September 12, 2024 • 20 mins
In Week 10 of our Prep for the Holidays series we're talking about planning and preparing your holiday promotions now, to reduce stress later! There's lots of actionable tips to plan all your holiday promotions - including Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Boxing Day - well in advance. I'll also share some tips on how to craft deals that not only capture attention but also ensure you remain profitable during the busiest time of the year. And why it's important to value your work - you don't HAVE to run promotions!
Whether you're selling products or creating content, this episode is packed with invaluable insights to ensure your holiday season is both smooth and profitable.
This episode is brought to you by our Premium Subscriber Community on Patreon and Buzzsprout
You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram @finelimedesigns.
You can connect with the podcast on:
- Instagram at @andshelookedup
- YouTube
- Tik Tok at @AndSheLookedUp
For a list of all available episodes, please visit:
And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast
Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to episode number 10 in
our Prep for the Holidaysmini-sode series.
So, yes, we're going to becontinuing this series right
through the regular season and,if you missed it, our season
opener was back on Monday, soepisode 169 with me and Heather,
and we had a great chat aboutcreative processes and how to
(00:26):
create your own creative processor recreate your creative
process, so it was a lot of funto record.
I hope you all enjoyed it.
If you haven't listened to it,you can go back and listen to it
on your favorite podcast app oryou can watch the episode on
YouTube.
But we're still going to bedoing the mini sewed series
right through until pretty closeto the end of the holiday
(00:46):
selling season, and this weekwe're going to be talking about
prepping your promotions for Q4of this year.
So, as we all know, q4 is superbusy.
It is when we are making, it iswhen we are selling, it is when
we are packing and shipping anddoing all of that very active
(01:07):
work, and so sometimes we tendto forget not sometimes, I think
most of us tend to forget justhow fast time passes when we get
to Q4.
You've probably already lookedat your calendar If you listened
to last week's episode, you'veprobably planned backwards, as
we were talking about, and youalready know how most of your
(01:29):
weekends between now and the endof the year are going to be
spent.
So, whether it's kidsactivities or the markets that
you're doing, or who knows,you've probably got a lot going
on.
It's just that time of yearwhere we are in a state of
constant busyness.
So one thing that you can do totake a little bit of weight off
(01:51):
your shoulders now in September, so that you're a little more
freed up in October, novemberand December, is to start
planning your holiday promotions.
So we are talking about, ofcourse, the big ones like Black
Friday, cyber Monday, boxing DayIf you're Canadian, you
probably do Boxing Day, and Iknow most of us are but also any
(02:18):
other promotions that you mightwant to do in between those big
sales.
So things leading up to theholidays, early birds,
pre-orders, all of that kind ofthing.
Now is the time to startplanning them, set the dates
that you want to run them,figure out what kind of offer
you're going to be making duringthose different promotion
periods and start prepping yoursocial media graphics, your
(02:38):
email newsletters.
You can do all of that now andschedule it so that when the
time comes, it goes out and youcan carry on with what you need
to do, which is going to beselling, packing and shipping.
So let's talk a little bit aboutpromotions.
So, obviously, the big one thatwe all get very excited about
is Black Friday, cyber Monday,and I am just going to call it
(03:03):
Black Friday for ease of talking.
But yeah, let's talk aboutBlack Friday because I think one
of the things that we tend toforget when we are selling for
Black Friday is how we like toshop on Black Friday.
So, if we're really honest withourselves, when we're shopping
on Black Friday, we are lookingfor deals and not just little
(03:26):
deals.
We are looking for good deals.
We are looking for the bigdiscounts.
We are looking for the reallygreat buy one, get ones.
We're looking for good dealsand I think when we're selling,
we forget that and we realizehow much those good deals can
cost us, and so we're a lot morereluctant to go with the big
(03:49):
discounts and we settle for the10 or 15 or maybe 25% off.
And I'm going to be reallyhonest with you.
I spent years in retail.
I have done many boxing days, afew few Black Fridays.
Black Friday was just startingto become a thing in Canada when
I left retail, but those arenot the deals that people are
(04:11):
looking for.
They are looking for the gooddeals.
They're looking for the 40 off,50 off, and so you need to
start strategizing how you'regoing to manage this.
