Black Friday: Four Marketing Strategies for Music in Retail

As every year at the end of November, Black Friday happens to be this next Friday. The most famous sale of the year sows chaos in the stores: it’s no surprise that the day is called Black Friday.

The same way that the flashy sale signs are often used to direct the attention of the shoppers to some areas or to make us believe that the object is in fact a real deal, music is also used to attack our subconscious. The sale signs in the stores are usually in bright colors and not in pastel blue. There is a reason for that, and the same happens with music.

The music can influence the behavior of the customers in an establishment. Most managers are well aware of this and use it on their own favor. Music has a direct effect on our impulses and emotions, and if it’s well used, it makes us take more irrational decisions. In days like Black Friday, this is a key in having good sales.

There are multiple strategies that could be used to improve the sales of this day depending on the type of retail, the objectives and many other factors, but narrowed down, we can find three major strategies.

1. The Efficient One

With a noticeable and fast rhythm, music will be perfect for those managers looking for customers that come in, look around quickly, buy something, and leave. Subconsciously, the rhythm of the music makes us change our speed. The more marked it is, the more it helps us focus our attention on things we are doing. That is why we highly recommend it for those stores that have it all prepared for the big day, who have prepared the whole store around it and only need a high flux of people that do not stop to check things up much and go directly to what they came to buy.

2. The Calming One

Black Friday is a stressing day. All of us have seen the aftermath videos in Youtube of people punching each other for a cheap television. Some stores have yearly problems with this, with people that gets too nervous and they usually need even extra personnel to people not to mess things up. We recommend these managers to use a slower paced music. As we stated before, the music tends to appropriate from the inner rhythm of the people. This will help them being a bit less tense.

3. The Time Distorting One

Music does not only make us take its rhythm, but also modifies our perception of time. For those establishments that sell very specific things and need a long time to explain or to try it on –does your store feel like one of those TV programs about wedding dresses? – the slow music is your best friend. Music that is not going too fast distorts our perception of time. It makes us believe that the time that has gone by is much shorter than it actually is. Perfect for the easily bored people.

4. The Directing One

The rhythm of the music is not the only thing that can modify the buyer’s behavior inside a store. The type of music can also have influence on where we direct our attention. The music inspires us, and so does to our subconscious. The trick is to play music that goes accordingly to the type of product we are most interested in selling. For example, if we want to sell last-generation tech gadgets, we should use the trendiest hipster music we can find to drive people to buy these. It seems like nothing, but congruency is one of the keys of the musical marketing.

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