What do 4th quarter launches, the mall, and a sold-out Usher concert have in common?

Good morning. Today we're going to talk about what do launches, the NorthPark Mall, and the Usher concert all have in common. That's what we're talking about today and how you can apply what, what I learned over the weekend, the strategy to your Q4 promotions. So that's what we're talking about today. Let me know in the chat that you're here. I'd love to say good morning to you. So here's what's happened over the weekend. So I finished my subscription box launch over the weekend, which went really well. And then we headed off, me and my boo, we headed off to Dallas for the weekend and we did, we did a couple of events while we were there. So we were there, we went on Friday, we were there Friday for a comedy show in Addison. So that was really fun. And then we— the main, the main thing was we went to the Usher concert on Saturday night. And then the other thing that I want to talk to you about is I went to the mall on Saturday to find my daughter some tennis shoes. And there are really some things that I saw in commonality with all of these things. And every time I'm out and about, or every time I'm in a different experience, I'm always thinking about how I can apply something to my own business. And so that's what we're talking about today. We're going to talk about how do my launches, the the mall visit and the Usher concert, what do they all have in common and how can we apply that to our business? So I'm coming over to the chat to say hi. I can see Rebecca's here. Good morning, Rebecca. Hey, Jonica. Good morning, everybody. Hey, Andrea. Good morning, Tabitha. Good to see you, Stephanie. Good morning. Good morning. Good to see y'all. Okay, so here's what happened, y'all. I don't know y'all's ages But if you were born in the '70s, were in high school in the '90s, you know who Usher is. And it's been like 30 years in the making for me to go to an Usher concert. I really wanted to see him when he was doing his residency out in Vegas earlier this year, but it just didn't line up with my schedule and I couldn't make it. So when I saw he was coming to Dallas, I was like, hands down, I'm going. I've waited 30 years for this. I'm going to see Usher. And it did not disappoint at all. But because we had kind of made a weekend out of it, we ended up going to a comedy show on Friday night first, and then we went to Usher on Saturday. And Usher fans, just let me know in the chat because that's— I mean, if you're an Usher fan, you just know how I feel deep down in my core. Um, but here's what I noticed. So we go to the, we go to the Addison Improv in Dallas, and we're going to a comedy show. Sold out, sold out show. And, um, I was like, okay, okay, it's a smaller venue, it was sold out, that was good. Then we go to the mall on Saturday, okay, and we go to the NorthPark Mall, which is a really nice mall in Dallas. And, um, I made some observations. I was looking for some shoes for my daughter And we could have gone to just a sporting goods store, but I'm like, let's go to the mall because then I can grab a coffee, I can window shop at the Gucci store, um, we can grab lunch while we're there, and there'll be multiple places we can look for shoes. So this was my thought process. And, um, as we're walking through the mall and we're doing the things and we're finding the shoes and we're window shopping and all the things, um my boyfriend and I were sitting there talking at lunch about just the habits of people. Like, the mall was so busy, like wall-to-wall people. And, you know, we're talking about the economy and people not shopping. And so here we went to this comedy show the night before. It was sold out. Now we're at the mall and it's wall-to-wall people. And I was like, this is really awesome. And I was kind of observing as I was going into the stores, like, what's driving people to the mall, right? And there wasn't a bunch of sales going on. Like, the stores that we went into, nothing was on sale. There wasn't like 30% off, 40% off, buy one, and get one. It— I didn't see that. And so I, I said, look, I stopped him while we were walking through the mall, and I said, look, there's not a lot of people that have bags in their hands. And that could be for reasons like, um, maybe they just got here, they haven't started shopping yet, maybe they're just here to hang out. And he goes, what do you mean here to hang out? I said, they're here for the experience. He goes, you don't go to the mall to buy something? I said, We're coming to the mall for different reasons. I wanted a coffee, number one. We knew we could get lunch there and they had these beautiful fall displays everywhere. I said, people are coming here for the experience. And if they happen to purchase something, maybe they're looking for something, maybe they're just hanging out, maybe it's something to do. And, and he was like, I would never go to the mall if I wasn't buying something. I said, but you're But your mindset's a little different because I'm going to go to the mall. These are some of the beautiful fall displays they had all throughout the mall. They had pumpkins everywhere. They had these canned goods statues everywhere. It was beautiful. People were coming to look around, hang out, and they're— and if you look at this picture, I didn't even look at this, but I just kind of noticed it as I pulled it up. