641. Last Minute Black Friday Strategies

Hi, I'm Jacqueline Snyder and this is the Product Boss podcast. I've helped launch and grow thousands of product based businesses, even one of my own. And over the last 20 years, I've seen behind the scenes of businesses just like yours. Whether they are makers, manufacturers, artists, or food and beverage businesses. I have spent so many hours studying it all. I've discovered what makes them successful, what mistakes they could have avoided, how did they turn their ideas into a successful business, and what are the strategies that they have used to make more sales and be discovered by more customers. And this is what this show is all about. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to become a million dollar product boss, I'm here to give you the permission to chase your dreams, no matter how big or small. All you need is the right mindset, a little courage, strategy and support, and you too can be the next million dollar product Boss. Let's do this. Hey. Hey, Product Boss. Welcome back to another Product Boss podcast episode. I'm your host, Jacqueline Snyder, and today we're talking about something that might be making you a little nervous. Yes, my friends, we made it to the week we've been talking about for months. It's the week of Thanksgiving in the States and Black Friday. Right? We've got Black Friday through Cyber Monday and the entire weekend. So don't worry if you're feeling unprepared, especially if you're just starting out, because I've got some super simple last minute strategies that can help you make the most of this huge shopping event, even if your business is still small and starting to grow. Okay. And stick around to the end because I've got a special freebie and a holiday bonus that could help you boost your sales before Christmas. Okay? So I know a lot of you might be thinking, jacqueline, I'm too late, not ready for Black Friday. I want you to take a deep breath. It's never too late to implement some effective strategies, even if you're just starting out. And let me tell you even more. So where small businesses, small businesses are agile. These big businesses, they're like turning the Titanic. Okay, it is too late. But small businesses, we're like the little speedboats, right? Or we're the little jet skis. We can zip around and move, right? We're very, very agile. And so I want you to take that deep breath because we still have time, no matter when you're listening to this, because Black Friday can be an awesome opportunity for you no matter what size business you are. So. So what? I want to do today is dive into some simple strategies that you can implement right now. Right? I want us to just kind of dig in and say, what can I do last minute? So first off, let's talk about your offer. So at this point in your business, if you're kind of last minute or you're a smaller business, the best thing to do is to keep things simple. So instead of trying to discount everything and do all these things and people sometimes are like, I'm going to do 12 Days of Christmas and all this stuff, I just want you to focus on one great offer, one great promotion. Maybe it's your best selling product at a special price or a bundle of your top three items. The key is to make it easy for you to manage and easy for your customers to understand, right? Keep it simple, seller. Okay, now let's talk about email marketing. Right? This is strategy number two. We're going to jump into email marketing. So even if you have a super, super small email list, okay? An email list is an email list. I want you to use it. I want you to send a simple email announcing your Black Friday offer. Don't overthink it, right? It could just be an image. This is something that we did in our challenge Rocker holiday promotions challenge. Many of you, thousands of you, built your offers with us. But again, we're the week before Black Friday or the week of. Don't overthink this. I just want you to tell your subscribers, the people on your list, what's on sale for how long and how they can buy it. And if you have time, which I'd like you to do is send a reminder email on the day of the sale too. And what I'm gonna do is I have a freebie for you. I'm really excited and so you can get this. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit later, but I'm going to give you a freebie so that you can steal my Black Friday schedule. Okay? So, so we're going to give you that link in the show notes so you can steal my Black Friday schedule. And that way you can just kind of think, okay, when am I going to email people? When is this email going to go out? But I want you to keep it simple. All right, so you ready to jump into strategy number three? It's social media. I know, I know, I know. But we got to make friends with social media. Okay? Let's make it our friend. Even if it's a friend. We only want to talk to you every once in a while, but especially when you're just starting out, this is a way that you can reach customers immediately, anywhere in the world. So when you're running a sale for Black Friday, I would like you to talk about it everywhere in which you can market. So I want you to create a simple graphic announcing your sale. And you can use a free tool like Canva for this. And then I want you to post it on all of your social media platforms. So don't be afraid to do it right if you're on Instagram, if you're on Facebook, if you're on TikTok, wherever you are, don't be afraid to post. And then also don't be afraid to go live on Instagram or Facebook to showcase your products, right? To talk about your offer. I know it's scary. And I remember so many of you had found us during 2020. I had done a video or plank challenge. It was so funny. We were all not funny. I mean, we were locked at home during the pandemic. And I remember thinking, okay, people need to get online. They need to show their face, they need to talk about their product. So I challenged everyone to do one minute of holding a plank or one minute of video. And let me tell you how many people opted for the video. Okay, so this is your challenge. Okay, we can make the video or plank challenge again. Either, my friends, you have to start holding a plank for a minute, or can you get on video and do a live stream for at least a minute? Or a video that you could post as a reel or on TikTok where you're like, hey, this is my product. This is my Black Friday sale. This is my offer and talk about it. This is how you can connect with your audience. This creates excitement. And remember, even when I started, I had zero people or one person show up. Sometimes it was my sister, sometimes it was my mom, sometimes it was my grandma even, right? So it's okay because it's practice, but we just wanna make sure that we're doing all the things to really take advantage of this weekend. Okay? The fourth thing you can do, this is a strategy that can set you apart, is offer fast shipping. So if you can guarantee delivery before Christmas, I want you to make sure you can highlight that and a lot of, you know, your shipping deadline. So when, like, we can no longer ship to get it in time for