The Best Strategy for Prepping Your Biz for Black Friday

The first time I participated as a business in Black Friday was a complete flop. I did not prepare and had no plan. I put something up at the last minute and it did not work. I wasted a lot of time and energy and I do not want this to happen to you! Now that I’ve got a good amount of Black Fridays under my belt, I’ve figured out a strategy that works amazingly. Here’s the best strategy for prepping your biz for Black Friday!

 

 

While I am going over a strategy for you to use this Black Friday, you can have a more detailed content plan for the strategy once you join my Insta Social Society. You’ll also get access to Black Friday email templates and so much more. It’s a monthly subscription that you can use as long as you’d like that will help you grow your business using social media and beyond. 

Alright, you might be thinking, “Really, Michelle, you’re already talking about Black Friday? That hasn’t even crossed my mind.” Well, my friend, that’s why I’m here. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a business owner it’s to create a strategy ahead of time, so when the deadline comes, you get to watch the magic happen. 

Black Friday really is just around the corner and you’ll get the best results if you start preparing early. As your business continues to grow, you want to make sure you’re spending time being productive. We are saying goodbye to last-minute plans and throwing stuff out there hoping something will come from it. Say hello to strategy and prep that will guarantee you sales and business growth. Are you ready for the strategy?! Let’s get started.

 

The Best Strategy for Prepping Your Biz for Black Friday

 

 

Black Friday Sales Strategy Step #1: Decide what you’re selling & what that will look like. 

Do not let the peer pressure of other businesses and what they’re doing make you follow suit. You can decide what product you are selling, the discount you are putting on it, and when you are going to push that sale forward. You even get to decide if you want to be a part of Black Friday altogether. 

This is your business, so you get to decide the details of this! All I recommend is to track what you end up doing so you can see what successes you have. You want to be able to recall the following year what did and did not go well, so you can either repeat good strategy and/or switch things up that didn’t work before. 

There are a lot of details to iron out, but just take one thing at a time and make a decision. To help you figure out the actual sale/discount you want, crunch some numbers to see if you will still make a decent profit. Do not choose a discount that everyone else is doing–do what makes sense for your business right now. 

Some details to finalize would be: 

• Decide where you will be marketing your sale. (Instagram, email, TikTok, etc.)
• What the actual sale will be. (special discount to your email subscribers, custom deals or VIP deals to current customers, etc.) 
• How to gamify your sale so it will make people want to come back and create more fun for them.

Think about what you’ve done in the past, and what you’ve seen other people do, and research what has worked. When did you buy something on a Black Friday sale? What pushed you to buy? Ask yourself these types of questions to help you figure out the best way to market to your audience. 

 

Black Friday Sales Strategy Step #2: Choose your marketing channels.

What marketing channels do you want to use for your Black Friday sale? Are you going to do ads? How will you engage these people? Think about what channels you are already using (Instagram, podcast, email marketing, YouTube, etc.) and which ones make the most sense for you to promote your Black Friday sale. 

Make a content plan of how you want to market the sale and build that out so you can start talking about your product early. Then you can give your people a heads up that you’ll be having a special Black Friday sale, and to keep their eye out for it. 

 

 

Black Friday Sales Strategy Step #3: Prepare your audience for the sale.

This is where you will decide what content you need to create in order to lead your people up to the sale. To prepare them, you want to start talking about the things they need to know before they buy. They will need to know why they even need/want your product. You do this by hitting their pain points. How can you aggravate their need so they know that your product will actually solve their problem? 

Additionally, why do they need the product now as opposed to later? Maybe your product is something they can give as a gift, maybe it’ll help get them set up and organized for the new year. Think about the benefits of having your product now and include that in your offering content. 

 

Black Friday Sales Strategy Step #4: Make your launch memorable.

Leading up to your sales launch, you want to make it memorable for your audience. When you are prepping your audience for the upcoming sale, you want to get them excited so they will remember when the sale actually goes live. 

You can get them excited by sending out a very, very clear message to them via email and text. If you don’t have a text list set up yet to go along with your email list, you can check out more HERE to get it set up! This is a SUPER effective way to communicate with your audience and help them stay up to date with your business and offerings. 

