How Small Businesses Can Win on Black Friday 2025

Owner of a small business packing product in boxes, preparing it for delivery.

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Black Friday is one of the largest days of the year for consumers and businesses alike. But it’s not just big retailers that stand to profit on Black Friday – a GoDaddy survey found that about 78% of consumers are as (or more) likely to buy from a small business compared to previous years.

Small businesses can share in a piece of the pie, as long as they have a dedicated Black Friday marketing strategy in place. Here are some ways you can use digital marketing to win during Black Friday and throughout the holiday season.

Digital Marketing Strategies For Black Friday

Digital marketing (using online channels to promote your products or services) is essential if you want to compete with big retailers. Showing up online helps to get your business in front of your target customers and increase sales.

Here are a few digital marketing strategies you could implement for Black Friday:

• SMS: If you have customers who opted in to receive SMS messages (or texts) from your business, these can be an effective way to communicate your Black Friday promotions, as it’s literally in the palm of their hand. According to EZ Testing, members of your text list are 58% more likely to purchase from you.
• Social media: Focus on just a couple of social media channels (choose ones that your target market hangs out on) and use these organic social media strategies in the lead-up to Black Friday to engage your followers and give them a heads up about your deals.
• Digital ads: Whether it’s social media ads, display ads, or search ads, paid digital advertising can help you target people based on interests, demographics, or search intent, which can get your business in front of highly relevant people.
• Email marketing: Your list of email subscribers is already ‘warm’ – meaning they’re familiar with your brand and may even be an existing customer. Nurture your list in the days leading up to Black Friday; you could even give them exclusive sneak previews of your deals. To increase the chance of your emails getting opened amid the Black Friday chaos, create engaging subject lines that pique their curiosity.
• Mobile optimization: Hostinger reports that over half of online shoppers make purchases on mobile devices. So before the big day, optimize your website to make it easy for customers to navigate and make purchases via their mobile phones.

Boost Sales Further With Targeted Marketing

It can be tempting to say “everyone is my customer”, but real marketing success happens when you get specific with talking to your target market. Here are a few ways to get even more targeted with your digital marketing on Black Friday:

Utilize Re-marketing Methods

Re-marketing targets people who have previously interacted with your business. For example, being a past website visitor or being a past customer. This may result in a better return on investment for you, versus marketing to a completely cold audience. One way to do re-marketing is through Meta ads; you can create custom audiences based on previous interactions with your small business and send Facebook or Instagram ads directly to them.

Focus On Existing Customers

According to BusinessDasher, acquiring a new customer can cost 5-25 times more than retaining an existing customer. So for many businesses, it may make more sense to focus on marketing to your existing customers (whether it’s through digital ads, emails, SMS, or other channels). These people already know your brand, and if they have had a good purchase and product experience in the past, they may be more likely to buy from you again during Black Friday sales.

Use Personalization Techniques

Personalization – or tailoring your marketing to be hyper-relevant to specific customers – can be a great way to increase conversions from your digital marketing activity. Here are some ways to do this for Black Friday:

• Show product recommendations based on a website visitor’s browsing history or a past customer’s purchase history.
• Personalize your SMS and emails by addressing the contact by their name.
• Create exclusive Black Friday discounts for your most loyal and longest-standing customers.

Tactics To Capture Budget-Conscious Shoppers

With all this being said, not everyone is going to be able to spend up a storm on Black Friday. Here are some creative ways your small business can appeal to budget-conscious shoppers:

• Be upfront and clear about your deals: Clearly state what specials are on offer for Black Friday, whether you’re offering discounts, bundle deals, or a limited-edition product release.
• Emphasize value for money: Are your products built to last? Made out of high-quality materials? If so, your products may be better value for money versus cheaper options. Focus on this in your marketing messaging.
• Share your social proof: To help build trust in your business, show your social proof by featuring happy customer reviews on your website, social media content, and email marketing.
• If you offer flexible payment options, highlight these on your website.

Millions of businesses may be battling to capture consumers’ attention for Back Friday, but that doesn’t mean small businesses can’t be successful and acquire more sales, too. Utilize digital marketing to reach new people and keep your brand top of mind with past customers. It’s not too late to start if you haven’t already – choose just a few of the strategies above and hone in on them in the lead up to Black Friday.