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 people are in this picture. One person has bag. Okay, so people are coming for the experience, and they may buy something while they're there. It's like people hang out at the mall. That's what they do. Like, you can come get out of the house, you can come walk around, you can eat lunch, you can grab a cookie, you can do all the things, and you don't have to spend money. But people are there, so you might spend money. Okay, so this was observation number 2. Then we go see my man Usher, and y'all, it was everything I had waited 30 years to see. He stopped right in front of me in this moment and looked deep into my eyes. Yes, he looked into my eyes. Yes, he did. And he stopped and he sang, and then he walked on. But in this, in this situation, he, um was right at the end of the show, he was basically thanking Dallas, um, and saying that he had 3 back-to-back sold-out shows there in Dallas. And I was, I was like, that's amazing. Oh my gosh, what just happened? Am I flashing? Oh my goodness, stop, I can't take it off. There we go. Okay. I don't know if my whole screen was flashing for you guys, but I was like this. And so he had 3 sold-out shows. So my curiosity, my, my want to know things. I looked up how many seats could fit a concert at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, over 20,000. So 3 nights in a row, he had over 20,000 people in those seats. And some of those seats were not cheap, y'all. And so it just made me like, when you think about all of this as a whole, The comedy show was sold out. Usher concert was sold out 3 nights in a row. The mall is packed. And for me, what did that represent? That represent that people wanted experiences. People were getting out. They want experiences, whether that's a show, whether that's hanging out at the mall, whatever that is. And I thought, okay, every time I'm in a situation where I learn something, How do I apply that to my own business? And so I just ended my launch and I believe I told you guys in Launch Your Box last week that it wasn't a full-on live launch. I was doing it a little bit easy and I was just doing some emails and ads and posts and I wasn't doing the big live launch like I normally do. Well, I ended that launch with 256 new subscriptions over the week and I felt really good about that. I was creating an experience with that launch and people were showing up for that experience. I gave away a year subscription. That was an experience that I was creating. So as we go into these next few months, like we're already in fourth quarter, by the way, we're already in the fourth quarter. As you start promoting your things, I want you to think about the experience that you're creating with your product, with your launches, with your promotions. Because what I saw over the weekend was that people want to not just buy, they want the experience. We didn't find the shoes that we wanted, so I went to that sporting goods store. And you know what? It was dead. It was dead. There were more workers in there than there were shoppers. And I thought, wow, The people are climbing the walls at the mall because it's a whole experience and the sporting goods store was dead. And so how do we create that experience to get people to shop online with us, to show up on our pages, to engage with us on social media? How do we create an experience that then makes people want to shop with us? So I have some, have some actionable items. For you today. So let's talk about this. If you're a note-taker, grab your notebooks. I'm going to give you some things to think about as you're going into your promotions. I have a promotion that starts next week for my holiday boxes. After that, I'm doing my Better Than Black Friday sale. After that, I have our gifts, our annual gift subscriptions promotion. After that, I'm doing our 10 Days of Frame Deals in December. And after that, I have our mystery boxes. And so when you think about these 5 or 6 promotions that I have going on right now, coming up in the next probably 45 days, how can I create an experience where people want to come shop with me? People are, are waiting to go to that Usher concert. People are heading out to the mall to do something. How do I create that experience? Number one, I created an early access list. Okay, so I just started ads for it last night, but I created an access list so that people people could get early access to all of my Q4 promotions. So no, they wouldn't miss it. They felt special. And so this is just one of the graphics that I'm using for that. But I need to bring people to the mall, right? This is my way. This is my— I need to bring people to the mall and I need to make them part of my experience. I need to bring people to that email list because what's going to happen over the next 45 days is going to be a whole lot of noise about a whole lot of things. And I need to be able to get their attention in some way. And so I've been building an early access list, and that just means, hey, you're on my list, which means you're kind of a VIP in my business and you're going to get to shop 24 hours before everyone else. Okay? And what this does is it creates buzz, it creates excitement, and it also creates some scarcity that, hey, I get to shop before other people. I'm gonna get in and do my purchases before this goes live tomorrow. So I'm creating an early access list so people feel part of an experience and not just, hey, buy my thing. Hey, you're part of this exclusive group of people that get early