 

Black Friday Sales Strategy Step #5: Keep reminding your audience of the upcoming sale. 

I know the worry here is that you will start to annoy your audience. But, listen, you are competing against a lot of people talking about their deals and sales. You want to tell your audience about your sale many, many times. One email is not enough. Two emails are not enough. You need to send many. And don’t be afraid to talk about it in your Instagram stories over and over again as well. 

Remember, the people who are intentionally seeking out your content love you and want you to sell to them. They like your products and/or the products you recommend, so stay confident in that truth as you launch your Black Friday sale!

 

 

Black Friday Sales Strategy Weekly Breakdown

OK, we talked about the 5-step Black Friday strategy, but what does this strategy look like if you were to break it down week-by-week leading up to Black Friday? 

 

Black Friday Sales Strategy: Week 1

The first week requires a lot of prep work, so get ready to hunker down and get to work! It’s a lot of prep work up front, but doing it all will guarantee you a successful Black Friday sales launch.

• Figure out how you will make this sale fun for your audience.
• Optimize your website for your products. A.K.A. make it a clear path for your audience to get from your homepage to the product checkout page. 
• Meet with your team to go over the goals for this launch and make sure everyone knows their job in order to reach the goal.
• Decide if you want to send your product to any affiliates, so they can help market it. (You will need to send it to them this same week, so they have it in time for launch.)
• Create a content plan.

 

Black Friday Sales Strategy: Week 2

You’ve been growing all year long, so there are probably some new faces in your audience who do not know you super well yet. This is your chance to nurture them and help them know they can trust you and gain value for being a part of your community. 

• Send out a super valuable freebie to your email list and market it on all your channels. Let your audience know everywhere that if they join your email list, they will get this special freebie that will help them so much. 
• Create some gift guides and show and talk about them on your channels. Remind them to join your email list, so they can get links to the products. (You can still provide the links on your Instagram, but they will be able to come back to their email and click on them at a time that is convenient for them.)

 

Black Friday Sales Strategy: Week 3

Now that you’ve nurtured your audience you are going to prep them to purchase. You do this by letting them know what will soon be on sale and why they need the product. You can refer back to earlier in this post where I talk about how to prep your audience for the sales launch! 

I highly recommend getting people to your email list and selling to them there. Too many people use their Instagram feed for their sales, but this is really the place to attract new customers, not sell to them. Maybe you use your feed to give some sneak peeks of your products and maybe a countdown to go with it, but get them over to your email list where they can click and buy there. 

This is also the week that your influencers/affiliates should start talking about your product in their stories and so forth. They can show how they use the product and the reasons why they love it so much, the problems it solves for them, etc. 

 

Black Friday Sales Strategy: Week 4

It’s time to sell, baby! Do not be shy here! You are going to think that you are talking about your product too much but I promise you’re not. Most women tend to think that if they talk about their sales more than once then they are being too salesy. The truth is, you are a business and you have to sell to stay a business. And you can make this fun for you and your audience! 

If you have some affiliates who have used your product, you could show a before and after of them using it. Keep people up to date with how many people have purchased your product/if it’s almost sold out and other things like that. 

Post a Q&A sticker in your stories when you’re talking about your product so people can ask questions about it. Sometimes all people need is their question answered to help them decide if it’s worth the purchase. Plus, these questions are golden clues for you because they are telling you the things that are stopping people from buying your product. Pay attention to these and allow them to help drive your content going forward. 

 

 

The Best Strategy for Getting Your Biz Prepped for Black Friday

I hope these tips were helpful to you! I promise this is the best strategy for prepping your biz for Black Friday. While we did break it down into 4 weeks, remember if you join my Insta Social Society you will get this same strategy built out day-by-day! I want you to have success this Black Friday, even if it’s one of your first few times participating in it. You will kill it and I’m here cheering (& coaching) you on every step of the way! 

Make sure you’re following me on Instagram @iammichellegifford so we can stay in touch and keep an eye out in my stories for my Black Friday deals coming! 😉