Why the calmest brands will have the best Black Friday this year

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (00:00)
Hi and welcome to the Bright Minds of eCommerce Podcast. In case you've missed it, Black Friday is very quickly approaching. So let's get into it to make sure you're going to have the best Black Friday yet.

Hi, and welcome to the Bright Minds of eCommerce Podcast. I'm Dahna, founder of Bright Red Marketing, and I created this podcast because I wanted to bring you the best advice from Australian experts in eCommerce and eCommerce store owners. If you're wanting relatable stories and actionable advice, as well as the latest Facebook advertising strategies, you're in the right place. So let's get into today's episode.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (00:29)
Now, the most important question, and the one I always want to talk about when we are talking about Black Friday, is do you even want to go on sale? Yes, I said it. I know that Black Friday seems like this massive big time of year where everyone's going on sale and you have to go on sale, doom and gloom. It's very dramatic. But I do think there is something to be said for the brands who are not going on sale. Now, does that cause some complications? Does it make things slightly difficult? Sometimes. Does it mean that it's the right thing for your business? Also sometimes.

So before we even get into this episode, I really want you to think about whether going on sale for Black Friday is the right thing for you and your business. It can be a really amazing tool. I'm sure you've heard stories where people are like, Black Friday makes 30% of our income for the whole year, 60% of the income for our whole year. Black Friday is monumental for a lot of businesses. But that might not be what's best for your business. So first things first, do you even want to go on sale?

Now, if you don't want to go on sale, or even if you do, there are some options. You can just ignore it completely. Keep in mind, if you ignore it completely, you may see a downturn in sales because everyone is on sale. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing if you have consciously chosen that.

Some other things that can work really well are just surprises and some new things. So you can do things like a mystery box. You can do a limited drop. You can do a gift with purchase. There are so many things that you can do that are not going on sale. I've even seen people do donations or have a not sale sale. Don't really know what they were doing, but there are so many options. Don't think you have to go 70% off, massive big sale, and lose all this money just because everyone else is. So, first things first, are you going on sale?

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (02:20)
The biggest thing if you do decide to go on sale, or even if you go with some of the not sale options, is to know your margins. Now, I have been doing this for such a long time, and it is still wild to me how many business owners don't know the difference between your margins and your cost of goods. The cost of goods is just how much it costs you to get the goods purchased. Your margins is everything else. It's your accountant bill, it's your rent, it's your air conditioner bill, it's your software subscriptions. Know your margins.

Because what you don't want to do is put yourself in a position where you are profitable on cost of goods, but you are wildly losing money on everything else. So this is not a "how big of a discount can I do for the sake of doing a big discount?" This needs to be a strategic financial decision to go on sale.

On that note, profit is obviously a very important part here, but if you are clearing dead stock, we don't have to be so careful on that profit margin. There is something to be said for clearing dead stock for the sake of clearing dead stock rather than it just sitting on your shelf. So keep that in mind. It is an option that you can maybe be a little bit less profitable just to free up some cash flow.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (03:33)
Now, the big question everyone asks every year for Black Friday is when should my Black Friday sale start? Unfortunately, my crystal ball is in the shop. So is everyone else's.

Now, I have a theory. In previous years, you will have noticed that Black Friday sales have been going earlier and earlier and earlier, to the point where last year it felt like Black Friday month. We had some clients even go live in October. It was a very early Black Friday. My theory is that this year it's actually going to be much shorter and sweeter.

If you purchased anything for Black Friday last year, you may have felt like me, where you got really excited because Black Friday sales started, you bought the things on your wish list, and then the sale just kept getting better and better and better, and then their really good offer happened on Black Friday weekend. I know I'm not alone in feeling burnt and a little bit cheated by some of the Black Friday sales last year. So I do theorise that even for the brands that go live early with their Black Friday sales, it's going to be quieter. I think people are going to hold out a little bit longer this year. But again, crystal ball is in the shop. I may be right, I may be wrong, time will tell.

So I can't tell you when to go live with your Black Friday sale. I will say if you find that your customers like to be a little bit prepared, they like to be a little bit organised, you can go a little bit longer. If your clients wait for that last minute and they just want the bargain at the 11th hour, go a little bit shorter. If you genuinely think you're going to sell out of things, you can afford to go a bit longer. By the same token, you can go shorter. It depends how competitive your market is going to be. Unfortunately, no one can tell you how long this Black Friday sale period should go for you, but those are just some things to keep in mind.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (05:24)
Now, what I want you to do, if you're listening to this, is get your pen and paper out. Black Friday is on the 27th of November, I do believe. I need you to start working backwards from that deadline, like today.

You need to work out when your ads are going to go live. You need to work out when your emails and your email sequences are going to go live. But more importantly, you need to work out things like creative deadlines. Are you going to get influencers or UGC creators to make content specifically for Black Friday? Because that needs to start probably yesterday. Those things need to be recorded, those things need to be edited and approved.

You need to make sure you have enough stock. Again, that's probably a couple of months ago problem. But you need to make sure that you've got stock. You need to make sure that what you are promoting and offering, you've got enough of, and it will be here in time. We had a client a couple of years ago that had this massive Black Friday sale planned and stock didn't arrive in time. It was gut-wrenching.

