Gift Bundles & Gift Guides to Capture More Holiday Sales

Good morning, happy Monday! Today we're going to talk about creating gift bundles and gift guides to attract holiday shoppers and create more conversions. So let me know, let me know if you're here. I would love to say hi to you this morning. Like, here's, here's what it is. I feel like I had a little sense of overwhelm yesterday, and it wasn't that there's like things that are chaotic or out of control or anything, but there's something about this shift from October 31st to November 1st that really changes everything. Do you know what I mean? Like, we talk— we think about buyers' shopping habits literally change overnight when that calendar page flips from October 31st to November 1st. We kind of have to switch the way that we're marketing. We have to the way that we're thinking. We have to switch the— our offers. People are still in the buying for myself mode in October, and when we hit November 1st, we get into this I'm thinking and buying for other people. So we have to switch our messaging, we have to switch kind of our marketing plan. And so I don't know what it was, but it just feels like we went from August to November in like 2.5 seconds. Are y'all with me? Like Do y'all understand today is November 4th? Didn't we just start 2024? Like, how did we get here already? And I kind of have this little sense of overwhelm yesterday, like, am I planned out enough? Have I done enough prep? Have I, you know, ordered enough product? Have I— do I have what I need to be successful through this holiday period? And I had to kind of walk away a little bit, um, because it was like, it all of a sudden it hit me that we are in the holiday season right now. Today, right now. And so I need you guys to start shifting your mind into holiday shoppers. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. I've kind of outlined a few things. If you're a note-taker, you might want to take a few notes today, but I want your brain to instantly shift. Like, we were handing out candy on Thursday night, and now we're in full holiday shopping season. And I went to a holiday market this weekend. And then I have seen massive sales over the last several days on my shop, and a lot of it is gift giving. So we're going to talk about what's working right now and then how I can get your brain switched with me so that we can go into November feeling really good. And here's the thing that I want you to think about as I go through this— excuse me— as I go through this, we're going to be in chaos this month. Okay, we're going to be in chaos. It's okay. We're going to feel overwhelmed this month. That's okay, too. Like, we prep for this all year long and now we're in it and we're like, oh goodness, it's okay. Because I can see all these comments over here on the chat telling me good morning. Every one of these people are in this with us. And that's the best part of having a community like we do, is that we're all in this together and we're all going to get through this. Together. So if you're feeling stressed, if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're feeling like, oh, I don't know what to do first, you're feeling just like the rest of us. Okay. So let me come to the chat and say good morning and then we're going to dig in. I've got some talking points for you. I've got some action steps for you. I really want you to think about some things in different ways. I'm going to tell you what's working for me right now because I've got some really great things working for me right now. So I'm going to share that with you. And the cool thing is There's so much good happening right now in my retail business. And do you know what tomorrow is? It's Election Day, and I don't think it's affected anything one bit. And I know it might be different based on where you live, right? I know some of those swing states, they're, they're, they feel a little bit different than if you're in a state that we kind of know what our state's gonna produce. So if you're in one of the battleground states, the election feels very different for you right now than some of us that are in pretty much solid blue or red states. Right. So we've got— we've got this going on. Okay. All right. So let me come say hi and then we're going to dig right into it because I want you to— I want you to— I want you to be inspired today. I want you to kind of shift the way we're marketing today with what we talk about. And I want you to put some action plans in place today. So I want you to do that today. As we go through this. Good morning, Lexi. Good morning, Marge. Good morning, team. Hey, team. Good morning, Jen. Hey, Jonica. Good morning, Louise. Good morning, Andrea. Hey, Rebecca. Care is here. Good morning, Stephanie. Good morning, Darla. Hey, Tony. Good morning, Christina. I said Christina. Christy. Good morning, Christy. Good morning, Amy. Good morning, Sue. Becky says, I'm offering 4 times more products than I ever have, and I'm still afraid it's not enough financially. I'm following my step-by-step plan, though. Okay. Okay. Good morning, Amy. Good morning, Christina. Good morning, Candy. Charlene, Vicki, Dana. Good morning, Tabitha. And I see everybody. Everybody's here. Good