At the risk of being heavily “booed,” I admit to loving Black Friday. I know there is more and more resistance to the commercialization of a holiday that is suppose to be reflective of gratitude for what you have, rather than a race to acquire more of it. And I get that.
In fact, until 3 years ago I thought Black Friday shoppers were crazy. No price was worth arriving at 3:00 a.m. and standing in the cold, hoping to get the magic number needed to score the $100 computer. I slept peacefully while others endured that madness.
And then one year my 12-year-old niece wanted to get in on some midnight shopping. Naturally, I agreed to go. Not because the whole store was 50% off. Not because I could get a 50″ flat screen TV for $200. And not even because the first 500 people in line got a chance to win a million dollars.
I started my Black Friday shopping tradition because it made me feel good.
And I keep going every year because it makes me feel good. The second year, my eight-year-old daughter joined us. This year, three generations of my family ~ my mom, me, my daughter, and my niece ~ intend to continue the tradition.
And I have to tell you, I have no idea who will be offering the best deals. Nor do I care.
Deciding Where to Spend Your Money
So what stores will we hit on Black Friday? The ones we like. The ones we recognize. The ones that have given us value in the past.
It doesn’t matter if Store Unknown offers me 70% off, with an additional 40% off if I shop between midnight and 12:15 a.m. Because I don’t know if Store Unknown will offer me anything of value that I like. And because everyone is offering me the same insanity these days.
What’s This Got to Do With You?
I hope you’re getting the point by now. I’ll spell it out for you a little, just to make sure.
When you’re thinking about your Black Friday/Cyber Monday special, ask yourself three questions:
- Does my offer provide at least triple the value of the price?
- Is the discount and/or value steep enough to make my customer go, “wow!”
and most importantly,
3. Have I already earned the money I’m asking my customer to spend on me?
You see, it’s impossible to craft an offer that rises above the noise and gets your email opened ahead of the 25 others arriving in your potential customer’s Inbox on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It’s useless to blow hundreds or thousands of dollars on Facebook and Google Ads in hopes of “winning” simply because your offer gets seen more.
Your customer has to be convinced that she wants to open your email long before it arrives in her Inbox on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. She has to be conditioned to always open your emails because she likes you, she relates to you, she gets good value from you.
She’s predisposed to spend her money with you because you’ve earned it. Because when you send out an offer whose price-to-value ratio makes her go “wow!” she scrolls to the bottom of the page and clicks “buy now” without even reading your sales copy.
The Good News for Your Business Is . . .
Running a successful Black Friday promotion doesn’t require that you spend a lot of money. Rather, it requires that you spend a lot of time developing the relationship that leads your audience to buy.
Running a successful Black Friday promotion doesn’t require you to give your stuff away so you’ll have the best deal out there. Rather, it requires that you make your audience feel good about you so they’ll buy even if your offer doesn’t have the cheapest price tag.
Running a successful Black Friday promotion doesn’t require that you have the biggest list, the best copywriting, or the most exposure. Rather, it requires that you consistently give high value, so that when you do make an offer, your audience is already sold on it.
Go forth and do good stuff. Think emotion, not marketing.