One of the things to rememberwith Black Friday is that people
are inundated with messagingfrom businesses like inundated.
You know what your inbox lookslike the week of Black Friday it
is bananas.
(04:32):
You're getting five or sixemails during that period maybe
a lot more than that, actually,if we're really honest, from
every single email list you haveever signed up for, you may not
hear from them the entire year,but suddenly Black Friday shows
up and you're getting inundatedwith emails from these
companies that you haven't heardfrom in months.
(04:53):
So you really need to stand outfrom that noise.
It is so much noise and this isone of the things that I have
heard over and over again thelast couple of years is that the
deals weren't very good thisyear and we're in a bit of a
rough economy at the moment, sopeople are even more likely to
be looking for those good deals.
(05:16):
But can you afford to sell yourproducts for 40, 50% off?
You probably can't.
Or if you can, you're going tobe making virtually no profit.
So, especially if you haven'tpriced your products for
wholesale, you won't have anycushion in there to do that kind
of sale.
So how do we deal with that?
(05:37):
There's a few differentstrategies and these are things
that I learned from my retaildays that are very effective and
that work really well and allowyou to give those really deep
discounts.
First up is clearing outinventory.
So if you have a few designs oritems that have been hanging
around and it's time to get ridof them you know you're probably
(06:00):
not going to make them or offerthem again this is a great time
to run some deep discounts onthem.
It's costing you money to havethem taking up space in your
studio, in your bricks andmortar shop, in your house.
So let's clear them out.
And this is where you can offerthose deep discounts 40-50% off
on these items that you justwant to go out the door because
(06:23):
you don't want to carry themanymore.
So this could be a style ofearring that you're no longer
going to make.
This could be some oldillustrations or artwork that is
just not your style anymore orthat you know hasn't been
selling as well and you've beenthinking it's time to probably
retire it.
This is a great time to do that.
This is when people are lookingfor those deals, so give them
those deals in a way that isn'tgoing to affect your bottom line
(06:46):
as deeply.
Another thing that we did inbricks and mortar retail and
this is very popular is webrought product in specifically
for Boxing Day or Black Friday.
So this was items that we gotat a very low, low cost but were
able to sell at a very highmargin and still be
(07:09):
competitively priced.
So we're not talking aboutbuying something and then
jacking up the price to someridiculous amount that nobody's
ever going to pay and thendiscounting it.
Regular retail price was verycompetitive with other items in
that niche, but, for whateverreason, we were able to get a
deal on it, and there's so manyreasons you might have been able
to get a deal.
(07:31):
Maybe the wholesaler isclearing it out or that company
is getting rid of it, and sothey're willing to offer it at a
very low cost.
So think about what there isthat you could offer, that you
could make at a very low costbut still sell at the regular
retail.
At a regular retail that isvery competitive and that you
(07:55):
have a lot of room to run a deepdiscount.
Is there anything that youcould make?
And one of the things that I dofor this is I look into my
closet, which is over there,where I keep all my raw
materials so cardstock, all thetypes of things that I use for
making and I go through and Ifind the stuff that kind of I
(08:17):
haven't used, or I bought it fora project and it just didn't
work the way I wanted to, and Ilook at ways I can repurpose it
and odds are pretty good.
You bought that stuff when itwas a lot cheaper than it would
cost to buy it now.
So you have a lot more leewayin the margin that you're able
to create.
And so when it comes to BoxingDay or Black Friday or even your
(08:39):
market tables, you can offerthose at a really great discount
and still make some money offthem, and people feel like
they're getting a great deal,and they are getting a great
deal because you were able tomake it very cost effectively
and there you have it.
So that is another strategythat you can try.
If you are a digital seller, ifyou make digital designs or
(09:01):
digital products or you selleBooks, bundling is a great way
to offer a good discount forthose big Black Friday, boxing
Day sales.
So if you make digital content,your time and energy the cost
of making those products happensat the very beginning.
(09:22):
Once the product is made,you're selling it on repeat and
there is really no cost attachedin the same way that there is
to a physical product.
So in those instances, you caneasily offer deep discounts and
you're still making money andyou can bundle items together
and give people an even betterdeal, and there's people who
(09:42):
wait for bundles for Boxing Dayand Black Friday, so that's a
really great option as well.
I work with a lot of ebookclients.