morning, everybody. Okay. I'm so glad you're here with me because sometimes we just need to talk through this, right? Good morning, Doris. Doris, guess where I'm going this weekend? To the Colorado-Texas Tech game. That's where I'm going this weekend. Doris and I have this understanding about Coach Prime, so I'm going to— my son is at Texas Tech. And they play Colorado this weekend, so I'm going to the game. Anyway, back on track. We're talking about creating gift bundles and gift guides for our holiday shopping. So I just talked to you about the mindset. So the mindset right now is shifting to gifting. October, we were buying for ourselves. We were, and we needed to market that. Treat yourself, buy for you. We got to shift that to now gift giving. Okay, so I want everything you do to really be about how can we market this as a gift idea, a gift set. And that's where these gift bundles and these gift guides go hand in hand. And we're going to talk a little bit more about some strategic marketing in Launch Your Box this week when I'm live in Launch Your Box. But I just want to talk about these two things because I think everybody can really shift their messaging and their marketing in this way. These things work. Gift bundles and gift guides really work because We can tailor gifts to certain people, and we can also bundle things together that maybe have been sitting on the shelf for a little bit, and we can bundle them and create a gift bundle out of them and really show value. And they really feel like they're getting a better deal than they normally would. So here's what I want you to do. So let's, let's put these in two separate categories. First, let's talk gift bundles, because gift bundles are working so well for me right now. We've started this a few weeks ago, and they're working really well. As a matter of fact, I've sold 60 of my pajama bundles over the weekend. So that's really working well. I had over 250 leftover Christmas pajamas from last year's Christmas pajama box. Okay. So you can imagine all this has been sitting on my shelf for over a year. So we did a couple of things and I want you to think about this. So one, it's putting the bundle together. That's like step number one, figure out what you have. Put a bigger item with a couple smaller items. Let's sell it as a gift bundle because people can see that as a gift. And that's not like, I got to go here and get something in here and get something in here and get something. And they're not shopping everywhere. We're making it giftable for them. So think about today what you have in your inventory that's maybe been sitting around for a little while that you could put in a gift style bundle. Okay, so Christmas pajamas was a no-brainer. I also have like 200 of these crossbody bags, um, sitting around. And so I made a monogram sweatshirt crossbody bag earring bundle, just stuff I have laying around. And I'm gonna get it off my shelf, I'm gonna get some cash back into my bank account, and these people are going to have a really great shopping experience for me. Okay, so let's talk about the pajama bundle. Here's how we launch it. I launch it with a live. I want you to think about your marketing. It doesn't do us any good to put some gift bundles together, throw them on our website and call it a day. We have to sell them, okay? We have to sell them. So I go live and I share this gift, these gift bundles. Here's the new gift bundles. I put a bow around them to show how they look giftable. I also am encouraging them to get them while we have their size. So I'm creating some urgency with sizing or limited quantities or limited editions. And so I'm putting it out there in a Facebook Live first. So that's like my marketing piece number 1. Marketing piece number 2, immediately after the live, it's going to go in an email campaign. So I go from live to email. Now I'm going to send it out to my whole list. And in this email, I decide to talk about who these were for. That's another key piece to gift bundles and gift guides. Who are they for? Okay, so I said grab a set for you and then grab some for all the women in your family to take a cute holiday picture with. So now instead of it just being about them, I'm telling them who to buy for. So anytime we put any bundle together, we have to make it clear on who is it for. I need you to be thinking about who I can buy this for. And that's an important shift in our messaging from October to November. Everything we put out there, whether that's a sweatshirt, a pair of earrings, a bundle, a book, like whatever you sell, who is this for? Okay, so I put in this email, grab a set for you, grab a set for your sister, your mom, your cousin, and take a family picture. So orders are coming in. I see one order and I can see that it's a first-time customer. I'm always curious about first-time customers. It's a $300 order, which is not an average order for me. So instantly I was like, oh, who spent $300? I go and look. This is their very first purchase with me. I follow their marketing trail. They opted in to one of my free wallpapers in September. They've been opening my emails. Not clicking on anything, but they've been look— opening probably 1 in every 3 emails that I send out. And this is