Five strategies to handle holiday promotions without killing your bottom line

Yes, small businesses can take part in Black Friday and Cyber Monday without losing any money. Discover how to organize promotional events during the holidays without affecting your earnings.

What's the very first thought that enters thoughts when you think of the phrase "Black Friday"?

If you're like me, you'll be confronted with lines that stretch for hours around the time of Thanksgiving huge crowds fighting for the least expensive televisions, as well as overwhelmed retail workers struggling to keep up (and maintain peace).

However, Black Friday -- and its online shopping counterpart, Cyber Monday -- has evolved over the past few years. People are now looking for deals from the comfort of their homes while "doorbusters" are now more symbolic, not necessarily literal.

for small-sized business owners as well as solopreneurs, the typical Black Friday and Cyber Monday price can appear absurd. Slash your prices to an affordable level and you may be marginally making money.

It doesn't mean the discount isn't accessible to smaller businesses. Just a of more imagination instead of relying on discounts which will be most substantial to increase the sales.

In this article we'll go over five ways to maximize the benefits from Black Friday and Cyber Monday holidays without ruining your profits.

Are creators entitled to be a part of Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

Answer: Yes.

The year 2020 saw Black Friday sales totaled $9 billion . The Cyber Monday sale was even more impressive with $10.8 billion, making the day the most popular day for online shopping ever in U.S. history.

That's a lot of power put into just two days.

The sales for the holiday season on e-commerce will likely to top a record amount which is estimated at $207 billion U.S. between November and 2021. This is a 10% increase over 2020 sales. And Cyber Weekend from November until Cyber Monday is the biggest holiday.

The popularity of shopping online has increased to become more part of the Cyber Weekend pie in recent years. In the year 2019, 93.2 million buyers bought something during Black Friday, and 83.3 million followed suit on Cyber Monday.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 disease, the amount of people shopping online is higher than ever before. In 2020, the e-commerce spending was $791.70 billion. This is an increase of 32.4 percent from the previous year.

People are always searching for deals online.

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Maximizing the benefit of Black Friday 2021 Get the best value from Black Friday with these dedicated instructions, tips and strategies for making this the greatest year to sell ever.

and creators selling digital goods including online courses digital products, and memberships advantage over those who sell physical products.

This is because you're selling a tangible product, meaning you don't have to worry about keeping sufficient stock, or making sure there isn't any delay within the supply chain.

Additionally, you can offer your customers immediate access to their purchase without the need to wait in long lines or waiting for their orders to arrive.

It is possible that you will not have coupons with 75% discounts or Buy-One-Get-One-Free promotions as large-box stores, but it is feasible for small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs as well and small firms to be a part of Cyber Weekend without breaking the financial budget. Read on for 5 tips to help you do that.

5 suggestions for Christmas promotions that will not hurt your business

#1: Offer discounts sparingly

Deep discounts are among the most popular aspects in Black Friday and Cyber Monday. What person wouldn't love discounts?

In fact, coupons are known to be scientifically proven to make customers content. The study conducted by Dr. Paul J. Zak  Professor of Neuroeconomics observed that individuals who were given a voucher for $10 saw a jump of 38% in the levels of oxytocin and were a fifth happier than people who received no coupon.

Smaller businesses are able to provide promo or coupon discounts during the Christmas season. To avoid damaging your profit margins be sure to implement it strategically and cautiously.

Another way is to offer only coupons to celebrate special occasions or to a limited number of people.

The constant discounts on your products can damage your image as a brand's worth . If you offer discounts year-round but people aren't able to pay the all the way up - They'll just wait until your next sale.

If you are only offering promotions each month, such as Reuven customers will be more likely to avail of these deals.

In the event that you make these promotions accessible only to a select group of customers or subscribers and customers, you can leverage the scarcity concept through FOMO (the worry of being left out).

FOMO is an efficient instrument

60% of people buy items because of FOMO.

90 percent of Americans believe they would prefer an exclusive deal to make them more likely to purchase a specific name.

48% believe that an offer of exclusivity would encourage them to buy earlier.

In the above example from Reuven the entrepreneur informs his clients "Hurry to get this deal that is accessible up to Cyber Monday." Customers have only just a few days to avail the 40 percent discount. This will make the discount more probable to take advantage of the discount.

There's absolutely no reason that you must to offer 40% off.

If margins for profit are low You can choose to offer smaller discounts, according to Mike Moloney  who is the co-founder of FilterGrade :

"If there's a couple of margins that aren't covered, I'd advise using a smaller discount of 10% to 20 percent. They are extremely effective at converting new customers."

The Rule of 100 says that for products that cost less than $100, customers tend to prefer seeing discounts as percentages. When it comes to items that exceed $100, consumers prefer to see the amount actually that they have saved.

Discounts and coupons are an excellent way to boost sales on big holiday sale days -- but they're certainly not your sole option. Another consideration is making the most of value, but without lowering costs.

#2: Bundle different products

Whoever believed that "less can be more" did not know what is worth the Cyber Weekend deals.

If you're not able to (or don't wish) to give discount coupons then product bundles offer an excellent opportunity to boost an element of worth and improve your average order price (AOV) without giving a discount.

Patrick Campbell, Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of ProfitWell  Explains:

"Price Bundling " is a method that allows firms to bundle multiple products or services into a bundle for a price. They are generally offered at lower prices than when they are purchased individually.

Although each product in the bundle can be purchased for a price that is discounted the strategy could boost your average earnings per user (ARPU) and user engagement."