That's one of the things that Ido is design recipe ebooks, and
most of my clients will offersome kind of bundle deal for the
Black Friday weekend or forBoxing Day, so that's another
(10:04):
option.
Bundling for physical productsis also something you can do.
You can give a deeper discountwhen people buy in bulk or when
you bundle, and bundling is alsoa great way to up your average
order value.
Just throughout the year.
You can sell bundles at regularprice and people will often buy
those over an individual item,and we're going to be doing an
(10:25):
episode a regular season episodeon increasing your average
order value a regular seasonepisode on increasing your
average order value.
Probably, I think it's going tobe airing next week or the week
after, whenever the nextepisode is, and I'm going to be
talking a lot about bundling inthat episode for more
information on that.
But bundling is a great way toincrease perceived value.
(10:46):
It's not just perceived value,it's real value.
You're giving them more stuffand you're giving it to them at
a lower price than it would costthem to buy all those items
individually.
So that's also a great strategyfor Black Friday or Cyber
Monday.
Now, when it comes to promotions, you don't have to do Black
Friday or Cyber Monday or BoxingDay or those big ones as I
(11:07):
mentioned.
Those big ones, as I mentioned,customers, consumers, are
inundated with messaging aroundthose particular promotion days
and it is totally okay if youwant to skip them.
You can skip them and run apromotion at a different point
in time when people aren'texpecting it.
That is a okay and may in manyways, be a better business
(11:30):
decision for you because you mayget seen more, because you're
not battling to be heard againstall these other brands.
Your customers may be morereceptive to it and you may not
have to offer as big a discountto have to make the sales.
So you might be able to runthose 20, 25% off discounts and
(11:53):
do really well with them.
And that's another option thatyou can do too.
So the strategy that I use forBoxing Day or for Black Friday I
don't really do much for BoxingDay but for Black Friday is I
do a sale.
It's not a great sale, it'susually about 25% off, so it's
not like a huge sale.
But what I do is I do a muchbetter sale the week before
(12:16):
Black Friday and it's onlyavailable to customers on my
email list and I advertise it assuch.
It's a great way to get emailsubscribers or people who've
been on the fence aboutsubscribing for your email list.
They'll sign up because theywant the deal and they usually
stay.
Very few of them ever leave andthen I wind up making pretty
(12:38):
good sale.
I price for wholesale, so 30%is a very manageable sale for me
, but it's still a good discountand those customers get that.
And then I do a 20 or a 25% offsale for Boxing Day or Black
Friday.
I am getting these all mixed up, but you know what I mean and
it's less chaotic.
(12:59):
My messaging gets heard, peopleare waiting for it, they're
expecting it, and now I've beendoing this for several years now
and my regular diehardcustomers know it and expect it
and are waiting for it, and soit sparked loyalty as well.
So you don't have to do yourpromotions during that frenetic
(13:22):
period.
You can spread them out.
You can offer them at differenttimes.
There's different types ofpromotions you can do.
Another one that's very popularis doing like 12 days of deals,
where you'll offer a deal on aspecific, one specific product
on day one.
It'll be a deal on a differentproduct on day two.
Day three might be a bundle.
You don't have to do 12 days.
(13:43):
You could do five days, youcould do seven days, whatever
works for you.
This is also a really greatstrategy for content creators,
because if you're a contentcreator, you don't have an item
to sell.
You're making your money thistime of year from traffic and so
doing something like a 12 daysof cookies recipes or 12 days of
holiday appetizer recipes, andyou send emails out to your list
(14:07):
each day during that 12-dayperiod with a different cookie
recipe or a different appetizerrecipe, and it results in more
clicks.
So you're getting thatincreased traffic.
You're getting that increasedtraffic at the point of time in
the year where your ad revenue,your CPMs and your RPMs are at
their highest, so that trafficis worth even more money.
(14:28):
So that's something that youcan also do.
So there's a lot of differentways that you can promote your
items.
You don't need to runpromotions every single week
between now and the holidays.
I just want to remind you allthat the vast majority of you
here are making things by hand.
You're artists and artisans,you're makers, you're crafters.
You're creating digital contentfrom your knowledge, and that
(14:54):
should come with a price.
You don't want to cheapen whatit is that you offer.
You are not Walmart, you arenot Target.
