5 tips for running holiday promotions without killing your bottom line
Small businesses are able to take part in Black Friday and Cyber Monday without losing money. Learn how to run promotional events during the holidays without affecting your profits.
What image comes to mind when you hear the term "Black Friday"?
If you're me, you'll be faced with long lines starting on the day of Thanksgiving, large crowds fighting over the cheapest televisions, and exhausted employees of retail trying to keep pace (and ensure peace).
But Black Friday -- and its online shopping counterpart, Cyber Monday -- has changed over the last several years. A growing number of people are looking for discounts at the convenience at home as well as "doorbusters" are becoming more symbolic and not literal.
Small-sized business owners and entrepreneurs, however, offering discounts like the usual Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts can seem absurd. Reduce your prices to a level that is way too low or you'll be barely breaking even.
That doesn't mean the shopping holidays are off-limits for small companies. Just a of more imagination than relying upon the most expensive discounts to increase sales.
In this piece this article, we'll discuss five ways for making the most out of Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday specials while not destroying your profit margins.
Are creators required to participate on 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 . The Cyber Monday sale was greater at $10.8 billion, which makes the biggest holiday for online shopping ever recorded in U.S. history.
It's quite a bit of power spent in just several days.
Sales from holiday e-commerce is expected to reach a record $207 billion in U.S. between November and 2021. That's a 10% increase over 2020 sales. Also, Cyber Weekend which runs from November through Cyber Monday -- will be the biggest event of the year.
Shopping online has grown to be a bigger and bigger piece of the Cyber Weekend pie in recent times. In 2019, 93.2 million buyers made purchases online during Black Friday, and 83.3 million did the same during Cyber Monday.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic, shoppers are more online more than they ever have. In 2020, the amount spent on online shopping was $791.70 billion, up 32.4 percentage from 2019.
The public is always looking for deals online.
Maximizing the benefits of Black Friday 2021 Take advantage of Black Friday with these dedicated guides, tips and tricks for making this your best selling year yet.
and creators who sell digital items including online courses, online classes as well as memberships enjoy an edge over those that sell physical items.
This is because you're selling an intangible item, that means you don't need to be concerned about maintaining sufficient inventory, or avoiding supply chain issues.
You can also offer your customers immediate access to the purchase, without having to stand in long lines or wait for their order to arrive.
It's possible that you won't be able to provide discounts of 75% off or buy-one-get-one-free promos as big-box stores, but there are ways for creators and smaller businesses to be involved at Cyber Weekend without breaking the budget. Follow these five steps for achieving this.
5 tips for holiday promotions that won't kill your profits
#1: Offer discounts sparingly
Discounts are the primary reason to shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday. After all, who would not want to save money?
Coupons are research-based and have been proven to keep people content. A research conducted by Dr. Paul J. Zak , professor of neuroeconomics, found that shoppers who had a coupon of $10 received a boost of 38% in the levels of oxytocin and one-fifth happier than people who didn't receive a coupon.
Smaller businesses are able to offer coupon and promo codes during the holiday season. But to keep from hurting your bottom line, you have be careful to use it in a controlled manner and with care.
Another way is to offer only coupons to celebrate special occasions or to a select number of people.
Constantly discounting your products can hurt your image as a brand's importance . If you offer discounts year-round and people don't purchase at full cost -and they'll wait until the next time you have a sale.
If you offer promotions every few months, like Reuven customers, they will be more likely to take advantage of the discounts.
And if you make those promos available to a select subset of subscribers or customers and subscribers, you could leverage the scarcity concept through FOMO (the worry of being left out).
FOMO is powerful tool: FOMO is a effective tool
60% customers buy products due to FOMO.
89% of Americans think that an exclusive offer would increase their likelihood of shopping for a specific company.
48% believe that an offer of exclusivity could help them buy more quickly.
In the above example from Reuven the entrepreneur warns his customers that "Hurry and get your discount code, it will only be available through Cyber Monday." Customers only have a couple of days to use the 40% discount coupon percent discount coupon and are more likely to redeem it.
There's no reason you necessarily have to provide 40% discount, however.
If profit margins aren't great, consider less expensive discounts. explains Mike Moloney , founder of FilterGrade :
"If there are a few margins I highly suggest using less discounts. They should be between 10%-20 percent. These are still incredibly effective at converting new customers."
The Rule of 100 says that when it comes to items priced less than $100, people tend to prefer seeing the discounts in percentages. When it comes to items that exceed $100, they prefer to see the actual dollar amount saved.
Overall discounts and coupons could serve as a fantastic tool to increase sales during the major holiday sales dayshowever, they're not your only choice. This tip is focused on the value of your product without having to lower prices.
#2: Make bundles of products
The person who said "less can be more" wasn't talking about how valuable your Cyber Weekend deals.
If you aren't able to (or don't wish to offer discounts, product bundles can be a fantastic method to boost 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 a strategy which allows companies to bundle multiple products or services into one package for a cost. The products that are bundled together are usually sold at a lower price than if they were purchased individually.
Even though each item included inside the bundle can be technically available at a reduced price, this strategy can potentially boost the average revenues per customer (ARPU) and engagement of users."
With digital products, it makes less sense to do traditional sales like buy-one-get-one since you're typically offering access to somethingfor example, an ebook or membership -and your purchasers only need to purchase one time.
