5 ways to manage Christmas promotions that don't hurt the bottom line
Small businesses are able to take part in Black Friday and Cyber Monday without losing any money. Discover how to organize festive promotions that don't hurt your profits.
What is the first image that comes to your your mind when you hear the expression "Black Friday"?
If you're anything like me, there are lengthy lines beginning at the time of Thanksgiving, massive crowds fighting over the cheapest televisions, and frantic employees of retail trying to keep pace (and ensure peace).
However, Black Friday -- and its counterpart on the internet, Cyber Monday -- has evolved over the past several years. A growing number of people are hunting for great discounts in the comfort of their couch while "doorbusters" have become more symbolic and not literal.
For smaller-scale business owners as well as solopreneurs, discounts like the usual Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts may seem unreal. Slash your prices to a low level, and you risk barely breaking even.
That doesn't mean the sales aren't available for small-scale businesses. It just requires a little of more imagination than relying on discounts that are the most hefty to boost sales.
In this post we'll provide five suggestions to make the most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday festive sales but without ruining your profits.
Should creators participate in Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
In short, yes.
The year 2020 was the most successful for Black Friday sales. Black Friday sales totaled $9 billion . Cyber Monday sales were higher with $10.8 billion, which makes the day the most popular online shopping day to date in U.S. history.
This is a significant amount of money spent over a few days.
The holiday sales on e-commerce are expected to surpass a record amount of $207 billion in U.S. between November and 2021. That's a 10% increase over 2020 sales. Additionally, Cyber Weekend which runs from the weekend between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday will be the most important event.
Online shopping has become a bigger and bigger piece of the Cyber Weekend pie in recent time. In 2019, 93.2 million buyers made purchases online for Black Friday, and 83.3 million did the same for Cyber Monday.
And since the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic, the number of people shopping online is higher as than ever before. Ecommerce spending in 2020 hit $791.70 billion, an increase of 32.4% from 2019.
The public is always looking to find bargains on the internet.
Making the most of Black Friday 2021 Get the most out the most Black Friday with these dedicated guidelines, tricks and tricks for making this your best selling year yet.
Creators of digital goods including online courses, online classes as well as memberships enjoy an advantage over retailers that sell physical items.
This is because you're selling a tangible product which means you don't have to fret about having adequate inventory or dealing with last-minute delay in supply chain.
It is also possible to give your customers immediate access to their purchase without the need to wait in long lines or wait for their order to arrive.
It's possible that you won't be able to provide coupons for 75% discount or Buy-One-Get-One-Free promotions as large-box stores, but there are options for creatives and small businesses to participate with Cyber Weekend without breaking the financial budget. Follow these five steps to do just that.
5 tips for holiday promotions that will not harm your profits
#1: Offer discounts sparingly
Deep discounts are the main draw of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In the end, who wouldn't want to get a bargain?
Coupons are known to be scientifically proven to make customers satisfied. The study conducted by Dr. Paul J. Zak Professor of Neuroeconomics discovered that people who had a coupon of $10 saw a rise of 38% in oxytocin levels and were 11percent happier than shoppers who did not receive coupon.
Small-scale businesses may offer discounts or promo codes for sale times during the holidays. However, to avoid harming your profits, you must take care to implement carefully and cautiously.
Another way is to offer only coupons during special occasions or to a certain group of individuals.
Constantly discounting your products can hurt your brand's perceived worth . If you provide discounts throughout the year and people don't pay full price -- they'll just wait for the next time you have a sale.
If you are only offering promotions a few times per year, like Reuven, shoppers will be more likely to avail of the offers.
In the event that you offer those promos available to a select group of customers or subscribers and subscribers, you could leverage the scarcity concept through FOMO (the worry of being left out).
FOMO is a powerful instrument:
60% of people purchase items due to FOMO.
89 percent of Americans believe that an exclusive offer would encourage them to spend using a particular name.
48% of respondents say the exclusive deal will make them purchase sooner.
In the case above by Reuven He warns his customers that "Hurry and get your discount code, it is only available until Cyber Monday." Shoppers only have a few days to redeem the 40 percent discount, which makes them more likely to use it.
There's no reason you have to offer 40% off.
If the margins for your profits are limited, you can opt for less expensive discounts. explain Mike Moloney , founder of FilterGrade :
"If your margins aren't as high, I definitely recommend using smaller discounts in the range of 10%-20%. They are extremely successful in getting new customers."
The Rule of 100 says that, for products under $100, consumers are more likely to see discounts as percentages. When it comes to items that exceed $100, customers prefer seeing the amount actually that they have saved.
Overall discounts and coupons can serve as a fantastic way to boost sales during the big holiday sale days -However, they're by no means the only choice. Our next tip focuses on improving value, without cutting costs.
#2: Make bundles of products
Anyone who believed that "less means more" didn't mean to diminish how valuable you Cyber Weekend deals.
If you're not able (or don't wish to offer discounts, product bundles are a great way to add an element of worth and improve your average order value (AOV) without granting the benefit of a discount.
Patrick Campbell, Founder and CEO of ProfitWell Patrick Campbell, ProfitWell's founder and CEO, discusses:
"Price Bundling" is that allows businesses to combine multiple products or services into one package for a price. They are generally priced lower than when they are sold separately.
Although each item inside the bundle can be technically available at a reduced price the strategy could increase average revenues per user (ARPU) as well as user engagement."