You are an artisan, and so youdon't want to train your
customers to always be lookingfor a sale or for a deal.
Obviously, you have revenuegoals that you want to hit, and
(15:15):
if you feel that offering a dealmight help you hit that revenue
goal, that's totally up to you.
But just remember, don'tdevalue your work.
You don't need to offer apromotion every week.
There are people out there whoare more than willing to buy
your items at full price.
I have even had customers whohave told me they do not shop my
Black Friday sale because theythink I deserve to be paid full
(15:37):
price for the artwork that Icreate.
So there are people out therewho want to pay you what you are
worth.
Don't devalue what it is thatyou create and don't devalue
your knowledge and what it isthat you have to offer.
So I just want to give you allthat little reminder lesson.
Now the next step once you'veset the promotions that you want
(16:00):
to do and you want to make itmanageable because, remember,
you have all that selling,packing and shipping and market
days that you have to deal with.
So you want to make yourpromotions manageable so that
you can actually get things outon time and fulfill the orders
and you'll have enough productto fill the orders, because you
have to do the making too.
So once you've set yourpromotions, the, you have to do
the making too.
So, once you've set yourpromotions, the next step to do
(16:21):
and I really strongly recommendyou do it in September, before
things get really nutty iscreate your social media
graphics, create all yourpromotional materials for those
promotions.
So, whatever that's going to be, for most of us it's social
media graphics.
It might also be signs for yourmarkets if you're going to
offer a promotion at market.
So, however, you're going to doyour signs for your markets and
(16:46):
you get all of that ready andthen you go into your meta
dashboard and you schedule those.
You schedule them to Facebook.
You schedule them to Instagram.
I don't know about schedulingfor TikTok.
Can you schedule to TikTok?
I'm on TikTok, but I don't knowabout scheduling for TikTok.
Can you schedule to TikTok?
I'm on TikTok, but I don't everschedule anything.
(17:07):
So can you schedule to TikTok?
Create your reels and yourvideos and all the things that
you're going to need.
Have yourself a little bucketof promotional assets, get them
all prepped and then startcreating the posts and the
content and schedule all thatcontent before the end of the
month.
It will be a huge weight offyour shoulder to know that that
content is going to be going outwhen it needs to go out.
(17:27):
The worst thing is to rememberthat you're doing a Black Friday
sale and you've forgotten toget.
You're scrambling at the lastminute to get your content ready
to go out, because you just gotoverwhelmed with market stuff
and packing and shipping.
So get that all done inSeptember.
Get it all done in the nextweek or two.
Once you've decided what you'regoing to promote, it's not a
(17:48):
big deal to create the graphicsor get some help somebody to
help you with the graphics.
The next step is to write youremails.
So just remember when you'repromoting things, you have to
let people know that you have apromotion.
They don't just magically know.
So you've got to write youremail campaigns.
You're going to want to letthem know that you have a sale
coming.
You're going to want to remindthem when the sale starts.
You're going to want to remindthem before the sale ends.
(18:11):
So think about all the emailsthat you need to write for each
promotion.
Get them written.
Make sure in your emails thatyou let them know very clearly
when your ship deadlines are,and if you did the task last
week in episode nine, then youhave already worked out what
your shipping deadlines are,because you want to make sure
people are very aware.
Any opportunity you have toremind people when shipping
(18:33):
deadlines are, use it, and emailis one of those opportunities.
So make sure it's in everysingle email that goes out
between now and whenever yourshipping deadline is.
So get those emails all written.
Most email platforms, if you arepaying for them, will give you
a scheduling tool so that youcan schedule those.
If you're using a freezerversion, you may not have
(18:53):
scheduling options.
If that's the case, go intoyour calendar right now and put
a task or a reminder or whateveryou need to do of when those
emails need to go out.
Again, you're going to workbackwards a little bit, just
like we did last week.
But once you do all of this andyou get it all done, you can
easily have all of this donebefore the end of September, and
it will be a huge weight offyour shoulders.
(19:14):
And then all your promotionswill run like clockwork and your
job will be to handle customerservice and do all the shipping
and packing and making tofulfill those orders.
So that is it for this week.
I hope you found this episodehelpful and we'll be back next
(19:36):
week with another brand new prepfor the holidays episode.
