EXPOSED: The Psychology Behind Black Friday Marketing Tactics

What is up? Welcome back to the podcast. Today we are going to be talking all things buyer psychology because we are coming up on the marketer's dream time frame for making us all spend more money than we probably wanted to. I'm talking about Black Friday, Cyber Monday turn up Tuesday. I don't know whatever else they are going to think to market to us in order to spend more money. Marketers drool over this time of the year because this is where they get to pull out all the stops, all gas, no breaks on any and all buyer psychology that they can in order to convince all of us to purchase. So I want to talk about some of the psychology that they utilize in Black Friday so you can be aware of what tactics they are utilizing to convince you to purchase. And I want you to just be really cognizant of that as you're heading into it and making sure that you are swiping that card, you are hitting purchase because it is actually something that is going to benefit you and not because you feel like it's a good deal. So I'm going to break down some of the psychology behind it. I'm also going to share with you some really interesting stats about Black Friday. I'm a real big stats girl, especially when we're talking about this. So I am just going to share a little bit about like some of the numbers that are behind Black Friday because I find them really, really interesting and just kind of really brings perspective to how how massive this is. And so I'm going to highlight some of that stuff and then I'm going to leave you with a few tips on how to win Black Friday, how to make sure that you are in control of the purchases that you are making and how to come out on top. So let's go ahead and get into it. This is Busy Getting Better, the podcast for women who are committed to prioritizing their own personal growth. I'm your host, Madison J. A mindset and money coach, a first generation wealth builder and a woman on a mission to help you master your finances and live your best life. Money is not all we are covering though, because in order to live your best life, you have to become your best self. So we are diving deep into all things personal development and bringing you the mindset shifts, money, tips and inspiration. You need to go out there, be bold and build the life you can't stop daydreaming about. It's time to get busy, babe. Busy getting better. Okay, first up, let's talk stats because this was really interesting for me to learn. So I wanted to understand a little bit better of just like how big of a deal Black Friday is. So in 2023, Black Friday sales in the US alone reached $9.5 billion. $9.5 billion were spent spent in the US on Black Friday one day alone. That's wild. What's even more wild is that global Black Friday sales reached over $65 billion and they are expected to go above $75 billion. Is the projections for 2024 for global black Friday sales. Obviously, this is a very big day for a lot of people. So when you think about how much marketing these companies are putting behind the products and their advertising and all of that, it's for this. It's so that they can obviously drive insane revenue for a really, really short time frame. Some other stats that I found really interesting on this was the breakdown between online shopping and in store shopping. I don't know if you are an in person shopper or an online shopper. Honestly, I did an in person Black Friday shopping experience experience once when I was. I don't know, this was probably like high school. And I still have PTSD from it. Like the mall already is something that is just a little bit too much for me. But the mall on Black Friday is like cutthroat. It is like you gotta have your elbows ready. You gotta be ready to like finagle your way in between people. I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of a scary place. So I was really interested in this because I was curious how many people actually still go in person to. To shop for Black Friday sales. I am an online shopper through and through. The convenience, the time saving factor, the not having to deal with parking and crazy people in literally anything, you name it. So I was really interested to hear a little bit more about who the heck is still actually going to in person Black Friday deals. Cause that just sounds like an absolute anxiety nightmare for me. But 76 million shoppers visited brick and mortar locations on Black Friday. And 46% of shoppers prefer buying from brick and mortar stores. So less than half, honestly, still quite a lot of people for how ingrained we are with online shopping nowadays. The stat for online shopping. It says 90.6 million US consumers shopped online on Black Friday, saying that 68% of shoppers do prefer to shop online. So yeah, obviously we're getting into more of the online world. But still, like, who are you? Who's this 46 pretty that's going in person, waking up at the butt crack of dawn getting in line and I don't know, I just picture them literally throwing things around, fighting to get in the doors. I feel like there were