3: How To Make Even More Money From Your Next Flash Sale

Hello and welcome to the Product Growth Lab podcast hosted by Andrew George and Melissa Pickle. This is the podcast for creative product-based business owners who want to grow their businesses without overwhelm or massive investment. Each episode we'll explore actionable strategies, real-life stories, and insights from business owners and experts who know what it takes to succeed. Whether you're just starting out and looking to scale, we're here to help you grow your business on your own terms. Subscribe and join us each week as we dive into practical advice and inspiring stories to fuel your growth journey. This is the Product Growth Lab. Let's get started. Okay, hello everyone. Welcome back. Today we're going to be talking about how to maximize your sales during a flash sale with our proven strategies that create urgency, scarcity, and get people to buy. So this is going to be perfect if you're planning on running a flash sale, and if you haven't got your flash sale planned yet, we'll share a super awesome download to help make it easy. Okay, so get ready to take notes because we're diving into the best strategies to make sure that your next flash sale is a major success. We're gonna start today with one of our favorites, and it's both of ours favorite, is creating urgency with countdown timers. You can use these across multiple different places. The most obvious comes to mind is email, but you can add them to your website, you can use them on social media, Instagram Stories makes this really easy. There's a ton of different ways to do this.

Seriously, people, if you have not used countdown timers before, you are missing out. They are so simple to install on your website and your emails that are going out. And they add that extra trigger layer. So if you think about it, when someone's scanning your website or they're scanning your email, they're really not reading every word, paying exact attention to all the graphics that are going on there. But a movement-based thing like a countdown timer is gonna catch their attention and it's gonna heighten that little spike of adrenaline going like, I gotta take advantage of this.

Yeah, it really helps to build the urgency emails. People will see those emails and they'll ignore the first one on the D and announce it, and then they ignore the one the second day. It's when things come to their final moment and they can see that clock ticking, 1 minute, 59 seconds, it's, oh, I have to do this now or I'm going to miss out. And having that urgency and the fear of missing out is a huge thing in marketing. Just having that countdown timer there is a really easy visual way to see that giant clock ticking.

Come on, it's the same thing as like if you're playing a video game or, ah, if anyone's crazy going to the gym and it's like, It's the end section of, of the workout. You're like, I must do it, I must succeed, I must get all the points, I must do all the things before that timer hits zero. It's that same kind of little bit of manic energy that we really love, except this time, sure.

So if you want to really take advantage of this, the most obvious one you can do is on Instagram, you just create a story, add the sticker, enter the time. That's super easy one. On your website, you're more likely to need some sort of plugin or an app, depends what kind of platform you're using. Search on Shopify, there's hundreds of these all over the place. You can add them to banners at the top, banners at the bottom, you can add them on specific listings, especially when we're filming this, we're in November, we're close to Black Friday. Having these timers used as often as possible is going to make a massive difference. And when it comes to email, depending on what email platform you use, some of these have these built in, so you can drag it straight in, or you can just search email countdown timer.

Two of our favorites are Andrew Love's Motion Mail app for countdown timers that you can put in, and I'm a big fan of Sendrick. And if you've don't have a tool for putting a countdown timer in. I know it works, even though you're going to feel really sleazy and annoying sending it out. But on that last day of a sale, sending like 5 emails. I've had people been like, 12 hours left on the sale, 5 hours left on the sale, 3, 2, there's one, 30.

Countdown timers are a really simple tool and they can give you some really big results. So don't leave those ones out. Okay, so our next favorite way to get more results from your flash sales is building scarcity in order to boost demand. So scarcity, if you don't know, scarcity is something being scarce and in short supply. And when people feel like something is in short supply, they panic a little bit. We're going to be ethical about this, but there's that little piece of panic in your head that's, oh, there's only so much of this, it's scarce, I need this, or It's gonna be an issue, and that can have a massive influence on someone's behavior. If there is just this abundant supply of stuff, you're less likely to take action than if there's a tiny little supply.