And we'll be back next weekwith another brand new Prep for
the Holidays episode and we'llbe back the week after that with
a new episode for season six ofthe podcast and, as I mentioned
, we're gonna be talking aboutaverage order values in that
episode and if you didn't listento the season opener, you can
go back and find us in yourfavorite podcast app or I'll put
a link to the episode in theYouTube show notes as well.
(19:57):
That's it for today.
Thanks for joining me.
Hello everyone and welcome to episode number 10 in
our Prep for the Holidaysmini-sode series.
So, yes, we're going to becontinuing this series right
through the regular season and,if you missed it, our season
opener was back on Monday, soepisode 169 with me and Heather,
and we had a great chat aboutcreative processes and how to
(00:26):
create your own creative processor recreate your creative
process, so it was a lot of funto record.
I hope you all enjoyed it.
If you haven't listened to it,you can go back and listen to it
on your favorite podcast app oryou can watch the episode on
YouTube.
But we're still going to bedoing the mini sewed series
right through until pretty closeto the end of the holiday
(00:46):
selling season, and this weekwe're going to be talking about
prepping your promotions for Q4of this year.
So, as we all know, q4 is superbusy.
It is when we are making, it iswhen we are selling, it is when
we are packing and shipping anddoing all of that very active
(01:07):
work, and so sometimes we tendto forget not sometimes, I think
most of us tend to forget justhow fast time passes when we get
to Q4.
You've probably already lookedat your calendar If you listened
to last week's episode, you'veprobably planned backwards, as
we were talking about, and youalready know how most of your
(01:29):
weekends between now and the endof the year are going to be
spent.
So, whether it's kidsactivities or the markets that
you're doing, or who knows,you've probably got a lot going
on.
It's just that time of yearwhere we are in a state of
constant busyness.
So one thing that you can do totake a little bit of weight off
(01:51):
your shoulders now in September, so that you're a little more
freed up in October, novemberand December, is to start
planning your holiday promotions.
So we are talking about, ofcourse, the big ones like Black
Friday, cyber Monday, boxing DayIf you're Canadian, you
probably do Boxing Day, and Iknow most of us are but also any
(02:18):
other promotions that you mightwant to do in between those big
sales.
So things leading up to theholidays, early birds,
pre-orders, all of that kind ofthing.
Now is the time to startplanning them, set the dates
that you want to run them,figure out what kind of offer
you're going to be making duringthose different promotion
periods and start prepping yoursocial media graphics, your
(02:38):
email newsletters.
You can do all of that now andschedule it so that when the
time comes, it goes out and youcan carry on with what you need
to do, which is going to beselling, packing and shipping.
So let's talk a little bit aboutpromotions.
So, obviously, the big one thatwe all get very excited about
is Black Friday, cyber Monday,and I am just going to call it
(03:03):
Black Friday for ease of talking.
But yeah, let's talk aboutBlack Friday because I think one
of the things that we tend toforget when we are selling for
Black Friday is how we like toshop on Black Friday.
So, if we're really honest withourselves, when we're shopping
on Black Friday, we are lookingfor deals and not just little
(03:26):
deals.
We are looking for good deals.
We are looking for the bigdiscounts.
We are looking for the reallygreat buy one, get ones.
We're looking for good dealsand I think when we're selling,
we forget that and we realizehow much those good deals can
cost us, and so we're a lot morereluctant to go with the big
(03:49):
discounts and we settle for the10 or 15 or maybe 25% off.
And I'm going to be reallyhonest with you.
I spent years in retail.
I have done many boxing days, afew few Black Fridays.
Black Friday was just startingto become a thing in Canada when
I left retail, but those arenot the deals that people are
(04:11):
looking for.
They are looking for the gooddeals.
They're looking for the 40 off,50 off, and so you need to
start strategizing how you'regoing to manage this.
One of the things to rememberwith Black Friday is that people
are inundated with messagingfrom businesses like inundated.
You know what your inbox lookslike the week of Black Friday it
is bananas.
(04:32):
You're getting five or sixemails during that period maybe
a lot more than that, actually,if we're really honest, from
every single email list you haveever signed up for, you may not
hear from them the entire year,but suddenly Black Friday shows
up and you're getting inundatedwith emails from these
companies that you haven't heardfrom in months.