So all of these things are things you want to make sure you have plans for and have coordinated backwards. If you know you want your ads to go live and you want to run them for two weeks, you probably need to have the content creators done and ready three weeks before that, so you've got time to get creative done. We're running out of time very, very quickly, which is why this episode's coming out when it is, because we need to get a move on. So really start mapping out that creative and that plan for when everything's going to go so that you know how to time that properly.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (06:50)
Now on the creative front, little top tip for you. One of our favourite things to do for Black Friday creative is take your previously best performing creative and slap a sticker on it. It's very basic. It tends to be one of the best performers of the whole thing. What you want to do is really just go, here's an ad that worked previously. Look, we're on sale now. It's very, very simple, but it works. So just keep that in mind.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (07:16)
Now, I cannot take credit for this idea. I did see it on someone else's podcast, and I do apologise, I don't remember what podcast it was. But in terms of all of that prep, something that I thought was really clever was a win your cart email drive for Black Friday. And I loved it so much because it works so well.

You're asking people to add items to their cart. They're physically shopping on your website. Psychologically, that gets them excited that they're going to buy the product. You can collect email addresses, and then when you go, "I'm so sorry you didn't win, surprise, there's a sale, surprise, all these things are already in your cart," it's very easy for people to purchase. I think it's genius. If I can find out who the original idea was from, I will tag them in the show notes or our socials. And if you remember who that was from, please let me know and I will tag them, because it's an absolutely genius idea.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (08:05)
The other thing that you need to work out now is your budgets. Now, I'm happy if you want to go, "My budget is roughly this, and we'll see how it goes," but I need you to work out some guidelines and parameters now. There's nothing worse than being in the crux of it and in the chaos of Black Friday, going, "I'm just going to spend more," and then you get to the end and you're like, "Really didn't think that through."

So get a good idea of what you want your budgets to be now. Know that they can change. These things are flexible, right? You're the business owner. You can make changes as you go, but it's good to get some things in writing and planned and prepped now so that when the chaos hits, you're not scrambling.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (08:42)
Now, Black Friday creative. This is probably where most people will make or break their Black Friday. Please do not run black, solid tiles that say the words Black Friday with some sale numbers on them. People's feeds are absolutely full of Black Friday sales, 50 to 70% off. Yay! No one cares, and no one really knows who you are.

Think about your feed at that time of year. People have a wish list of things that they're already wanting to buy, which is why that win your cart works really well. They go, I want some new sheets this year, I need a new vacuum cleaner, I'm going to go buy some presents for the kids at Christmas. People have an idea of what they want.

So your Black Friday creative needs to be very clear about the discount that people are going to get, and don't be ridiculous about it. If you've got one thing for 70% off, that doesn't count as up to 70% off, especially if everything else is 20% off. Be realistic about your discounts and make sure that they are legitimate. There are also really harsh fines in this country for being misleading about that. So be careful.

But make sure that you're really clear on the discount that's offered and what your product is. At Black Friday, your ads are going to more people than ever who may or may not know who you are. It needs to be very obvious what you sell. Don't be vague about it. What do you do? How much is the sale? That should be enough to get people excited. If you need to be doing brand awareness, you've left it too late. We want people that are ready and know who you are to buy, but they need to be able to instantly recognise you.

On that note, make sure you have a variety of creative. We love dynamic ads, we love carousel ads, we like video ads, we like static ads. Have them all ready. It is surprising how often what you think is going to work best is not the thing that works best, and the thing that you were like, "I'll just throw that in to see if it works," is actually the winner. So give yourself the best chance of success. Have a wide variety of creative.

And as I mentioned before, take your best performing creative from before and slap a sale sticker on it. It usually does a really good job. I really don't recommend changing everything to be Black Friday heavy. Again, no making everything black and changing your vibe. We want people to be recognising you. We don't want you to blend into the blur of everyone's on sale.

Lots and lots of things to do, lots of prep, which is why we're getting prepped early. And I will say, don't rush your creative. We're getting organised now so that we can be very calm and have time to make sure that everything is beautiful. It is very easy to change a percentage at the 11th hour. It's very, very hard to redo all of your creative at the 11th hour. So if you're not set on exactly what that percentage is going to be right at this second, still get your creative prepped.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (11:25)
The next thing I would do is maximise your email list. You will have heard a million people talk about how expensive the auction gets for Black Friday. It is true to a point. It's not as true as I think everyone makes it out to be. It's not as doom and gloom, it's not as horrendous. So keep that in mind. It's not that sort of bloodbath that everyone hypes it up to be. But if you can have more people in your email list, if your email list can be more profitable, if you can grow that in the weeks or months leading up to it, that is always a good thing.

Now, you want to make sure that you are getting people invested. You want them to be familiar with the brand and you want them to know what they want to buy, which is why that win your cart works so well, I think. So what can you do with your emails and your lead gen campaigns now that's going to get people excited and know that they want to buy something from you in the sale? That's a really good one to mull over.

