Black Friday Tutorial: Avoid My $1.4 Million Mistake This Week
Should you do Black Friday in your business?
Should you do Black Friday in your business?
REI doesn’t do it.
Recent headlines say, “REI has quit Black Friday, forever.”
And, “For the past seven years, the retailer has closed its doors on the day after Thanksgiving to give its employees a day off.”
So noble. So bold.
Well, REI made $3.7 Billion last year and has 16,000 employees.
When my companies make anywhere north of $1 Billion, I will highly consider ditching Black Friday.
Until then, I will run Black Friday Deals in my businesses, and you should too.
Here’s how.
My $1.4 Million Mistake…
I have been running an online business since 2011.
For the first eight years, I skipped out on Black Friday.
My conservative estimates come to $1.4 Million in lost revenue by skipping out on Black Friday. In addition, I lost income over the eight years I skipped out.
Ouch. Don’t be like me.
I didn’t have a real reason other than that I didn’t want to do it. But, honestly, I had a lot of negative thoughts surrounding Black Friday.
I was accustomed to running a lot of launches but not special promotions with significant discounts. I thought Black Friday would cheapen my product. I thought discounts would be the end of my business.
And those fears aren’t entirely unfounded.
A great way to piss off your current customer base is to offer the same thing you always provide but at a 50% discount.
DON’T DO THAT.
And a great way to ruin your business is to discount your product or service constantly.
DON’T DO THAT.
There are two rules to Black Friday that I have learned.
Rule #1 - Make it About New Business
Chances are if you have an email list or social media following, many people have never purchased anything from you.
Black Friday is a chance to lower the bar (price) for working with you. People who otherwise were on the fence now get a chance at a lower price.
Give them that chance!
After that, you show them how outstanding your product/service is so that they become repeat buyers. You may not make much profit at a discounted rate, but you have to play the long game with Black Friday just as much as the short game.
Rule #2 - Sell Things You Don’t Regularly Sell
Rule #2 is critical, and I have already stated it in this article, but I will repeat it.
A great way to piss off your current customer base is to offer the same thing you always provide but at a 50% discount.
Do not sell what you ALWAYS sell, but at a steep discount. That’s how a lot of people screw up Black Friday.
They sell thing X at $X all year long.
Then, come Black Friday, they sell X at $Y (lower price).
What you need to do is…
Sell thing Y at $Y.
Get it?
You are selling something you DO NOT sell all year. It can be a custom package, it can be a different program, or it can be an additional service.
It doesn’t matter. You sell something that is only ever sold during Black Friday.
- Package your existing service in a new way…
- Offer products that are only available during Black Friday..
- Make a new Black Friday-specific product…
You can do it however you want. You want the value to be there, you want it to be new, and you want it to be discounted. But you ALSO want it to be exclusive to one time per year.
If you follow Rule #2, you won’t be shooting yourself in the foot with current customers or future business.
Follow the two rules, and then take the two steps.
A Simple Two-Step Black Friday Promo
I am covering primarily an email marketing strategy today.
So if you don’t have an email list, start that yesterday. If you have a social media following, all the steps will be the same; your messages will go out on social media.
You have three options when running a Black Friday promotion.
- Blast it to everyone, no matter what.
- Blast it to everyone, but give them an option to opt-out of the Black Friday Promotion without opting out of your email list.
- Segment your list by asking who WANTS to see the Black Friday deals, and then email those who raised their hand ONLY.
All options work. #3 is the safest and easiest.
Here’s what #3 looks like.
Step 1: Segment
It’s simple; you will send people to a page and ask them to opt-in to see the Black Friday promo. Then you will have a list of people who volunteered to hear about your deals. I like this option because it will make you feel more comfortable running the promotion.
Step 2: Sell
Now, it’s time to run your Black Friday promo.
The first email goes out to your list early the Friday after Thanksgiving. After that, you will send one email each day talking about the deals.
You can layer a lot of marketing tactics here (so long as they are ethical). You are already putting on pressure by having a limited-time deal. The second step to kick things up a notch will be to have a limited quantity.
When we do a limited amount, it’s legit.
There is no “we have seven left” when we could sell 100 more. Even though we are a digital company, we often limit the number of things…and it’s an ACTUAL limit. People email us every year, upset that they missed it, and we never open it back up.
If you think I have oversimplified it, I haven’t.
You may be overcomplicating it in your mind.
There is little magic in the emails or the sales page you point people to. Your goal should be to run a promotion and improve each year.
Try harder,
JM