#126 - Do you NEED to Black Friday? (And if yes, how do you make the most of it?)

You know, you're generally going to get a bit of a bump in sales of any of those people who are already sort of in your pipeline, already in your world, who are, you know, potentially thinking about coming on at some point. You've just given them a reason to come on now rather than next week, next month, next year.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your Host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd Kate McKibben, where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online. But better, easier and with a ton more profit too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Hey everybody and welcome to the Doing It Online podcast. I'm your host, Kate here from HelloFinals co. And today we're going to be talking about the craziness that is all things Black Friday. Whether or not as a course creator or a coach, you need to participate in Black Friday other than just trying to scoop up a few crazy deals. And if you do, what's the best way to do it? What's the best way to deal with it? So let's dive right on in. So to start off with like we, whenever we do these episodes, we normally like to take a bit of time to explain what it is we're talking about. But I'm pretty sure everyone is well acquainted by now with the concept of, of Black Friday. It's. Well, it used to be just obviously an in person shopping event coming up to the holidays and then it went online and now it's gone from being a one day thing to kind of a long weekend thing to really sort of covers off the, a bit of the week. I decide if people are being a little bit sneaky. And it's a time when things get loud and things, there's bargains and flashing 50% off, 70% off, blah, blah, blah. And it's a time when people spend a lot of money. Now I know that it can, as someone who is out there selling offers, selling products, it can seem like a opportunity to get in there and to make some quick and easy sales. But let's dive into what it really means, what we've seen happening with our own clients and whenever we've tried to do anything on Black Friday and let's just, let's just chat this out, let's just see is it a good idea and if so, how to best do it. So to start off with like, let's talk about the pros, right? Like what are the pros of Black Friday, as I mentioned, people are spending a lot of money, they're in the buying mood. A lot of people will actually sort of slow down any spending, potentially save, actually not a lot. Some. Some people just spend the same and then just spend more in the anticipation of Black Friday. And I think that a lot of people tell themselves at Black Friday it's about going out and getting your presents for the holidays and things like that, or stocking up on certain things. But amongst all that excitement, people often buy a whole bunch of other things as well, for themselves in particular. So people are in a buying mood. And if you've got something to sell, it can seem tempting to want to jump in and make the most of that. The other pro, I guess, of Black Friday or any promotion period like this is that it is a real and hard deadline. As we know, deadlines drive decisions. So anytime we can say, hey, here's this offer and it ends on this date, you're generally going to get a bit of a bump in sales of any of those people who are already sort of in your pipeline, already in your world, who are potentially thinking about coming on at some point. You just given them a reason to come on now rather than next week, next month, next year. So it has that deadline. And we love a deadline here, particularly a hard and fast one like a date in the calendar. Now it comes to the other side of the cone, which is cons. So as much fun as it might seem to have all of these to be part of this excitement, there's a less fun, a less pleasant side to it. The first of all is, as I mentioned, it is exciting, it is loud, and there is a lot of people out there yelling at the top of their lungs about their products. And it becomes then very hard to stand out and compete. In fact, normally we're trying to look for ways that we can stand out, do something different, can, you know, compete in ways that are more about providing great value and great service and connecting with people about being you. And when it comes down to Black Friday, the main way you're going to compete and the main way you're going to stand out is to be the cheapest, is try and be cheaper than everybody else. And that's not really something that unless you have a mass market product with a huge margin, that's not really something that you can really do. It does have implications and we'll talk about that in the second point. So con, number one, it's very, very noisy and it's very, very Competitive. And as I said, the only way to get in and to compete, to be part of that is if you're willing to do a big chunky discount. I'm talking 10% here or 20%, we're talking 50%, 70%. Like that's the kind of thing you need to do to get enough sales to make doing the thing worthwhile. And do you want to do that? Which brings us to point two which is that if you are going to go out and you're going to compete and you're going to say, hey, I'm going to do this massive slash price thing off my offer, what you are then doing as well, like the long term effects of that is that it could actually damage your brand and cheapen your offer. Particularly if you are positioning yourself as an expert in your space. If you have created a program that is around excellence and mastery and that the value is of a much higher level then to come in and go, oh, but for this weekend actually the value is 30% of that. That can do some damage and it can also really annoy your existing clients. So I, anyone in the premium space or in, in the non mass market space, I would urge you to stop and take a, and pause and think, do I need to be promoting on