all those videos that came out forever ago of like the Walmarts and the Best Buys and it was like people were getting trampled in stores. I don't. There's no deal that would be worth that to me. But I want to know who this other 46% are that are actually going in store. Like, are you an in store Black Friday shopper or are you an online Black Friday shopper? I need to know what category you fall into because I feel like that's going to tell me a little bit about what your preferences are. And also if you are an in store shopper, I gotta know why, like what is the perk of going with the madness there? Well, I guess we're gonna get into some of the psychology so we'll know a little bit about what the madness madness is for. But another interesting stat that came up was about the average discount on Black Friday because I think that we're all trying to get a deal. That's what this is all for, right? But this report said that the average discount on Black Friday was actually 31%. So 31%, not a bad deal. Another interesting stat is that Amazon made more than 17.7% of all black Friday sales. They have obviously capitalized in the online shopping space, but the fact that they have almost 20% of all of Black Friday sales, I don't know. That's interesting to me. Another really concerning stat that I pulled. This is a prediction that Buy Now, Pay later services are going to drive up $18.5 billion in spend in 2024 online shopping. $18.5 billion of buy now Pay Later. These Buy Now Pay later programs are definitely something to be very cautious of because this is how you could end up in unwanted debt. Right? So be careful. If you're looking at these Buy Now Pay later programs, the last stat that I'm going to share with you is that In November of 2022, the merchants sent 2 billion promotional emails out. What? I don't know if you feel that right now, if your email inbox looks like mine, and if it doesn't, it probably will start to so many emails. But 2 billion promotional emails out to just promote a single day sale. Insanity. But it also makes a lot of sense because like I said, this is like the day of the day. This is the time where they capitalize on so much spending. So I want to talk about some of the key psychology factors behind Black Friday. So we're going to talk about some different emotional triggers, things like fomo, things like scarcity, things like loss aversion. So let's talk about exactly what the psychology is and what they're utilizing in marketing tactics to us to convince us to hit purchase. The first one is the obvious one, right? People love a bargain like bitches love sales. Am I right? Everybody wants to find a good deal, but why is that? And what are they utilizing in, from a psychology perspective, to actually benefit? So our brains are wired to want a deal. Our brain has a structure in it called the reward system. And this connects to our pleasure center. So when this is stimulated, there is literally a feeling of pleasure that is created. So when there are words like sale and deal and discount, these all contribute to things like pleasure. So when you understand why they utilize all these words, this has such a big effect on us because what we're doing is literally triggering our pleasure center by being like, oh my God, you got a reward. I'm so satisfied. I found a deal, I found a bargain. This is something that is just natural in how our brain operates. So realize that you're literally triggering your pleasure center in your brain. Another really interesting that came up when I was looking this up was a lot about color psychology. There is a whole world of color psychology that is related to convincing people to purchase. So different colors trigger different things in our brain. And the color red is something that triggers the pleasure center. So when we think about, they utilize red a lot in these sail colors. It's because it's a color that is something that triggers the pleasure center. It's like a, it's a dopamine hit, essentially, is what it's doing. And our brain loves dopamine, right? That's how we get addicted to everything, is those dopamine hits. Next up, I want to talk about fomo. FOMO is the fear of missing out. And this is the psychology principle that is rooted in self scarcity. So it is the desire for you to not want to miss out on a good deal, not want to feel like you aren't part of the crowd. If everybody's getting X, Y or Z on sale and you missed it and you're now not part of the cool kid club, then you're missing out. There's that feeling of fomo, it's scarcity. So also thinking about, oh my gosh, this is the best deal of the year, or there's not going to be this sale again, or if I don't buy it now, then I'm never going to get this deal. Like, there's this feeling of stuff scarcity there that the marketers really, really play into because they want you to feel scarce. They want you to feel like you're living in this world of scarcity. Like there's not enough to go around, you're not going to get it and then you're going to feel like you lost out. So FOMO is something that is actually a psychological trigger