If there's no re left, oh, you're grabbing it right now.

And it can feel difficult to get this across online. If you're physically somewhere and you see the shelf and there's one of that thing that you want left, you're picking that up. It's gonna straighten your basket and you're gonna check out before someone else takes it. Whereas if there is 100 of them, you're like, you know what, maybe I'll think about it.

I'll wait till next.

Yeah, maybe I'll wait till payday. And yeah, it's just that agency isn't there. So as soon as you make something scarce, it encourages people to take action and you need to be able to get that across online. And there's a ton of ways to do this. A lot of marketplaces, if you're on somewhere like Etsy, it'll show that there's only 3 left. This is in 100 people's baskets and there's only 2 left. So those things, but you can add different plugins to your site depending on what platform you're using. Shopify, WooCommerce, they all have options available that let you include this on your site. And you can also include this in your emails when things are starting to get low and you want to just shift those final few. Letting people know that things are in short supply really makes a big difference to getting people to take action now. So there's a real balance between doing this authentically and creating enough stock for yourself. I hate that when you go on somewhere, you're like, there's only 2 left, and you buy, and then it's sold out. And then 5 minutes later, suddenly they've found another 100 in the back room and it's back in stock again. It feels really sleazy and horrible. So you don't want to make things in such short supply that you miss out on sales. So it's learning how much stock you sell and keeping things where they're likely to sell out, but not at a disadvantage to you. Or you don't have enough.

Story time. I have many times done that, oh shit, there's stuff in the back room when I'm at events and I'm like, this is the last one. Someone's looking at a piece of jewelry and they're like, oh, do you have more of these? Like, nope, that's the last one. And then I'm looking through the stacks and the cases for something else for someone else and I'm like, there's 3 more of that item. I guess I lied. Thought it was the last one. And it happens far more often than I'm willing to admit. How about that trail? Yeah. I've never had anyone come back angry at me.

But when you're on somewhere like Amazon and you see it happen, it feels pretty annoying when you do that. So we've all been there and it's, that is like an authentic mistake, you see. But when you're trying to do it artificially just to try and get more traction, That's when it starts to feel a little bit sleazy. And there's layers to this. You can have like exclusive items, you can have things that are limited edition. It's another way to build kind of demand on things like Black Friday without having to focus solely on discounts. So you can do that. And then there is the stock of the, you got a limited edition color, maybe the other colors are still in stock or the scent or whatever it is. You can have ways of including some of the scarcity without it completely affecting your business where you can't sell enough when people, when there's demand for that item beyond what's already been bought. So using scarcity right, using it ethically and authentically can be a really powerful motivator to get people to buy quickly. And you'll need to make sure to use whatever it is, whether it's an app, whether it's just you posting on an Instagram story or going live, whatever it is saying, I have 3 of these, buy them now, using emails, whatever it is. Just letting people know, okay, this is scarce. It's more likely to, to catch them.

Be transparent about it. If it's a one-of-a-kind item, let everyone know it's a one-of-a-kind item. And then even better, another uptick to that, a side quest if you will, is when an item is sold out, let everyone know. Like post about it and make a big deal that this item is sold out, 'cause that's gonna get people to pay more attention to the next item. And if they were thinking about the next item, they might jump on that faster because the other one sold out.

It really helps train people to know that actually, because we all get those emails, this is selling fast, this is probably going to sell out, but it never does. If you show that is actually happening and train people up to know that you are going to have FOMO when this actually really does sell out, it does start to get them more, make them more likely to start taking action when these things are starting to get low in stock. And you can do things like restock emails to let people know it's back in stock, and they're even more likely to take action because they know this does sell out and I need to go ahead and buy it now.