And you want to make sure that your custom flows work. Make sure they're set up, make sure they're doing their job, make sure they are appropriately building that relationship with your potential customers.

And finally, on emails, segment like your life depends on it. Please do not send out an email to someone who just spent $200 on a product to tell them two days later that now it's $150. Can you tell I'm still upset from last year? Segment like your life depends on it, pretty please. Your brand's loyalty depends on it.

There is something to be said for, cool, they bought something at the start of the sale, now we have a different promo, maybe they want to buy something else. But if you've literally changed the discount on one product from being here to now it's here, and someone bought your product, don't tell them that you've made the price cheaper. That's just mean. We're not going to be mean. So those are my thoughts. I'm not jaded and hurt by this at all.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (13:14)
Now, from an operations standpoint, obviously this is a marketing podcast, but I will just touch on a couple of things. Make sure that your staff are prepped for an influx of orders if you have staff that are packing orders. Do not make your staff stressed that there is going to be an influx of orders. It's Black Friday. People are prepared for, expecting and used to there being delays in shipping. The best thing that you can do is just prepare people.

A good example is LSKD. They start their Black Friday sale, it goes nuts. If I bought a pair of leggings today, I would probably get a postage notification from them in the next day or two. They're very quick. Black Friday, all bets are off. You'll get it when you get it. People are very used to "it's Black Friday, it's going to take a bit longer."

If you are worried, update your emails: "We're a small team." Take a cute photo of your staff, make it a moment. People understand. It's not something that you need to put yourself under insane pressure to fix. If it becomes unmanageable, communicate with people. Again, this is one of those times of year where people are expecting it. So don't stress yourself out about it. Be prepared, know what your limits are, make sure you communicate with people. It is fine.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (14:24)
Now, the thing I want you to do, especially with all of this from a more business-overarching perspective, is keep these four questions handy. Stick them on a Post-it note if you need to.

Are we actually profitable? And I mean after discount and after your ad spend. Do you have enough stock? If you're halfway through the sale and you're running out of stock, we need to know about that. Is your marketing performing from a dollar value perspective? Are we actually seeing the money come in and the money go out in a way that is profitable for you? And then, do we need to make any pivots?

If you can keep those four questions front of mind through the Black Friday craziness, you will put yourself in a significantly better position than most brands. Most brands kind of just go, here's Black Friday, hope for the best, and probably have a couple of panic attacks along the way. I don't want that for you.

So print out those questions, write them on a Post-it note, copy and paste them. We'll probably have a social media post about this and you can grab the little graphic that's got those four questions on it. Whatever you need to do, those are your questions for Black Friday. Make sure that you know where you're at, where you stand, and what you need to do so that you can have the best Black Friday and not be stressed. No one wants to be stressed.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (15:36)
Now, I will say this is going to stress some people out, and I do apologise, but it's in your best interests. I need you to think about what you're going to do after Black Friday. Yes, I know that Black Friday is a massive thing to organise, but I need you to think about the week after Black Friday, because I see so many brands get to Cyber Monday, and then they get to the day after, and then it gets to Wednesday, and they're like, "Sales have dropped off. I wonder why."

Most of the country has spent all of their disposable income on sales. That's why. Very few people have disposable income for the next week or two, or up to eight weeks if they Afterpaid it all. So keep in mind that after Black Friday it's going to get really quiet.

What I want you to do right now is think about what you want to do in that time. You can go have a nap. Very acceptable answer. You can continue packing orders, also acceptable. You can do something more exciting to drive sales. You can drop a new product, you can do a mystery bundle, you can do so many things that are a little bit more exciting to get some sales through. But you have to remember that post-Black Friday, very few people have disposable income. Most people have done their shopping for a bit.

So if you are going to not do anything post-Black Friday, I'm all for it. I just need you to be prepared for the fact that things are going to get quiet, and be okay with that. You should have made enough money in Black Friday that you can afford a quiet week or two. Having a sleep for seven days to recover is an entirely valid plan, as long as you are prepared for the slump that follows and you're okay with that.

If that's not okay for you, you need to have something ready to go for after Black Friday. We need a new product launch. We need a product spotlight. We need a mystery drop. We need something to get the people that maybe weren't convinced just because it was on sale to buy something. We need a different lever.

So do that. But I need you to decide that now, not when it gets to Wednesday and you're stressing that everything's gone quiet. It's going to get quiet. I'm telling you that now. Make sure you've got a plan for post-Black Friday to really make the most of that.

Dahna Borg – Bright Red Marketing (17:35)
So the best brands, and the ones that are going to have the best time for Black Friday, are the ones that are prepping and planning now. They're not necessarily the ones that are spending the most. They are the ones who planned everything, stayed calm, had good systems, and made good, clear, logical decisions as they went.

So hopefully this has been helpful. You've got this. I believe in you. And I hope everyone gets a good bargain over Black Friday. I know I have a wish list, so hopefully we get some good shopping deals along the way.

Thank you for listening to the Bright Minds of eCommerce Podcast. As always, you can find the show notes on our website at brightredmarketing.com.au. Just look for the podcast page. Thanks for listening.