When you're selling digital goods, it's less logical to hold a typical buy-one-get-1-one offer since it's selling an access point to something for example, an ebook or a membership. your purchasers just need to buy one time.

Justin employed's bundle feature to make available all his top content and classes to digital marketers at considerably less than the cost of every item individually.

This strategy not only boosted the sales but also assisted Justin bring in new clients :

Explore's bundling features and a lot more. Sign up here . (No need for a credit card!)

Overall, bundles are an excellent pricing method for promoting sales on the holiday season But what happens if you simply sell one or two products? We've got you and the lists of your customers' holiday purchasesto cover this guideline.

#3: Help shoppers with buying gifts

Cyber Weekend is the season that's most popular of the year for buying holiday gifts. In 2000, consumers invest an annual average of $311.75 on holiday purchases.

It's a good thing for creators (and your clients), online courses make wonderful gift ideas. The tech and shopping specialists on Mashable put an annual subscription to MasterClass as the top choice of online gifts:

Guides to gifts are a great way to help people check everyone off their holiday checklists. If you run a blog, create a gift guide like this entrepreneurs gift guide of the business experts at Wandering Aimfully.

If you are listing your own items in the gift guide, make sure you include additional recommendations. In other words, it's simply a promotional post that you can use.

Of course, there's the traditional gift-giving fallback -- gift cards. If you're selling products on the web, you can offer gift certificates to sell through your website like these examples taken from Soul Food Talks :

The giving of gifts doesn't need to stop at this point because Cyber Weekend is an excellent opportunity to give gifts to your customers, as well.

#4: Enhance the sweetness by offering a prize

Promotions are likely to influence the majority of Christmas customers as well as discounts on prices or free shipping. gift cards are considered to be among the best promotional opportunities.

Printables like worksheets and checklists offer great information for bonuses products since they help your clients to make more money from their purchases.

Marketing Showrunners did exactly that by offering the following gifts for free to students who signed up early for their Showrunners' Sessions class :

With the offer of an eBook in PDF format from co-founder Jay Acunzo, Marketing Showrunners gave value in exchange for encourage early enrollment.

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If it's a Black Friday promotion is a deal for a complimentary item as well as a discount or bundle of products There is no way for anyone to learn about the offer until you inform them. Which brings us to the end of the article - telling people about the sales you will be offering during the holiday season.

#5: Tell the world about your event

The best holiday promotion on the planet won't bring you any good if people aren't aware of it. If you're thinking about your sales for Christmas be sure to spread the word, and inform your customers of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.

A drip-campaign - or email sequence that leads towards Cyber Weekend can help build anticipation. Avoid sending out too many emails or slamming your followers.

It's likely that you've experienced it yourself, people get a ton of emails from brands in the days leading up to Black Friday. The marketers of e-commerce launched more marketing campaigns during the weeks leading up the day of Black Friday than any other day in the year 2018.

Constant Contact recommends sending three emails at least a week prior to the day the sale begins: "One that teases your sales, one that outlines an offer, and finally another that concludes by reminding you to complete it last minute."

What should include in your emails The following two suggestions are recommended:

Make sure to highlight your offer within your Subject line. Emails with percent-off discount offers within their subject lines achieve the average conversion rate of 18.1 percent  in comparison to 3.8 percent for subject lines that don't contain specific promotions.

create a sense the pressure. An experiment that was conducted by ConversionXL observed that the inclusion of an alarm clocksimilar to the one from DataCamp below led to an increase of 147% conversion rate.

In addition to email, social media could be an additional great way to communicate information about special events for the holiday season -- particularly when your target audience is younger. 60 percent of Gen Z and 55% of young people are able to find your products via social media.

Similar to the drip-mail method above, make use of the social media updates to generate excitement about the holiday sales you offer. As an example, travel writer Nele The Navigatio Navigatio built excitement for a new product and Black Friday sale with this tweet :

After a couple of days, Nele made it clear that her much-anticipated book was out:

One of the benefits that social media has is the user-generated data (UGC). All across industries, customers who browse UGC can be converted with a increase of 161% . Write testimonials for customers, members, and students customers to help advertise the Cyber Weekend deals.

In the event that all other options fail then you can use Black Friday as an excuse to upload a stunning image .

The bottom line is that if there is a Black Friday sale happens and no one is aware of the sale the sale isn't really happening. It's not enough to just offer the right kind of bargain- make sure that people who are interested in the deal know about the deal, too.

Profit from Black Friday and Cyber Monday

As never before, Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer a great possibility for entrepreneurs, people and smaller businesses who sell their products on the internet. Even with low margins of profits, it's possible to be a part of this year's holiday shopping season.

Here's the procedure:

Discounts must be given sparingly and carefully. More customers believe that discounts are readily available as well as discounts are offered, the less likely to pay full cost.

Create bundles of similar products for example, an assortment of books and online courses that include other materials.

Let customers help with your festive shopping goals by promoting your merchandise as gift ideas with gift cards or even putting together the gifts guide.

Offer shoppers freebies like templates, printables and ebooks -- to help buyers get more value out of buying.

Promote your holiday deals. The use of social media and emails are two tried-and-true marketing ways to spread the word about promos and sales.

I hope that this article has contributed to your toolbox with the strategies you'll need to provide your customers fantastic deals for the holiday season without hurting your profits. This doesn't matter if it is the first time that you've been a creator or fifteenth, I'm wishing all the best to you for Cyber Weekend and beyond.

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