Oh my God, do you want a case study of that right now? So I'm going to mess up the company name. I think it's Smithfield, does cast iron cookware products, and they went insane this summer in August releasing— they had a 4-quart cast iron cauldron. That you could cook with, um, like on the stove and stuff. I know because my sister went insane and we went to every HomeGoods, TJ Maxx, and Marshalls in the tri-state area trying to find one because it was all over Instagram. They'll be like, oh my God, look what I found at HomeGoods. So every time we drove past a new HomeGoods, we looked for my sister to the point that my mom got on, well, on their website. The website was sold out.

Speaking of that, here, someone I've seen, uh, speak is the owner of a company called the Chocolate Smiths who make chocolate, and they have gone viral online, and they have— they're at capacity. They're like trying to raise money for wrapping machines and to increase their capacity because they cannot keep this chocolate in stock. And they'll mention it in one email, they'll post about it on social media. I don't always— I watch their stories and stuff through the emails. I'm not always aware of when the restocks are. They don't have to talk about it too much, but I'll just go on and they'll talk about, okay, this restock sold out in 3 minutes, this restock sold out in 1. They cannot keep this chocolate in stock. And because people know that this is happening, they are ready. As soon as they see a restock, it's okay, I need to log in Friday, 8:00 PM, not 8:01, 8:00 PM.

I am not gonna miss this chocolate.

They have built this master scarcity and it pisses some people off, but there's enough people, they're selling out.

Who do get it, who do manage to grab it, oh, do they feel like victory.

Because they know it's authentic. If you actually follow them and listen to Steph that owns it, like, she's really authentic. You can see this is genuinely a problem for them and something they really care about, and they're doing what they can. But it, it's insane. And if you do manage against all odds to get in, buy one of their chocolate bars, wait a while to receive it, you'll know that it's totally worth it. And then you'll be like, okay, when's the next restock?

How can I— How many have you gotten so far, Andrew?

I've already twice, and that is mainly because of how difficult it is to order, would order more.

You've made Jason order twice, like you feel lucky.

Yeah, that first order, it like, it was on the kind of the start of when that demand really started to pick up. So I didn't have to go in at restock moment. The second time I did, and that was just like a week later. Like it really took off really quickly. It's actually, it's something we worked on with our clients a couple weeks ago. We were working on getting these back in stock emails sent out. So we're going to see how that goes with them. Next one on our list is offering exclusive bonuses. This is a really fun one and especially if you're looking for ways to increase that excitement that aren't just a discount. Having different bonuses is a really great way to do that. Adds extra value. People tend to take action when the risk of not taking the action is higher than taking the action. So if you stack up that you get this thing plus this bonus thing, and it feels like it's worth, we'll say, $100, but I'm only going to sell it for you for $20, that's when it's like, okay, tipped over the edge, I'm ready to make this purchase. So adding things like free shipping, if you don't already normally do that, some sort of added product. Doesn't have to be the big thing, new little things. Having them where you give them a discount they can use on their next purchase, early access to something. There's a ton of different ways to add these bonuses, but this will make such a difference.

If you just heard discount on next purchase and you're like, yeah, right, that doesn't work, because that was my very first thought when Andrew and I were talking here. And then I thought of Kohl's and Kohl's Cash and the fact that we went and shopped at Kohl's 3 times this past weekend to both get Kohl's Cash and then spend our Kohl's Cash.

We saved a Yeah, there's a bunch of places online do it and physically do it. I see— I barely leave the house these days, but when I go out, you'll always get these vouchers to load your bag up on your next purchase and then a percentage off.

Because we can't really— like, a percentage is contingent upon what you want to buy, versus if you get a voucher in the mail or email, something like $10 off your next purchase, that's a concrete amount of money.

There's a shop here called Boots, like a chemist, pharmacy type thing.

It's like a CVS over here. Yeah.

They have their own makeup brand called No. 7, and they regularly do a voucher. I always throw them in the bin. I'm not the target market for makeup, but they make a big deal of it and they've done it pretty much consistently. Like they'll do it and then there's a few weeks and then they have it again for years and decades, I think maybe. So it's also working for them and they'll make a big deal. There'll be like things in the windows, check for your No. 7 voucher. And like when it's ended and it's time to spend, they'll be like, oh, use your No. 7 voucher on this. Like they They make it quite a big thing, so I can tell that's working for them.