(04:53):
So you really need to stand outfrom that noise.
It is so much noise and this isone of the things that I have
heard over and over again thelast couple of years is that the
deals weren't very good thisyear and we're in a bit of a
rough economy at the moment, sopeople are even more likely to
be looking for those good deals.
(05:16):
But can you afford to sell yourproducts for 40, 50% off?
You probably can't.
Or if you can, you're going tobe making virtually no profit.
So, especially if you haven'tpriced your products for
wholesale, you won't have anycushion in there to do that kind
of sale.
So how do we deal with that?
(05:37):
There's a few differentstrategies and these are things
that I learned from my retaildays that are very effective and
that work really well and allowyou to give those really deep
discounts.
First up is clearing outinventory.
So if you have a few designs oritems that have been hanging
around and it's time to get ridof them you know you're probably
(06:00):
not going to make them or offerthem again this is a great time
to run some deep discounts onthem.
It's costing you money to havethem taking up space in your
studio, in your bricks andmortar shop, in your house.
So let's clear them out.
And this is where you can offerthose deep discounts 40-50% off
on these items that you justwant to go out the door because
(06:23):
you don't want to carry themanymore.
So this could be a style ofearring that you're no longer
going to make.
This could be some oldillustrations or artwork that is
just not your style anymore orthat you know hasn't been
selling as well and you've beenthinking it's time to probably
retire it.
This is a great time to do that.
This is when people are lookingfor those deals, so give them
those deals in a way that isn'tgoing to affect your bottom line
(06:46):
as deeply.
Another thing that we did inbricks and mortar retail and
this is very popular is webrought product in specifically
for Boxing Day or Black Friday.
So this was items that we gotat a very low, low cost but were
able to sell at a very highmargin and still be
(07:09):
competitively priced.
So we're not talking aboutbuying something and then
jacking up the price to someridiculous amount that nobody's
ever going to pay and thendiscounting it.
Regular retail price was verycompetitive with other items in
that niche, but, for whateverreason, we were able to get a
deal on it, and there's so manyreasons you might have been able
to get a deal.
(07:31):
Maybe the wholesaler isclearing it out or that company
is getting rid of it, and sothey're willing to offer it at a
very low cost.
So think about what there isthat you could offer, that you
could make at a very low costbut still sell at the regular
retail.
At a regular retail that isvery competitive and that you
(07:55):
have a lot of room to run a deepdiscount.
Is there anything that youcould make?
And one of the things that I dofor this is I look into my
closet, which is over there,where I keep all my raw
materials so cardstock, all thetypes of things that I use for
making and I go through and Ifind the stuff that kind of I
(08:17):
haven't used, or I bought it fora project and it just didn't
work the way I wanted to, and Ilook at ways I can repurpose it
and odds are pretty good.
You bought that stuff when itwas a lot cheaper than it would
cost to buy it now.
So you have a lot more leewayin the margin that you're able
to create.
And so when it comes to BoxingDay or Black Friday or even your
(08:39):
market tables, you can offerthose at a really great discount
and still make some money offthem, and people feel like
they're getting a great deal,and they are getting a great
deal because you were able tomake it very cost effectively
and there you have it.
So that is another strategythat you can try.
If you are a digital seller, ifyou make digital designs or
(09:01):
digital products or you selleBooks, bundling is a great way
to offer a good discount forthose big Black Friday, boxing
Day sales.
So if you make digital content,your time and energy the cost
of making those products happensat the very beginning.
(09:22):
Once the product is made,you're selling it on repeat and
there is really no cost attachedin the same way that there is
to a physical product.
So in those instances, you caneasily offer deep discounts and
you're still making money andyou can bundle items together
and give people an even betterdeal, and there's people who
(09:42):
wait for bundles for Boxing Dayand Black Friday, so that's a
really great option as well.
I work with a lot of ebookclients.
That's one of the things that Ido is design recipe ebooks, and
most of my clients will offersome kind of bundle deal for the
Black Friday weekend or forBoxing Day, so that's another
(10:04):
option.
Bundling for physical productsis also something you can do.
You can give a deeper discountwhen people buy in bulk or when
you bundle, and bundling is alsoa great way to up your average
order value.
Just throughout the year.