When it comes to digital goods, it makes less sense to do a traditional buy-one-get-one sale as you're offering access to somethingfor example, an ebook or membershipand your purchasers only need to purchase only once.
Justin utilized's Bundling of products feature to make available all his most popular courses and content to digital marketers for less than it would cost to purchase each product separately.
This method not only increased sales, but it also helped Justin bring in new clients :
Explore's bundling capabilities and a number of. Join here . (No need for a credit card!)
In the end, bundles can be an excellent pricing method for holiday promotions However, what happens if just sell one or two products? We've got you -- as well as your customers' lists of holiday purchasesfor this following tip.
#3: Help shoppers with the purchase of gifts
Cyber Weekend begins the season's busiest period for buying holiday gifts. In the year 2020, consumers spent on an average of $311.75 on holiday purchases.
For creators (and your clients) online courses can make wonderful presents. That's why the tech and retail experts from Mashable have ranked a year-long membership to MasterClass as the top choice for this year's gifts for digital devices:
Guides to gifts are a great way for people to cross all of their Christmas checklists. If you've got a website you can create a specific niche gift guide such as this entrepreneurs gift guide of the business experts at Wandering Aimfully:
If you are listing your own products in the gift guide, make sure you include additional recommendations. Otherwise, it's just an advertising post to promote your business.
Also it's not a bad idea to have the standard gift-giving fallback -- gift cards. If you sell through the internet, you may create gift certificate products to sell on your site, like the ones in Soul Food Talks :
But the gift-giving doesn't have to stop at this point -- Cyber Weekend is a great opportunity to give the gift of your choice to your customers too.
#4: sweeten the deal with a free gift
The effects of promotions are expected to affect the majority of Christmas customers , and price discounts, free shipping, and gift cards are considered to be some of the most attractive promotional deals.
Checklists and worksheets are great bonuses as they can help customers gain more value from their purchase.
Marketing Showrunners achieved precisely that, offering the following free gifts to students who enrolled early in their Showrunner Sessions course :
In offering a free PDF book written by the co-founder Jay Acunzo, Marketing Showrunners offered value in exchange for early enrollment.
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Whether the Black Friday promotion is a offer for a free item, discount, or a product bundle No one is going to know about it until you tell your customers. We'll get to our final tip -spread the word regarding your sales for the holidays.
#5: Let people know about your promotions
The most successful holiday sales in the world won't do anyone any favors if others aren't aware of it. In the process of planning your Christmas sales, make sure you spread the word and let your clients inform them about your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.
A drip campaign -- an email seriesin the lead up the Cyber Weekend can help build excitement. Avoid sending too many emails and bombarding your followers, however.
You've likely experienced it firsthand, people get a ton of marketing emails from businesses prior to Black Friday. Online marketers sent more campaigns on Black Friday than any other day of the year in 2018.
Constant Contact suggests sending out three emails at least one week prior to the day your sales begin: "One that teases your sales, one that outlines an offer, and finally the third one closes by advising you to take a final chance."
For what information to include in your emails Here are two tips:
Incorporate your promo in your subject line. Emails with percent-off discounts included in subject lines were able to achieve an mean conversion of 18.1 percent in comparison to 3.8 percent for subjects that don't include specific offers.
Give users a sense pressure. An experiment carried out by ConversionXL observed that the use of a countdown timer -- similar to the one used by DataCamp below -- led to an increase of 147% in conversions.
Alongside email, social media is another excellent way to get information out about your holiday specials, especially when your target audience is younger. 59% of Generation Z and 55 percent of the millennials discover products on social media.
As with the drip-mail campaign, you can use an array of posts on social media to build excitement for your holiday deals. For example, travel blogger Nele of The Navigatio built excitement for a new product and Black Friday sale with this tweet :
Just a couple of days after, Nele announced that the much-anticipated ebook was live:
Another perk of social media is user-generated content (UGC). In all industries, prospective customers who look at UGC are converted with a 161% higher rate . Share testimonials from students, members, as well as happy customers, to promote the Cyber Weekend deals.
If all other options fail, you could take advantage of Black Friday as an excuse to post a cute picture .
Bottom line: If you have a Black Friday sale happens and nobody knows about the sale, it's not really occur. Don't just focus on offering the best deal -- make sure that people who are interested in it see it too.
Maximize the benefits of Black Friday and Cyber Monday
This year more than ever before Black Friday and Cyber Monday provide a great opportunity to entrepreneurs, solopreneurs as well as small-scale businesses that sell online. With even slim profit margins, you can take part this year's holiday shopping seasons.
Here's how:
Offer discounts sparingly and strategically. The more customers come to expect discounts and discounts, the less likely they are to pay full price.
Create product bundles by putting similar items together such as a set of ebooks or an online course, and related documents.
Help customers with the holiday shopping process by advertising your items as gifts or gift certificates or creating the Gift Guide.
Entice shoppers with free gifts including templates, printables and ebooks -- to enable them to get the most value of their purchase.
Promote your holiday deals. Social media and email are two proven methods for spreading awareness of sales and promos.
I hope this article has filled your arsenal with strategies that you can use to provide great holiday deals without killing your bottom line. No matter if it's the first time you've been a creator or your fifteenth this year, I wish you the best for Cyber Weekend and beyond.