Don't cheat your customers. We have a store over here called Ulta. Ulta commonly sends out coupons for $3.50 off your order. If I'm already going to Ulta, yes, I'm going to use that coupon because it's still $3.50, but that's not enough to get me in the car going there. It's also probably not enough to get me to their website to shop. It's not enticing enough and it's kind of a slap in the face discount.

I'm Googling as we talk. And they seem to test different discounts, which is a good thing to do. There's £3 off, £5 off, there is £10 off 30, there's £5 off 15. So they're obviously testing to see what gets them the best results. And that's another great way if you're like, okay, how much can I offer off that gets people to take action without me giving away my stuff for free?

Even though we're supposed to be talking about exclusive bonuses and not discounts in this round.

But it is a bonus. Like, you're advertising it. We're in the shop, if you shop now, Not only are you gonna get this thing, but you also get your next order off price, let's say. The other obvious thing is adding some sort of additional bonus. Your free gift with purchase. You buy any perfume, there's always some weird free gift with it. There's always get a towel or a bag, something. Go in any department store and there will be that going on somewhere.

Key thing to pay attention to in that Andrew's talking about is like, make sure your free gift has a correlation to the main product that they bought. So I just said like, what is it with perfume and bags? Well, perfume and makeup bags, yeah, kind of makes sense. Make sure that as you're planning free gifts, it's not just whatever you were able to grab on Temu, but make sure it is actually complimentary and something that your customer wants, because maybe they're thinking about your product and they kind of want your product, but if they really want that added product, that free gift, that bonus thing, that could drive them to make the purchase.

Yeah. And speaking of Black Friday again, having, like, you can do, like, a storewide thing. Maybe if it's something that you can make, you have the exclusive limited edition Christmas bauble that if I get it went with your plaques and everyone gets that, you make it cheap enough and easy enough to throw in.

Or you can say the first 25 orders, depending on your client base, make it a realistic scarcity for that size audience. The first 25 shoppers get this bonus gift added in.

And especially like sometimes you just have stuff left over. It's a nice way to clear some space.

Another one you have on the list here, Andrew, that we didn't really talk about is early access. So early access is a really awesome bonus, and this is a fantastic place for like an email list, a VIP list, something that makes people feel exclusive, insider, and my snob is coming out better than everybody else. Any of those things, that's going to help as well with shoppers. People who get first access, early access, first look, any of that kind I'll give a real-world example of that. If you're an annual passholder for places like Disney or Universal Studios, they run passholder exclusive days before new attractions open. When's the new Universal Park coming? How epic! Universal are gonna have passholder exclusive days ahead of time, and it makes me sad that I am not a Florida resident.

Or our next one is amplifying the sale with email and social media. It's not enough to say build it and they will come. That's a horrible saying. I don't know where that comes from. Let's get rid of that.

Field of Dreams, blah.

And I'm not just saying that while the sale's going on, you need to use email and social media. You need to start using it beforehand. Warm people up a little bit, let them know something is coming, and then they're ready and willing to spend money with you. I'm thinking about, I feel like we're so close to Black Friday, these Black Friday examples are coming up. But a brand that I used in the past for like marketing kind of education stuff is Funnel Gorgeous. Every Black Friday, they have a Black Friday catalog ahead of time. They announce what their discounts are going to be, which is like totally going against what a lot of people tell you to do in that industry. But people pick them up. People will be in their Facebook group saying, okay, what is it I need? What should I get? I'm going to have this. And they have like the kind of wishlist written out. And the second it turns whatever time on Black Friday, people are on that site, they're checking out, and they're making purchases. So it's totally working for them, and there's nothing to stop you doing that. I think of the— I'm sure there's an equivalent wherever you are, but in the UK, the Argos book, back when that was a thing. Getting the book, going straight to the toy section, and circling, okay, what is it that I want for Christmas? Where do you usually get it? I think, because I'm an adult child, Smiths is the big toy shop. Now the Toys R Us is closed. They send me a catalog every year cuz they know that I'll buy something. When I was a kid, I'd be looking through that whole catalog and be like, okay, what are the toys I want? What Lego set do I want this year? I would be stuck on that whole book.