their first purchase with me. They bought 8 Christmas pajama bundles because I suggested that they buy them for all the women in their family. Do you see how we have to help them figure out who things are for? Then I had orders of 4, and then I had orders of 2. And, and so I was just telling them who to buy for. We have to, we have to tell people who things are for to help them. You got to imagine this time of year for women, just women in general, if that's your audience, we are busy, we are crazy, we are decorating, we are baking, we are working, we're shuffling kids around. Like, I got a daughter that's playing, you know, in band, so I got to get her to the football game and then she's got basketball and then all the things are going on there. We're busy. If I send out an email, say, grab your Christmas pajamas, do you think I would have had the sales that I would have over the weekend? No. I told them who to buy for, and that's why I was seeing multiples, because I made it clear. Oh, duh. Let me get one for my mom and my sister and I and my daughter, and then we'll wear them together on, you know, Christmas Eve and we'll take a family picture together. Great idea, Sarah. We have to identify who things are for. Okay, so let's go back. Live turned into an email, turned into social media posts. So now I've got a post. There's pictures of me wearing these pajamas with my feet up on the couch. There's pictures of flat lays of the pajamas. We got some graphics made of the pajamas. So we have social media posts. So now I've been on live. It's been in your inbox. Now you're seeing it on my social media. And then the last component of that is running an ad. And when the ad started, I'd already sold like 30 of these things, but when the ad started, I could see an acquisition cost of $4. I haven't had an acquisition cost of $4 on anything since 2018. So it was like I sprinkled all the pre-stuff, and the ad— it was like building, you know, I talk about ads, about kind of— they're kind of like building a fire. Our content is our logs. We've got to have good content. We got to build that content up. So I had the live, I had the social post, I had the email, and then I threw the lighter fluid on. That's our ads. I already had the base for that ad to work, and it all works together. So that's what I want you to think about. I didn't have to run an ad. So that scares you. You can still go live. You can still send an email. You can still do social media posts to get these things out here. Okay. Sammy said, I just purchased your bundles for 7 of my grandchildren. Do you see what Sammy did? Sammy heard me talking to her about who these were for. Thank you, Sammy. I appreciate you. And that's what we need to do. Okay, so now think about your own bundles. Think about what you can pull together that you got laying around in your inventory somewhere. And it might not be 200 of something like me. You got to remember, I have a lot of subscribers, so that creates a lot of excess, right? Um, but it might be 10 of something, it might be 5 of something, it might be 50 of something. If you could create some gift bundles and get them out in the world, people are shopping. Now, I've— I'm profitable on that $39 bundle because my cost is low. I've only spent $4 in acquisition costs. The rest of my marketing that I did was free. So I'm still profitable and I've got all my money back on that inventory that's been sitting on my shelf for over a year. So I want you to think about that. Okay. Now. And you can do this with lots of things. You could do pet care, you could do self-care, you could do fitness, you could do book lovers, like you could do all of that stuff. And I want you to make sure that you create urgency in your messaging. My urgency was the sizing, my urgency that they were limited time, limited quantities. So we need to create some urgency and exclusivity. That's something we talk about all the time. So I need you to do that in your marketing message. Now let's talk about gift guides. We do gift guides a lot for my blog, and that in turn we can put in an email. You can do it as a post. You don't have to create a blog if you don't have a blog. But there are times that we need to help people shop and we can do that with a gift guide. Okay, I want you to think about your ideal customer. And then I, I, it's not for them, okay? And I know this is hard for you to, to wrap your mind around. This is for who they shop for, okay? So think about your ideal customer and who do they shop for. I am my ideal customer. Who am I shopping for right now? Okay, so this would be Teenagers. I've got teenagers in my life and I always struggle because they want, you know, a $1,500 iPhone or some super expensive stuff that's way out of the price range for Christmas gifts. Right. So I always struggle with what to get my teenager because she's not one that is super girly. She wears sport— I call her Sporty Spice because she just wears like Adidas and Nike 24/7. So I could totally get her some new hoodies, a new pair of shoes. but I also want to think about other things that I could get her that she would really love. So I always put together— and one of my most popular gift guides is a teen gift guide. My ideal customer is