Happy Thanksgiving and Hello Black Friday!

For those of you who not are into consumerism and consumption, or don’t know anyone who is…you may not be aware of what Black Friday is.   The term is said to have originated in the mid-1960s and always refers to the Friday after Thanksgiving – this year it falls on November 26, 2010.  It used to be the start of the Christmas shopping season (as you know, this starts much earlier now) and has always been one of the most busy shopping days of the year in the United States. You can be sure that someone you know will be heading to those shops very early – since many stores plan to open at 5 and 6 am!

But, there is another underlying meaning that has since developed for this term – it is the day when retailers would no longer have losses (“be in the red”) and would begin to turn profits (“the black”).  

I thought I would use this opportunity to discuss the power of e-marketing to create your own Black Friday – for your venture or business or product.

• First, let’s start with the premise that Marketing has changed (“evolved” is too mild a word!).
• The other premise (cliched though it may be) is that the internet has changed everything.
• Given these two premises, it is fair to say that we have new, transformative ways of reaching prospects and customers.
• The cost of marketing and advertising was all about “green”.  If you think of the traditional way of advertising, all of their costs were from fairly-to-very heavy.
• The new cost of marketing has more to do with data than with cash.   Because we have these new ways of reaching our market, it is important that we do this in a way that is different from mass messaging.   It is also less about immediacy and more about the long-term relationship you have with your “market”.
• This means knowing and learning about the individuals that you are speaking with, and actually creating a relationship.  Out of this, will be crafted the messages that will go to them.
• Does this sound like a lot of work?   Well, it is, if you were to do all of this manually.  But, isn’t technology wonderful?  Sometimes?  
• The good news is that today you have marketing platforms and media that can help you with all of this –
• Collecting and mining the data about your prospects
• Sifting through the differences and generating different offers for different behaviors – making sure you are relevant to them
• A number of e-marketing platforms – email, online, mobile and social media that you can use to convey your message
• The ability to market using multiple channels so that you can be sure that your messages are indeed delivered and read
• The ability to offer two-way communication…i.e. that you also spend time listening to the “market”, and being responsive and receptive to the messages that you receive.
• Plus, best of all, there are a vast number of resources available to you, for free, from marketing experts, gurus and practitioners.  They are in the form of newsletters, blogs, ebooks, videos, podcasts and more. What you need then is the motivation and time to absorb these (selected) wonderful resources to become a contemporary marketer.

So, what are you waiting for?    Get unstuck from the old ways and board the bus.  It’s moving fast.  And it’s heading towards “black”.

P.S. Interestingly, with that cliche again, the internet changed everything, a new phenomenon that has appeared following Black Friday is Cyber Monday.   Guess what that is?

‍