As an aunt, I now look at it like, ooh, what do I wanna play with my nephew with?

I guess I am thinking like, okay, what would I like to use? Cuz, well, it was Lego. What's too difficult for them to build? So I have to build it for them.

And then just hope they don't destroy it afterwards.

Which they do.

A really easy way to do this, what we're saying here, what especially what Andrew, example he gave with the photo of George, example is to send out an email to people ahead of time, really hyping up Black Friday. And then one of the last ones I send before it's live is a, hey, pre-stock your cart. And I tell people, go and load your cart up with everything you want, and that way as soon as the sale goes live, you just go in, refresh the cart, and hit buy. And that has worked really well for me in the past.

Yeah, they can put a cart— if you have a wishlist app on your store, like there's a ton of ways to do that. And people will be ready to shop. And I've heard it from clients time and time again. But won't people not buy if the new images can't come in? It might slow down sales a tiny wee bit, but I've seen it every year in my own business and in other businesses. People still buy. People buy on the Thursday before Black Friday. People buy on the Tuesday after. And they're paying full price.

People get nervous.

And they don't really care.

Some people get nervous that the item they want is going to sell out so fast on Black Friday. They're like, oh, let me just get it ahead of time. That way I don't need to worry. Or they're nervous about the shipping delays that happen with the Black Friday surge. They're like, nope, I wanna be done ahead of time.

And especially this year, Black Friday is late. Like it goes, the weekend goes into December this year. So people want to know they have their stuff. So people will shop early, they're willing to pay full price. So don't worry that talking about a sale is gonna stop people buying in the meantime.

Well, it's just giving more exposure to your business so people remember that you're there, that you have products, and that, oh yeah, they want those products.

And using different marketing techniques all the time. I know from my people that scarcely often works more than a discount. I will have Black Friday and be like, this was insane, this was so busy, and I've done all this work and I've done all this discounts. And then the next week everything is full price and I'll get like the same, or sometimes what I've had years where it's even more the following weekend because suddenly it's December and people are in a panic. It's okay. I have to do all this work again, which is insane, but all these people paid full price, so it doesn't feel quite as bad when my fingers are aching and I just want to sleep. Send emails, do the social media. Stories always work great for quick updates and reminders. And stories, you can do those on Facebook, you can do them on Instagram, you can do them on TikTok.

Especially if it is a big holiday, like we keep talking about Black Friday, but really any massive sale-style holiday weekend that you're running a flash sale on. You need to be sending more emails than you might be comfortable with just to stay relevant, just to stay top of mind. People's inboxes are getting so flooded from everyone who's sending that if you only send one email out about your holiday sale, it might have no chance of getting seen, especially if people are only looking at what's the first 10 emails in my inbox list. If you're not in that list, your email might not be seen until after the sale is over. And then you get people who email you and be like, oh no, I missed it. Can I still get the item? And it's up to you to say no or sure, I'm a nice person.

Yeah. I've gone both ways. It depends on my mood. I feel like I'm normally gonna say no, but I have, like I had someone, they booked from me every year. It was like the last weekend I was sending stuff out. I was tired. I was totally fed up. It was during COVID so all the shipping was messed up and I was getting those angry emails. And so I was like, can I get this cut? I was like, yeah. Take the discount, thank you. I don't care anymore. Just let me do it.

I have a couple of people like, can I still get the discount? I'm like, sure. It's an extended discount only on this item, just for you. And then a $300 order comes in. I'm like, you know, that's a damn good discount.

Yeah. And so, so that can make people feel special. Like, I will make it like the discount code is Melissa. This is not for everyone. This is just for you.