that marketers will play into to make you feel like you're missing out. Can you save money on Black Friday? For sure. But are you missing out on things that you really, really need? No, absolutely not. So just make sure you're not into this FOMO feeling of like, gotta get it now while it's here or it's never gonna be there again. I promise you, you can still buy that stuff later. Like, I doubt there's anything that you're trying to get that if you don't buy it on Black Friday, that it's not gonna be there for you. Sure, the sale could be good and obviously make sure that it's something that you're actually wanting to buy and not just feeling like you're missing out on the purchase because it's quote unquote, such a good deal. That kind of leads me into the next one, which is loss aversion. So this is a really powerful psychological tool that they utilize in Black Friday because you motivated by not missing out on a deal. So obviously FOMO is like the fear of missing out. Loss aversion is like avoiding missing out. And essentially the human brain is really, really motivated by the fear of losing out on a deal, more so than by being motivated to gain something. So our brains would much rather not want to lose something than they would want to gain something. So they really utilize this advantage by utilizing things like price match guarantees, buy one, get one promotions that make you feel like you're going to be losing out on this deal. And it really does change the perception of the value of what you're buying. So you've really got to think about what it is that's motivating you to make the purchase. Right. And I'm going to talk a little bit about that in some different ways to win Black Friday. But just know that they're utilizing the stuff to make it feel like, oh my gosh, I'm going to miss out on this deal. And so that's what they're trying to do, is trigger your brain and utilize the way Our brains work to convince you to hit purchase so that you don't miss out on something. Okay, next I want to circle back to this whole like triggering the brain because this continues to come up through essentially all of the tools that they're utilizing. But another one, and this one I feel like probably comes into play for all of those in person shoppers a lot more than the online ones. But this feeling of the adrenaline rush right when you're like racing to secure a good deal, when you're like, yes, I got the last one, or oh my gosh, look at all these savings again, right? Your brain is going to be triggered in the reward center and it's releasing dopamine mean. And it's this adrenaline rush. It's this feel good emotion that goes through your body. You know, in person when you have the door buster. Deals that create such a sense of urgency, that's when you see people camping outside trying to get in line right when it opens because there's this sense of urgency. Like, oh my gosh, I gotta get there. Are utilizing scarcity in the same sense of marketing, but they're doing things like day one deals or limited time offers, or countdown clocks or limited amount of supplies, first come, first serve. They're utilizing all this stuff again too to create that sense of urgency, to put into perspective how scarce this offer is and then to give you that adrenaline rush when you actually hit purchase, when you grab the thing that's on sale, when you snag the last one that's at that really discounted rate, whatever it is. So again, all of these, the entire backing of the marketing for Black Friday, for Cyber Monday, for Turn Up Tuesday, for all of these things that they're putting out there to get us to buy. It's all psychology. It's all buyer psychology. And so I really want you to pay attention to some of this stuff. And I'm going to head now into like how to win Black Friday. Because when you're aware of what the marketing tactics are, you can be a lot more of an educated buyer. You can make sure that you're winning Black Friday, which is what I want, versus getting got, right? We don't want these big companies to win Black Friday. I want you to win Black Friday. So let's talk about how to head into your Black Friday and Cyber Monday and all of that shopping with a point of view and with a plan. Now, understanding how much marketing is going on in order to convince you to purchase by utilizing the functionality of your brain against you. So let's talk about it. Number one thing to do when you're heading in is to have a plan. If you're heading into all of these sales and all of these deals, just like, ooh, I wonder what I'm gonna buy. Like, let me tell you, you're gonna get got. So just make sure you're good with getting got, because if you don't go on with a plan, the best marketing is gonna get you. And if you're fine with that, then you're fine with that. But if you're like, no, I want to be really intentional about my spending. I want to make sure that I go in and actually get get deals on things that are going to benefit me, things that have been on my list for a while, things that I know I want to purchase and actually benefit from the sale. Then you want to be