessons that stand out:

1 – Know your consumers preferences so they don’t have to go through 800 items to find something of ‘value.’

2 – Provide instant testimonials through efficient user generated content – aka social media.

3 – Keep checking in with your consumer in real time across channels to see if they are satisfied with what they have purchased. Also, listen to them on social media channels – you will hear the real buzz and a little nudging from you will encourage a satisfied consumer to share their story with their friends.

Keep your focus towards building relationships with the empowered consumer. Remember – the consumer should always feel that they are first in line, and that they waited for the right time to make that purchase.

Let Black Turkey Week be the beginning of a grateful relationship.