Attention is everything on Black Friday. Every brand is fighting for those precious seconds to capture a customer, but as an SMBs, you might feel overshadowed by the giants. Think again. This Black Friday, the playing field is more level than ever.
Forget massive budgets and huge teams. Platforms like Snapchat offer the free, powerful tools that put you in the same ring as the big players. Here’s how to leverage them for Black Friday success.
Playing to your strengths
You know your product, your competition, your audience, and your pricing—that’s the entrepreneur’s advantage. But too often, raising capital leads to unnecessary spending on complex software and expensive marketing talent. There’s a better way.
Forget expensive marketing tools and consultants. Platforms like Snapchat offer powerful, end-to-end solutions—built by expert teams—completely free. We’ve made it easier than ever for businesses of all sizes to quickly launch and promote their products on Snapchat, reaching their target audience faster and more effectively than ever before.
Audience insights tools will help you understand who your audience is and what they’re interested in, which will enable you to target more effectively and get that contextually relevant message to them in the moments that matter.
Creative solutions tools will enable you to either create new assets or, if you do have ready made video assets to bring those in and get them ready for the platform, and then, ultimately, to target the right audience at the right time with the objectives that you have set out. And you then have the ability to bid towards specific outcomes – be it awareness, consideration or conversion.
And once you’re live, you can implement a full suite of measurement tools – assessing what is driving traffic and delivering on specific outcomes – relative to the level of context the creative provides.
AR, AI and the creative conundrum
However, it’s no secret that a strong creative remains the cornerstone of a good ad campaign. But for small brands, even on a tight budget, you can create compelling content. Consider freelance creatives or explore AI tools. Even better, leverage the power of user-generated content (UGC). Its authenticity and genuine connection resonate with audiences, capturing attention more effectively.
Augmented reality (AR) takes UGC to the next level. Interactive lenses and filters offer a fun, engaging experience for your audience to play with and share. Creating these AR experiences used to require specialised teams and resources. Now, these tools are readily available and free to use, empowering any business to incorporate AR into their advertising strategy.
Now, startups can create the same engaging experiences as major brands. While budget still matters, the availability of free, powerful tools and software has significantly levelled the playing field.
Reaching the right audience with the right message at the right time remains crucial for advertising success. A short, impactful vertical video that grabs attention in the first few seconds is a powerful way to showcase your brand.
Measurement, optimisation and going with the flow
Once your campaign is live, the real work has only just begun, as brand performance metrics and test and learn elements come into play.
Being able to drive performance outcomes such as a purchase, website traffic or subscribers from your campaign is key to understanding its effectiveness and is when testing and learning is crucial. By seeing what is working well – and of course what isn’t – marketers are able to tweak their ads in real time, swapping out creatives that aren’t performing, pushing those that are, up-weighting to certain demographics or locations that are responding well, and generally optimising on all fronts.
And from this intelligence you can quickly scale. Some solid advice for any entrepreneur is instead of going out with dozens of products, find your niche, really hone in on one or two and then double down on the success of those. This is advice I give to major global brands as well as SMBs: the test, learn and scale methodology and framework cannot fail if the science and strategy is applied correctly.
This Black Friday don’t let limited resources hold you back. Leverage the free tools and resources available on platforms like Snapchat to compete with the big brands and win big. Focus on your strengths, and let the platforms do the heavy lifting.
Evan Tsaprounis is head of mid-market sales at Snap Inc.