intentional about heading into it. So start a list of things that you actually want to buy. Go online. There's a lot of preview stuff going on. You can start to see what are the deals going to be, what are things that maybe have gone on sale in the past, and start to write a loose plan around some of the things that you actually want to purchase and that you're going to be ready to hit buy for when the sales actually kick off. Another thing to really ask yourself here is make sure that these are things that you would actually be purchasing even if they weren't on sale. Like, really ask yourself that, am I purchasing this because I already wanted it and Now I'm saving 30% on it and I was gonna buy it anyway. Win. That's awesome. Or is the sale the reason that you now want to buy it? Think about that. If you're just like, ooh, but it's buy one, get one, but now, da, da, da, da. I don'. Know, whatever it is. Like, is that. Is the sale the thing that's convincing you to hit purchase, or was it already something that you know you love? You've been wanting to purchase and now it's just in a discounted price. So really, really reflect on that. Another huge thing that you can do to prep, especially hearing the $2 billion in spend on email marketing. Go and unsubscribe in your emails right now, today. It takes no time. I'm going to give you a hack here in a second. Go unsubscribe from all of the emails that you have signed up for this year. Like, how prompted are we in any case to give away our email addresses to any retailer, to any online platform you Name it. They all have our emails and they've all been waiting for this exact moment to blow us up and convince us to buy. So if you don't want to be overwhelmed in your inbox, if you don't want to be convinced to purchase stuff and you know, seeing all these deals in your inbox might trigger you to hit purchase and you don't want to give in, go and unsubscribe from anything that you don't want to see these deals from. You know the emails are coming, so go in and just get rid of them. I think this is a really great thing to do. I actually do this at the end of every single year. I'll go in and just unsubscribe from all of the stuff that's essentially cluttered up my email inbox. So there's a tool and I'll link it in the show notes. It's unroll me something along those lines. I'll put it in the show notes, but you can go in and type your email in and it'll pull up all of the subscriptions that you have tied to your email address and you can just hit unsubscribe in this one tool. The last time I did this, I'm not kidding, it said I was in 1500 email subscriptions. Like, what? I am fully convinced that our emails are just getting sold to other people because there was, like, window repair and lawn service and all these random things that I promise you, I'm not putting my email in for that I was subscribed for. So go check this tool out if you want a really easy way to unsubscribe and maybe just identify and uncover how many things you're actually enrolled in that you don't even know about and unsubscribe so your email is not cluttered with buy now, Buy now. Best sale of the year. Give me your money. More, more, more. So, I don't know. That would be my piece of advice for that. If you don't want to feel burdened or overwhelmed by your email inbox. And all of the deals that no doubt are going to be up in your face nonstop here very shortly, if they're not already. The next thing that I would do is be clear about how much you're wanting to spend. I think Black Friday is a really great time to do restocking on stuff that you know you want. If your favorite companies are having sales and you, like, want to restock on clothes or products that are basics that are staples in your life and they're on sale. Really great. Could also be a really great time for you to stock up on holiday purchases, like holiday gifts, and get ahead of that, but set a limit. What are you willing to spend? What are you trying to buy? And when you reach what number are you going to say, okay, I have had enough of Black Friday. I got the deals I want to get, and I'm going to go ahead and put the credit card away now? Which really brings me to the very last point. And it's just being so intentional. I think sometimes we can head into these days and these types of sales and just go with the flow. But I really want you to treat this Black Friday and Cyber Monday just a little bit differently. Go into it with this lens of understanding, understanding what they are trying to convince you to do. And just make sure that you are making the decision to hit purchase because you want to make the decision and not because they have really solid marketing tactics. Because, again, they pour so much money into the marketing, into triggering your brain to do the things that they want you to do. So just be intentional, have a plan, and make sure that you're in charge of your financial purchases this year. And I hope you find some solid wins, and I hope you win five Black Friday this year. Okay, that's it. Good luck out there, and I will see you on the next episode.