You can sell bundles at regularprice and people will often buy
those over an individual item,and we're going to be doing an
(10:25):
episode a regular season episodeon increasing your average
order value a regular seasonepisode on increasing your
average order value.
Probably, I think it's going tobe airing next week or the week
after, whenever the nextepisode is, and I'm going to be
talking a lot about bundling inthat episode for more
information on that.
But bundling is a great way toincrease perceived value.
(10:46):
It's not just perceived value,it's real value.
You're giving them more stuffand you're giving it to them at
a lower price than it would costthem to buy all those items
individually.
So that's also a great strategyfor Black Friday or Cyber
Monday.
Now, when it comes to promotions, you don't have to do Black
Friday or Cyber Monday or BoxingDay or those big ones as I
(11:07):
mentioned.
Those big ones, as I mentioned,customers, consumers, are
inundated with messaging aroundthose particular promotion days
and it is totally okay if youwant to skip them.
You can skip them and run apromotion at a different point
in time when people aren'texpecting it.
That is a okay and may in manyways, be a better business
(11:30):
decision for you because you mayget seen more, because you're
not battling to be heard againstall these other brands.
Your customers may be morereceptive to it and you may not
have to offer as big a discountto have to make the sales.
So you might be able to runthose 20, 25% off discounts and
(11:53):
do really well with them.
And that's another option thatyou can do too.
So the strategy that I use forBoxing Day or for Black Friday I
don't really do much for BoxingDay but for Black Friday is I
do a sale.
It's not a great sale, it'susually about 25% off, so it's
not like a huge sale.
But what I do is I do a muchbetter sale the week before
(12:16):
Black Friday and it's onlyavailable to customers on my
email list and I advertise it assuch.
It's a great way to get emailsubscribers or people who've
been on the fence aboutsubscribing for your email list.
They'll sign up because theywant the deal and they usually
stay.
Very few of them ever leave andthen I wind up making pretty
(12:38):
good sale.
I price for wholesale, so 30%is a very manageable sale for me
, but it's still a good discountand those customers get that.
And then I do a 20 or a 25% offsale for Boxing Day or Black
Friday.
I am getting these all mixed up, but you know what I mean and
it's less chaotic.
(12:59):
My messaging gets heard, peopleare waiting for it, they're
expecting it, and now I've beendoing this for several years now
and my regular diehardcustomers know it and expect it
and are waiting for it, and soit sparked loyalty as well.
So you don't have to do yourpromotions during that frenetic
(13:22):
period.
You can spread them out.
You can offer them at differenttimes.
There's different types ofpromotions you can do.
Another one that's very popularis doing like 12 days of deals,
where you'll offer a deal on aspecific, one specific product
on day one.
It'll be a deal on a differentproduct on day two.
Day three might be a bundle.
You don't have to do 12 days.
(13:43):
You could do five days, youcould do seven days, whatever
works for you.
This is also a really greatstrategy for content creators,
because if you're a contentcreator, you don't have an item
to sell.
You're making your money thistime of year from traffic and so
doing something like a 12 daysof cookies recipes or 12 days of
holiday appetizer recipes, andyou send emails out to your list
(14:07):
each day during that 12-dayperiod with a different cookie
recipe or a different appetizerrecipe, and it results in more
clicks.
So you're getting thatincreased traffic.
You're getting that increasedtraffic at the point of time in
the year where your ad revenue,your CPMs and your RPMs are at
their highest, so that trafficis worth even more money.
(14:28):
So that's something that youcan also do.
So there's a lot of differentways that you can promote your
items.
You don't need to runpromotions every single week
between now and the holidays.
I just want to remind you allthat the vast majority of you
here are making things by hand.
You're artists and artisans,you're makers, you're crafters.
You're creating digital contentfrom your knowledge, and that
(14:54):
should come with a price.
You don't want to cheapen whatit is that you offer.
You are not Walmart, you arenot Target.
You are an artisan, and so youdon't want to train your
customers to always be lookingfor a sale or for a deal.
Obviously, you have revenuegoals that you want to hit, and
(15:15):
if you feel that offering a dealmight help you hit that revenue
goal, that's totally up to you.
But just remember, don'tdevalue your work.
You don't need to offer apromotion every week.
There are people out there whoare more than willing to buy
your items at full price.