this weekend? Remember there's a weekend before, there's a weekend after. There's plenty of weeks still in between. Either side of the holidays, there's January. Like if you are looking to get a boost in sales, do you have to participate in this weekend knowing that the only way to do it is to come in there and do something big and splashy and that is giving people a bargain. And I know there are people out there saying oh, you don't have to discount, you could just do a bundle or whatever. And yes, that is one way of doing it. But if you think about the psychology of it, a bundle is just another way of saying discount. But you just put more stuff in it to make the discount. So yes, it can potentially cheapen your offer. Another way to look at it, if you think about it like of all the brands participating in Black Friday, do you ever see like a Chanel or a Gucci or anyone like that going 70% off? I don't think so. Just yeah, just be aware, stop and take the moment to think about is this right for my brand? And for some brands it's fine and for some products it's fine. Like maybe you have an entry level offer and you're like hey, I can have, I can give that away. At 50% off any day of the week, but not your more premium offers. So that's another thing to think about. The other big con about participating in Black Friday is that it become, it can be very, very expensive. So if you are going to try and get some cut through, remember, everyone's inboxes are going to be overloaded, their social media is going to be overloaded, Everything's going to be overloaded. So quite often people go, well, I want people to see this offer that I've created. I'm going to do some ads. Those ads in that time are probably not going to see it get as many eyeballs as they would normally because there's so many people. It's. The ads is a marketplace. So it's going to be a very busy marketplace even with a lot of people getting mad at the ad platform at the moment. So it can just be a lot more expensive to then go and sell this discounted thing that you're going to sell. Now where this doesn't matter so much is when people have really amazing backend funnels that they know work and they're really dialed in and they're happy to go out and participate with a front end offer that they can discount without damaging their brand, knowing that it's just going to be getting people in that they're going to convert later on. Like, that's a different discussion, that's more advanced discussion. We're not talking about that. We're talking about when people like, I want to participate in Black Friday because I want to get a boost in sales because I want to make more revenue. So if that is what you're thinking, stop for a moment and pause and think about, well, maybe, maybe I could do the week after Black Friday or the week after that instead and not have to then slash my prices, pay triple for Facebook ads or potentially damage my brand. Now, for as far as Black Friday in general, even if you are not actually participating, there's still some things that you can think about that to take into account. Like we mentioned, Facebook ads are going to get more expensive. So our tip for this time of year is what we normally do is just kind of pull the brakes on for anything that's going out to cold traffic. That's a very competitive space and it's going to get very expensive. Unless of course, you have like a couple of ads that are just unicorn ads and they're doing super well. Like, we never want to mess with those. We normally just let those ride out and have a slightly expensive weekend and so they can continue on on the other side. But for anything else, we'll normally like pull back the ad spend, maybe just focus or bump up our, our retargeting and our warm traffic ads, or just leave them and just go, hey, is this going to be a quiet weekend? And we're fine with that. Final little tip for those of you who are like going, okay, well, it doesn't make sense with my offers to do something, but I still want to kind of get in there. I still want to sort of like be part of the fun and be part of the craziness. What else can I do? One thing that can work really well this time of year is actually to do some affiliate promos instead. Because it's not your brand. These brands are already out there. They're already doing the discounts. And if there are particular products that you love that are related to whatever it is that you help people with, it's things that you recommend to them anyway, why not sign up, get an affiliate promo code or whatever it is you need and you know, promote that instead if you really feel the need. Because that way you still are getting to go out there, getting to talk to people, get them excited, all that kind of stuff. But you're not. It's not coming back and impacting you. So those are our tips, guys around what to do with Black Friday. If you have an online course or coaching program, I'd love to know your thoughts. I'd love to know if you're still tempted or if we've kind of talked you out of it or if you've done it before and had success or not. We love chatting and nerding out about all this stuff. So hit us up in the DMS over at HelloFunnels on Instagram, or leave a comment below if you're watching the video. Otherwise, guys, that's it for this week. I hope you found this useful. If you have Please Share Leave a Comment Leave a Rating Leave a review. That's how we get out there. That's how we make sure more people hear this content. We don't have ads on this podcast, so the way that we get our word out there is by word of mouth. Someone probably told you about us, so if you could pass on the word, that would be amazing. And until next week, guys, keep doing what you do and we'll see you online. Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing It Online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figure funnel. Let Kate show you exactly how today@Stealmyfunnel.com.