Get Ready for Black Friday: A Guide to Boost Your Sales and Sanity
I’m thrilled to bring you another exciting episode of Social Media Sanity, the podcast that helps you navigate the ever-changing world of social media.
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Now, let’s jump right into it. In this episode, we’re diving into the topic that gets every entrepreneur buzzing with anticipation – Black Friday. As we approach the busiest shopping season of the year, it’s time to ensure you’re fully prepared to make the most out of it financially and mentally.
Your Checklist
Analyzing last year’s Black Friday campaign is the perfect starting point. Take a deep dive into the results, see what worked and what didn’t, and incorporate those lessons into this year’s plan. Next, perform an inventory check. Determine which products or services sold exceptionally well last year and ensure you have sufficient stock.
If you’re a service-based business, evaluate your capacity and plan accordingly to meet the demand during this bustling season. While you’re at it, conduct a quick website audit. Ensure your website is user-friendly, with no broken links or glitches that might negatively impact the customer experience. Remember, delivering an outstanding customer experience is crucial for success during the holiday rush. Customer service is of utmost importance. Make sure your return policy is clearly communicated, specify delivery expectations, and have pre-written stock answers ready to address any concerns or complaints that may come your way. Now comes the exciting part – designing your overarching campaign. Take the time to brainstorm a captivating theme, define your target audience, and establish your metrics for success. Are you focused on units sold, impressions, or dollars in the bank? Knowing this will help you track your progress effectively. Remember the players who can help bring your vision to life. Whether it’s graphic designers or collaborators, identify the individuals or brands that can assist you in promoting your products or services during the hectic Black Friday period. Lastly, plan your downtime. While the holiday season is undoubtedly demanding, remember to care for yourself. Schedule some rest and rejuvenation time to recharge your mind and body. Celebrate your hard work, whether you hit your goals or not, and be proud of your dedication as an entrepreneur.
To delve deeper into specific social media tactics to support your Black Friday sale, be sure to tune in to the next episode. We’ll provide you with actionable steps to leverage the power of social media and propel your sales to new heights.I hope you found these insights and strategies helpful as you gear up for Black Friday. Remember, taking a mindful approach to your online presence can make all the difference. If you’d like more support with your social media strategy, schedule a call with me at bit.ly/TalkWithTamay.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Tamay Shannon [00:00:04]:
Welcome to Social Media Sanity, the podcast that brings you bite sized reminders and insights to navigate the world of social media. I’m your host, Tamay Shannon. In each short episode, we provide practical strategies, thought provoking questions, and permission to be true to yourself as a business owner. Join us on this journey to a mindful and purposeful online presence. Let’s dive in. I am going to say it. Black Friday is just around the corner. Like for real? For real.
Tamay Shannon [00:00:40]:
It is almost September and Black Friday is going to be here before you know it. So this episode we are going to talk about how to get prepared in these beginning stages of Black Friday so that you can make money and get good sleep. There are six items on this checklist that we’re going to go through to make sure that you’re ready to make sure that you feel prepared and actually excited and not dreading the holiday season. If you decide to participate, the first thing is analyze last year. Analyze the results from last year. Analyze the campaign from last year. Analyze what deals did best, how people responded to your emails. Analyze where you were last year, what worked and what didn’t, and take what worked and what didn’t, and make sure you incorporate it into this year’s plan.
Tamay Shannon [00:01:33]:
Make sure you look at your website analytics, your social media platform analytics. What did Instagram say? What does Facebook say? Make sure you look at your e commerce, what sales, what bundles did the best. And then don’t forget to analyze your newsletter list. And also look at new platforms or new ways that you can incorporate into this year that you might not have had time last year to arrange. So, for example, collaborations or partnerships. Maybe you could get somebody in an industry who has a product or service that is complementary to you and create a bundle. But think about those missed opportunities that you wanted to do last year that you didn’t have the time to and now you do. Next, you want to do an inventory check.
Tamay Shannon [00:02:22]:
Is there anything you need to order? Is there anything you need to make based on the analytics from last year? What sold well, what sold really, really well? And what do you need to make sure of that you cannot be out of stock on? If you’re a service based business, this might look like capacity. What do you have the capacity to deliver on? You might need to look at making sure that you have people in place for this big Bloom incapacity. Or maybe you look at scheduling people in staggered steps so that you can make sure you deliver on all the things that you sell. Then you want to do a quick website audit. Now, this audit isn’t meant to necessarily do things like SEO or anything like that, but you want to make sure the usability of your website hasn’t gone down, making sure that you don’t have any broken links. Make sure that everything’s still connected internally on your back end so that is all flowing and provides an excellent customer experience. Then you want to get your customer service prepped and updates ready to go. So you want to look at your return policy.
Tamay Shannon [00:03:34]:
Make sure if you’re going to extend it for the holiday season or not, make sure you address that. Make sure you address delivery. How quickly will things go out? When is the last day that people have to order to guarantee delivery by the time it needs to get there, things like that. And you want to make sure that that language is clearly communicated everywhere because even though you said it once, often people don’t read or they skim. So make sure you have that information freely available everywhere. And then you also want to create stock answers for people being upset. You want to create stock replies for people asking about where is my order at? I can’t believe you did this. All of that stuff that happens during the holiday season, go ahead and prepare for it now so that when you get those emails or you get those social media posts or you get that incoming messages, you can easily deal with it in a way that still aligns with your brand while also making sure that you’re empowering the people that you work with to respond on your behalf.
Tamay Shannon [00:04:38]:
Now we get to the good part, the fun part, the part that people always look forward to, and that is your overarching campaign. What is this year’s campaign going to be about? What is its theme? What’s your target? What are your metrics for success? Is it units sold? Is it impressions? How are you going to measure success? Dollars in the bank? All of that? You want to look at the players. Who will you need to execute this vision not only on the back end like graphic designers, but also collaborators or influencers to help get your product or service out there. And then also you want to finally look at your coupon or the sales or bundles that you’re going to do. And again, when you analyze your last year, you saw what worked and you might just do that exact same thing again or a variation of it. Don’t worry. If it works, it works. Don’t feel like you have to always come with something new.
Tamay Shannon [00:05:36]:
Plan your downtime. Plan your downtime. Make sure that you have a spa day, a reading day, a hiking day, whatever it is that you do to unwind as an entrepreneur, make sure that you have that scheduled. Now, you don’t want to do it the week after a Black Friday in Cyber Monday and all of that, because you’ll still be processing orders. You’ll still be handling stuff. But right around two weeks out, after everything has been processed and sent or set up and in the system, what can you do to celebrate. Now, when I say celebrate, I don’t mean that you hit your goals and so therefore you’re rewarding yourself I mean celebrate period. Because you as an entrepreneur executed a marketing initiative.
Tamay Shannon [00:06:31]:
If you haven’t heard of the first, I will drop that in the show notes and the first just deals with should you even do Black Friday, is this something you actually want to do? Because that’s the first thing we’ve got to handle, right? So once you go through this second episode and you’re analyzing your last year, you do your inventory, check the website, audit, the customer service, prep, the overarching campaign, the plan, your downtime, all of that. Once that is handled, the next episode we are going to dive into specific tactics and specific things you can do on social media to support your Black Friday sale. And that wraps up social media sanity. Apply the insights and strategies to build a mindful online presence. If you enjoyed this episode, I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps me reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more more episodes as we navigate social media together. Thank you for joining me on this journey.
Tamay Shannon [00:07:35]:
Take care and do you.
If you need social media support, schedule your call at bit.ly/TalkWithTamay to get you started.