access. Here's what's happening tomorrow. You get to shop now. So I'm creating that buzz. Number 2, I want you to create an event around whatever promo you're doing for fourth quarter. So this holiday box, this is an event. And what do events have? They have a time frame. They have a limited amount of time that they are available. That's an event. We can't just put it out there next week and say buy your holiday box and leave it open until December or when you sell out. It's, hey, I am selling holiday boxes next week. You have 5 days to order or before we sell out. These are limited edition, these are exclusive boxes, we have limited quantities and they are special pricing. We have to create that event around our promotion. We can't just lob it out there with never-ending times. Oh, I'll come back. Oh, I'll get that later. We have to create an event around these promotions, okay? Number 3, I want you to treat it like a launch. So whatever promotion you're doing over the next 45 days or 60 days, I want you to treat it like a launch. And what do we do during launch time? We only post about that, what we're launching. So I'm launching holiday boxes next week, 5 days of holiday box posting every day. Okay, I'm going to send emails about the holiday box every day for 5 days. And I know you're like, oh, but I don't want people to unsubscribe. They're not our people if they're unsubscribing. Okay, I'm gonna go live several times during that 5-day period, and I am going to run ads as if I'm launching my subscription box. Okay, so the goal is that I sell out of these holiday boxes in 5 days. I have to treat it like a launch. So that I can create urgency, scarcity, and FOMO of people missing out on getting a holiday box. We have to treat our promotions like a launch. Number 4, towards the end of this event, this launch, this promo, we need to prep them for the next big thing, okay? So since we have multiple promos coming over the, time period, over the next 60 days, we need to prep them for what's coming next. So when my holiday box comes to an end, I'm going to be prepping them for my Better Than Black Friday sale. Here's what's next. I'm going to be pushing out that early access list. Get on the early access list if you're not already so that you will know ahead of time what our Better Than Black Friday deals are and you can snag them. We need to make them feel like they're part of this big experience around our holiday promotions and not just lob things out there and try to sell them. We do this with our subscription boxes, and I have a new training that we did during coaching week called 8 Ways to Curate an Experience for Your Subscriber. If you haven't watched that, it is in our Launch Your Box training library under the coaching week replays. But that's what we're trying to do every month with our subscription. And we're also trying to do that right now in Q4 with all of our holiday promotions. I'm going to recap these for you, these 4 things: build a list, create buzz, excitement, and scarcity. I'm creating an early access list. You can call it whatever you want. You can call it an early access list. I don't care. Create an event around your promotion. You got to have a timeline. You got to have limited edition, limited quantity, special pricing, whatever that is. This is a big special event. You've got number 3, you've gotta treat it like a launch. So make sure you're doing all the launch activities that we talk about inside Launch Your Box. Posting, emails, lives, ads, we gotta knock, we gotta knock it down, okay? We gotta lock it, I wanted to say lock it down, we gotta lock it down just like a launch. That means you need to go into the launch module inside Launch Your Box, pull out those calendars for social media, for your launch events, pull those out, make 4 or 5 copies, however many promotions you have, and let's make a plan for each promotion coming up. We're not going to just wing it through the fourth quarter. We can't do that. We leave money on the table when we try to wing it all the time. And number 4, at the end of one promotion, we're prepping them for what comes next. Okay? We got to make them feel like they're a part of this holiday shopping season with us. So that they choose to shop small businesses and not be at the mall. Because there's a lot of people at the mall. I felt like it was the Usher concert all over again. There was a lot of people at the mall. So I want you to take this away from my experience this weekend: people are spending money. I saw it all weekend long. People are spending money, and if your audience is not spending money right now, it's time to get in front of a new audience. The best way to do that is with Advantage+ Shopping Ads. If your audience is stale, it's time to find the people that are spending money, because people are spending money. Okay, create excitement around it with your promotions. And let's really take on fourth quarter strong. All right, people are spending money. If your audience isn't, it's time to find new people. Okay, I hope that's helpful. Also, I decided that, um, the amount of extroverting that I did over the weekend— if you don't hear from me in the next 7 to 10 days, it's because I need to replenish my introvertedness. And not leave the house for a few days. But, um, let's make an experience. Let's curate an experience this holiday with our promotions for our audiences. All right, have a great, great week, and I'll see you guys soon. Bye.