Oh, come on. I was like, Andrew is awesome.

Your fashion show is going to be the best when you get in front of those people. Using those emails, using that social media is the best way to do that. So make sure you're using it as much as you can and always send that extra email. Add in that extra one in. Traditionally, when you first get started, you might just do one email on the last day. But as a gap, most people will do two on the last day. There's the morning up and there's that 6 hours before or 4 hours before email is fairly traditional. But adding in that extra one, that like 1 hour left. People see massive results from that. So adding an extra email is a really great idea.

When in doubt, add another email.

Okay, our last one here is use social proof to build confidence. If you don't know what social proof is, that is just anything out there that makes you look good. It can be things like press coverage, but most often the thing we're looking for is reviews. Are there people who are actually real people saying You know what? Melissa's stuff ain't too bad.

This is tolerable.

I put up two versions of Melissa's website. One is just a product page with the products, and the other one is a product page, but sprinkled throughout is reviews. Oh, I gave this to my husband's wife's uncle's auntie's cousin.

My husband's wife's? What? Rompi? How many wives?

But she loved it. It was the best gift at her 'Bar mitzvah,' and it stood out, 5 stars. There's a review, 'My cousin's dog's hamster's monkey bought this for me and it made me cry.' It was so beautiful. 5 stars. Which of the two sites are you more likely to buy from? When you're online, when you're on a place like Amazon, where's the first place you go to after the pictures? It's the reviews, before the description even. People want to see that.

You go to Amazon, you go to the reviews, and then you go to the 2-star reviews, straight to the bad stuff.

Sometimes when you want something, I feel like I've had the 2 stars. Just show me the 5 stars. I want to see the good. Yeah, there's some 2 stars. I want this.

I'm like, show me the bad and laugh and call them idiot.

When I'm ordering food, I'm always like, okay, this place looks sketchy, but there's some 5-star reviews. Let's read them and ignore the ones that mention food poisoning.

This is how you know we're real.

I did that last week and then—

Oh no.

I'm not sure about this place.

You're going to leave a 5-star review being like, don't ignore the 2-star food poisoning review.

Some ideas for adding social proof into your business. Feature those recent reviews, feature testimonials, put them on social, in posts, in stories, in video, put them on your website, in the description, on your homepage, make them an image in the listing. I do that for Etsy as well. Showcase user-generated content as well. So that's anything that customers give you or you encourage them to give you, like photos, like it doesn't have to be reviews, it can just be a photo of them using the product. Any, like, screenshots from emails people send you, you get permission for those normally. But anything where it shows that a customer really likes this. And another thing that counts as social proof that isn't a review is those kind of live purchase pop-up things that sometimes you see in the corner, like, Melissa from New York just purchased.

My favorite thing on the product details page is so-and-so person, usually they're like 2 minutes ago, 1 minute ago, 5 minutes ago, and then I see the one 2 months ago, I'm like, oh, you haven't had a lot of orders.

But use the ones on your site, there's a ton of options for those for where platform you're using, those also work really well and they go hand in hand with the who left we mentioned before.

Yeah, no, they do make a huge difference.

Look even more irresistible.

Yep. You're current, you're relevant.

Okay, so today we covered the essentials for a successful flash sale. If you're ready to get your next flash sale going and take some of these tips and use them, you'll want to grab our Flash Sale in a Snap guide that gives you all of the stuff that you need to get your next flash sale going. From what discounts to offer to all of the email templates and social that you need to launch and promote your next flash sale. You can grab it now at theproductgrowthlab.com/flash.

Get that sale going this weekend.

Thanks for tuning in to the Product Growth Lab podcast. We hope you found today's episode insightful and inspiring. If you enjoyed the show, leave a review. It helps us reach more creative entrepreneurs just like you. Stay connected and keep experimenting. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform and don't forget to direct me an email for more resources, tips, and support. Until next time, keep growing and creating. This is the Product Growth Lab signing off.