Christmas, but you can even just use it as a marketing point of like fast shipping, get it before Christmas. This is a big selling point, especially for last minute shoppers. And this year is different because for some reason, Calendar has dropped Thanksgiving and Black Friday at the very last weekend of November, which actually gives us less time between Black Friday and Christmas. So we need to help our last minute shoppers get the gifts that they want faster. Now let's dig into some other ways that you can really connect with your customers during the season. So I really want you to think about that personal touch, right? Because when you're a small business, you have the ability to have that personal touch. That's your superpower. So at this point, you can consider adding a handwritten note right to each order. Or maybe it's a small free gift as a little thank you. These little touches can turn first time buyers into loyal customers. It's the little things account. Especially in a season where, you know, customer service is dead for so many of the big businesses, right? There's so many things that like, you can't get ahold of anyone and they're not around to help you. So how can we lean into the small business personal touch? Now, I know that planning for Black Friday can be overwhelming. That's why we started this all the way back in August of this year with product bosses. And especially if you're just starting out or you haven't really done a full Black Friday before, this is the first time that you're like, I'm going to dig in. So that's why I want to give you a free gift, right? Free gift to celebrate you and to support you. I'm going to give you my personal Black Friday schedule for launching your product sales. Okay? So I'm going to give you a few options. And this is the exact schedule that I've used to plan and execute the successful Black Friday sales. I've had. One that I teach my students, one that my students in the academy are going to have access to in the Product Boss Academy, which is our brand new membership. And so if you want to get your hands on it, it's super easy. All you have to do is go to Instagram, find the product boss, if you're not already following us, and DM me the words Black Friday. Okay? DM me the words Black Friday on Instagram and I'll send it right over to you. Now this schedule is going to help you stay organized and make the most of your Black Friday sale. And I want to give it to you, just DM me the word Black Friday at Instagram. We'll drop a link to my Instagram account so you can do that. And for those of you that are ready, really level up in 2025, really figure out that, you know, 2025 is the year that you're done doing the things you've always done and you're ready to kind of make the change that you want and see the business evolve and grow into your wildest dreams. I want to let you know that when you join the Product Boss Academy, which is our brand new program which I talked about last week, but when you join, not only are you going to get in our special Founders Rate, which is the lowest rate that it'll ever be, it's just $444. You will lock that in for your yearly rate forever because going up to 997 a year, okay? But when you do that and you join us inside of the Academy now, you will also get access to my complete Black Friday launch checklist and our exclusive how to make a Thousand Dollars by Christmas training. Okay. That's all inside of the Academy today. So I have so many new founding students that have joined and you're getting access to that and it's not too late to jump in and get that. And this is just a sneak peek of the way that we will be supporting you ongoing inside of the Product Boss Academy. Right. Because these resources are going to go beyond the basics that we've talked about today on the podcast. And the launch checklist is going to walk you through planning and executing the Black Friday campaign. Right, how you're going to do this, and we're also going to give you that how to make a Thousand Dollars by Christmas training because that's going to be packed with strategies to boost your holiday sales and finish this year strong. And I want you to remember that the Founders Rate won't always be available. So if you're listening to this in the future, I'm sorry if you missed out, but if you're listening to this in real time in 2024, there's just a limited amount of time because by the end of Black Friday weekend, this offer is going away. The Founders Rate is disappearing. So if you want in, okay, By Cyber Monday, this is the time to join the place for Product Bosses. It's an incredible opportunity to join a community of like minded entrepreneurs to get access to all of the curriculum that I wish that I had. You're going to have access to templates and tools for every part of your business. It's everything that I've ever used or built for my clients. And this is going to be the thing, right? This is going to be the game changing thing. Plus, in January, when we kick off officially, there's going to be weekly live coaching and Q&As. It's amazing. So I want you to remember, my friends, that you don't need to have a huge business to have a successful Black Friday. I want you to keep it simple. I want you to start where you are. I want you to use what you have and I want you to do what you can. Hey, every sale is a win and every customer interaction is an opportunity to grow your business. So I'd love to hear how these strategies end up working for you. You can always send me a message over on Instagram or I love seeing these conversations come up inside of the Product Boss Academy community, inside the membership. And don't forget to DM me the word Black Friday on Instagram for your free Black Friday schedule. So that's it for today, my friends. I hope that this simple Black Friday strategies helped you have a successful sale, a successful weekend. I want to tell you if you celebrate Thanksgiving, you're in the States or wherever you are in the world, but this is a week of gratefulness and gratitude. I am so incredibly grateful for each and every one of you. For those of you that listen to the show, for those of you that have been with me since the very, very beginning, and those of you who are brand new and finding yourselves here, I want to welcome you to this community of amazing human beings that are so incredibly supportive and driven and they love on each other and help each other and you all have been so supportive of me and I can't tell you how grateful I am to be surrounded by you and to be able to talk to so many of you and coach you and that you are trusting your businesses and your livelihood with the Product Boss. So I want to tell you I'm incredibly grateful that I love you all so very much and I cannot wait for what's to come in 2025. So good luck this week, my friends. This is it. This is game time. This is what we've been prepping for this ent time and I'm excited to see what you do. So until next time, keep pushing and keep dreaming and keep building your Product Boss empire. Happy selling and have a fantastic Black Friday. Okay, until next time and happy Thanksgiving.