probably buying for teen girls as well. I have some great gifts for teen girls in my shop. I have belt bags, I have t-shirts, I have, you know, jewelry, I have gifts. And so one gift guide that I can put together is for teen girls. Okay, I can put together gifts for the home— the cozy homebody. It could have a blanket and a mug and a sweatshirt in it. I could put gifts together, a gift guide for, you know, self-care for the busy mom, and I could put some face masks and I can put, you know, a comfy robe in there. Like, think about who your ideal customer is shopping for They shop for everybody. If your ideal customer is a woman like mine, they shop for everybody in their life. We, we buy all the gifts for our, our spouse's family, for our kids, for our co-workers and neighbors. Think about that. So I want you to think about customer interests. So could you put— if you have a book subscription, could you put, you know, a box together for romance book lovers or true crime book lovers or something like that? Because instantly when you say true time book lovers. Oh well, that's so-and-so in my family. I can buy them that because that's all they read, that's all they listen to, that's all they watch on TV. That is for that person. You could also do guides like for gifts for mom, gifts for besties, gifts for co-workers. Okay, it simplifies who they're shopping for and it makes them focused on buying that one person a gift. You could also do, you know, gifts under $50, gifts under $40, or like splurge-worthy gifts, get luxury gifts. Think about creating guides by budget. Think about creating a gift guide for people, and then think about creating a gift guide for like interests. Okay, so these are 3 different types of gift guides that you can do, and this would be an easy live for you to do as well. Like A lot of you say, I don't know what to go live about. Hey, I created a gift guide for gifts under $40. I'm going to show you my top 10 live today at 10:00 and just show them gifts under $40 and who it's for. Tell them who it's for. Then what do you do after the live? I've already given you the blueprint. Do the live, send the email, do social media posts. You're feeling froggy. Set up an ad. Okay, that's how we have to market right now. We have to market to people, those holiday shoppers. And when we can dig into who they're buying for and give them direction and help them think about those people, we're going to see conversions. They're like, oh, that would be perfect for so-and-so. When you're scrolling social media and you see something different and unique and like, oh my gosh, that's the perfect gift for so-and-so. Right. We have to create that. So we can do this by putting specific gift bundles together. We can do it by putting gift guides together. And then all we have to do is market to that, our person. There's some other ways that you can do this to help you. You know, I'm talking about marketing. So I'm talking about doing a live, sending an email and setting up social posts. But there's also some categories that you can set on your website. So one of those, I create a lot of bundles. And so, um, right now I have a couple different bundles going on. And so, um, we create a gift set category in our Shopify site. So when you go to my home page and you click shop, you're going to come to this category. And right now we have our fall collection up top, and then we have our gift bundles underneath that. So instantly, if I'm shopping for a gift, I'm going to click on gift bundles. And you can see all my bundles are there, all my gift sets that I've put together, whether that's 1 or 2 things together, whether that's 4 things together. I've created different gift bundles and you can name them, you know, for the cozy homebody self-care essential bundle. You can name them for the book lovers, for fitness enthusiasts. Okay, you can name them those things. And so they're like, oh, well, my sister, she reads books all the time. Let me see, she probably would love this gift book bundle. And it can be a couple books, it can be a blanket, it can be a candle. Think about the experience somebody has when they want to enjoy a book. That's what we need to be doing. And we can put that on our website, and then we can drive traffic to that from social media, from emails, from lives, and from ads. And so that's what I want you to think about. Think about gift bundles and gift guides and turn your marketing message from treat yourself to let's gift to someone. Let's be clear with who it's for and why we put it together. All right. I hope that helps you make some sales this week, get some things organized and get things settled because we have a lot of opportunity to sell product right now. And I'm seeing it and I'm seeing in the middle of election, my ads are working, my sales are great, and I am really focused. So I need you to get focused too. We've got this, and I need you to start now. All right. All right. I'll see you guys soon. And don't forget, inside Launch Your Box this week, we're going to go a little bit deeper into Q4 marketing so that I can have you set, locked, and loaded for the next several weeks of your marketing plan. All right. You guys have a great Monday. I'll see you soon.