I have even had customers whohave told me they do not shop my
Black Friday sale because theythink I deserve to be paid full
(15:37):
price for the artwork that Icreate.
So there are people out therewho want to pay you what you are
worth.
Don't devalue what it is thatyou create and don't devalue
your knowledge and what it isthat you have to offer.
So I just want to give you allthat little reminder lesson.
Now the next step once you'veset the promotions that you want
(16:00):
to do and you want to make itmanageable because, remember,
you have all that selling,packing and shipping and market
days that you have to deal with.
So you want to make yourpromotions manageable so that
you can actually get things outon time and fulfill the orders
and you'll have enough productto fill the orders, because you
have to do the making too.
So once you've set yourpromotions, the, you have to do
the making too.
So, once you've set yourpromotions, the next step to do
(16:21):
and I really strongly recommendyou do it in September, before
things get really nutty iscreate your social media
graphics, create all yourpromotional materials for those
promotions.
So, whatever that's going to be, for most of us it's social
media graphics.
It might also be signs for yourmarkets if you're going to
offer a promotion at market.
So, however, you're going to doyour signs for your markets and
(16:46):
you get all of that ready andthen you go into your meta
dashboard and you schedule those.
You schedule them to Facebook.
You schedule them to Instagram.
I don't know about schedulingfor TikTok.
Can you schedule to TikTok?
I'm on TikTok, but I don't knowabout scheduling for TikTok.
Can you schedule to TikTok?
I'm on TikTok, but I don't everschedule anything.
(17:07):
So can you schedule to TikTok?
Create your reels and yourvideos and all the things that
you're going to need.
Have yourself a little bucketof promotional assets, get them
all prepped and then startcreating the posts and the
content and schedule all thatcontent before the end of the
month.
It will be a huge weight offyour shoulder to know that that
content is going to be going outwhen it needs to go out.
(17:27):
The worst thing is to rememberthat you're doing a Black Friday
sale and you've forgotten toget.
You're scrambling at the lastminute to get your content ready
to go out, because you just gotoverwhelmed with market stuff
and packing and shipping.
So get that all done inSeptember.
Get it all done in the nextweek or two.
Once you've decided what you'regoing to promote, it's not a
(17:48):
big deal to create the graphicsor get some help somebody to
help you with the graphics.
The next step is to write youremails.
So just remember when you'repromoting things, you have to
let people know that you have apromotion.
They don't just magically know.
So you've got to write youremail campaigns.
You're going to want to letthem know that you have a sale
coming.
You're going to want to remindthem when the sale starts.
You're going to want to remindthem before the sale ends.
(18:11):
So think about all the emailsthat you need to write for each
promotion.
Get them written.
Make sure in your emails thatyou let them know very clearly
when your ship deadlines are,and if you did the task last
week in episode nine, then youhave already worked out what
your shipping deadlines are,because you want to make sure
people are very aware.
Any opportunity you have toremind people when shipping
(18:33):
deadlines are, use it, and emailis one of those opportunities.
So make sure it's in everysingle email that goes out
between now and whenever yourshipping deadline is.
So get those emails all written.
Most email platforms, if you arepaying for them, will give you
a scheduling tool so that youcan schedule those.
If you're using a freezerversion, you may not have
(18:53):
scheduling options.
If that's the case, go intoyour calendar right now and put
a task or a reminder or whateveryou need to do of when those
emails need to go out.
Again, you're going to workbackwards a little bit, just
like we did last week.
But once you do all of this andyou get it all done, you can
easily have all of this donebefore the end of September, and
it will be a huge weight offyour shoulders.
(19:14):
And then all your promotionswill run like clockwork and your
job will be to handle customerservice and do all the shipping
and packing and making tofulfill those orders.
So that is it for this week.
I hope you found this episodehelpful and we'll be back next
(19:36):
week with another brand new prepfor the holidays episode.
And we'll be back next weekwith another brand new Prep for
the Holidays episode and we'llbe back the week after that with
a new episode for season six ofthe podcast and, as I mentioned
, we're gonna be talking aboutaverage order values in that
episode and if you didn't listento the season opener, you can
go back and find us in yourfavorite podcast app or I'll put
a link to the episode in theYouTube show notes as well.
(19:57):
That's it for today.
Thanks for joining me.
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