Justin utilized's Bundling of products feature to offer all of his most popular courses and content designed for digital marketers at significantly less cost than what it would be for each of the items individually.
This strategy not only increased the sales of customers, it also helped Justin to attract new customers :
Explore's bundling capabilities -- and a whole lot more. Register here . (No need for a credit card!)
Overall, bundles are a great pricing strategy to promote holiday sales, but what if you just sell one or two products? This is what we've got for you and your clients' shopping lists for the holidaysfor this following guideline.
3. Help the shoppers in their gift buying
Cyber Weekend kicks off the busiest time of year for buying holiday gifts. The year 2000 saw shoppers spend the annual average of $311.75 on holiday purchases.
Luckily for creators (and your clients) Online courses are great gifts. This is why the technology and shopping experts at Mashable put an annual subscription to MasterClass as the best of 2018's online gift options:
Guides to gifts are a great way to help people check every person off their holiday list. If you've got a blog you can create a specific niche gift guide like this entrepreneur gift guide by the business coach at Wandering Aimfully:
If you include your own products in the gift guide, make sure to include other recommendations. Otherwise, it's just an advertising post to promote your business.
Also you can always use the traditional gift-giving fallback -- gift cards. If you're selling through , you can develop gift certificate items to sell on your site. Examples include the ones examples from Soul Food Talks :
However, the giving of gifts doesn't need to end here. Cyber Weekend is a great chance to offer gifts to your customers, too.
#4: Make it sweeter by giving away a gift
The effects of promotions are expected to affect 82% of Christmas shoppers Price discounts, free shipping, and free gifts are viewed as the most appealing promotional offers.
Worksheets, checklists, and worksheets make great bonus content as they can help customers get more out of their purchase.
Marketing Showrunners accomplished precisely that, offering a free gift to people who had enrolled in their Showrunner Sessions course :
In offering a free PDF book from co-founder Jay Acunzo, Marketing Showrunners gave value in exchange in exchange for early registration.
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No matter if you're offering a Black Friday promotion is a offer for a free item, discount or even a bundle of products, no one will know about it until you inform them. We'll get to our last tip- spreading the word about the holiday sales you are offering.
#5: Tell the world regarding your events
The greatest holiday sale anywhere in the world will not do you any good if people do not know about it. In the process of planning your holiday sales, make sure to spread the word and let your clients be aware of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers.
A drip campaign -- an email seriesin the lead up the Cyber Weekend can help build excitement. Be wary of sending excessive emails or spamming your subscribers, though.
You've likely experienced it firsthand you receive tons of emails from brands prior to Black Friday. Online marketers sent more campaigns on Black Friday than any other day in 2018.
Constant Contact suggests sending out three emails at least about a week before the date the sale starts: "One that teases your sales, one that outlines your offer, and another that concludes with a last chance reminder."
In terms of what you should include in your emails here are two quick guidelines:
Make sure to highlight your offer in the message. Emails with percent-off discounts in the subject line had an mean conversion of 18.1 percent as compared to 3.8 percent for subjects that don't have specific offers.
Make users feel an urgency. An experiment carried out by ConversionXL discovered that the addition of an alarm clock -- like the one from DataCamp below resulted in a 147% increase in conversions.
Alongside email, social media is an excellent method to get people to know about your holiday specials -- especially if you're targeting younger customers. 59 percent of Generation Z and 55 percent of millennials discover products on social media.
Like the email drip campaign, you can use an array of posts on social media to generate excitement about your Black Friday deals. As an example, travel blogger Nele from The Navigatio built excitement for an upcoming product and Black Friday sale with this tweet :
Then, a few days later Nele made the announcement that her much-anticipated book was available:
Another benefit of social media is user-generated information (UGC). Across industries, potential buyers who are interested in UGC convert at 161%. sixteen percent higher rate . Provide testimonials from your members, students, and satisfied customers to advertise you Cyber Weekend deals.
If everything other options fail, you could take advantage of Black Friday as an excuse to share a very adorable photo .
The bottom line is that if you have a Black Friday sale happens and nobody knows about the sale, it's not really take place. Do not just concentrate on selling the right kind of deal -- make sure that those who need to know about it are aware of it, too.
Profit from Black Friday and Cyber Monday
The year is more exciting than ever before Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer an exciting opportunity for creators, solopreneurs, as well as small-scale businesses that sell online. Even with a small profit margins You can participate in this year's shopping holidays.
To recap, here's how:
Offer discounts sparingly and strategically. More customers expect discounts, the less likely they'll be willing to pay the full amount.
Create bundles of product by putting similar items together for example, a collection of eBooks and online courses with similar guides.
Aid customers in the holiday shopping process by advertising your merchandise as gifts, offering gift certificates, or putting together the gifts guide.
Make it easy for shoppers to be enticed by freebies including printables, templates, and ebooks to make them more of their purchase.
Promote your holiday deals. Social media and email are two proven ways to spread the word regarding sales and promotions.
Hopefully, this post filled your tools with the techniques you need to offer great holiday deals without killing your bottom line. It doesn't matter if this is your first holiday season as an author or your 15th, I'm wishing you all the best for Cyber Weekend and beyond.