I don’t know what it is about human psychology but it’s apparently been proven that we are more likely to avoid pain than seek pleasure. So I thought why not present my Q4 strategies in a more negative light just in case it sinks in better for you that way.
Here are 5 mistakes to avoid this holiday season.
Prefer to listen to the episode? Click here.
Don’t Overcomplicate Your Offers
If it’s hard for you to explain, it’s going to be difficult for your customers to understand. If it’s hard to implement from a technical perspective, it’s going to be a thorn in your side. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do one big discount for all of BFCM weekend, you can absolutely be more strategic to protect your margin, and I recommend that you do.
A really important part of being strategic is understanding your numbers. We’ve been talking about this A LOT inside the Lounge. You have to have a handle on your profitability. Getting more revenue doesn’t help you if you just end up giving it all away with your promotions.
Don’t do a 12 Days of Christmas Sale
Yep, I said it. I’m really not a fan of the 12 Days of Christmas sale. In my experience, it causes confusion and makes your customers hesitate because they think the thing they want to buy might be on sale tomorrow, and it can overall just be exhausting for you and them.
Does that mean they don’t work for anyone? Nope. There are always going to be exceptions to the rule. So if it’s worked for you in the past and you love doing it then awesome, do you. But if it’s something you’ve been thinking about and aren’t convened of, I say skip it.
If you want to play into the 12 days of Christmas because it’s fun then use it as a marketing schtick. Share a new product each day on social and email so you always have something new to talk about. But if you’re offering a discount on these items, I’d put them all in a collection together and make the discount active for the entire 12 days. Why make your customer come back multiple days, potentially pay for shipping more than once, and create more orders for you to process, when they could just come and buy all 12 items in one shot?
Don’t Forget to Warm Up Your Customers Before Your Launch
This might be the MOST important one on the list. And it’s funny cause I literally talk about this to death. I have outlined my entire product and promo launch process here on the podcast, I have a full course on it in the Lounge, it literally lays out step-by-step what to say and when to say it…
Yet I have students, whose email list I’m on, and I get an email on launch day like hey product XYZ is available now. And I’ve gotten what seems like no warm-up whatsoever. Is it possible they sent emails in advance to let me know it was coming? Possibly, but I didn’t see it because my inbox is flooded… and so are your customers!
So, remember – you are not the most important thing in your customer’s lives. Your competition is everything else that needs their attention, like their job, their family, their friends, the dishwasher that broke, the billboard for that new movie they drive past every day on their commute to the office, the baby that just spit up on them, the mother-in-law that’s coming into town for the holidays, the new season of Love is Blind that just dropped. Literally everything in their life.
You’ve got to be the hype person who gets them to pay attention BEFORE you actually need their attention. They need 7-10 touch-points (probably more) before they take action. You’ve got to… excuse the reference… I hope you know by now to use earphones if you’re with your kids – but you gotta give them a little foreplay if you want the big finish.
Don’t Worry About Being Annoying
I know this is a struggle for so many of us, myself included. But if we’re not showing up consistently, our competitors will be and you want to make sure you’re able to break through the noise.
Remind yourself that someone out there is looking for the EXACT thing you sell. And if you don’t show up and let them know you have the thing they’re looking for… you’re doing them a disservice. Keeping your amazing product hidden and locked away is selfish – so you’ve got to shout it from the rooftops.
What that means for you is going to be different than the next business. Whatever your current marketing channels are, email, social, etc. You’ll want to ramp up your frequency there.
Email is the Most Profitable Marketing Channel
At a minimum, you should be utilizing email marketing, but if you’re not already doing social on a consistent basis, and it feels like a stretch, I don’t think going all in during Q4 is going to make a huge difference for you. You might be better off putting those resources somewhere else.
For example, a Lounge member has pretty much no social presence, and it’s just not something they have much interest in doing. So instead, they’re going to invest in ads. Because they haven’t been active on social though, I did recommend that they set up their Instagram account as a landing page for their brand and best-selling products. This way, when a potential new customer goes to their Instagram account to make sure they’re legit, it won’t look like an abandoned account.
She’s going to create 9 new posts to complete her grid, a mix of introductions, behind-the-scenes of her best-selling product being made, the product in use, etc. I should probably do something similar for myself considering I haven’t posted on Instagram in a really long time either.
Ultimately, you get to choose how you want to show up, whatever that is just make sure you do it A LOT. If you’re really concerned about increasing your frequency with email; give your subscribers an opportunity to opt-out of holiday marketing. In most email platforms you can do this easily with a button or link click.
If you want to take it a step further you can even have them opt-in to specific holiday messaging by giving them an opportunity to tell you what holiday they celebrate. Note that not everyone will explicitly opt into anything so this will likely work best for larger lists. You also want to make sure you actually have the bandwidth to fulfill your promise.
Ultimately, as long as you keep your messaging generic and give people the opportunity to opt out, I wouldn’t worry too much about offending people.
Don’t Wait Too Long to Markdown Holiday Specific Items
If you bring in holiday-specific products that can’t be sold after the season I recommend you mark them down at the beginning of December and get them sold before your standard shipping cut-off which usually falls about December 14th.
Depending on the items and your overall cash flow you could pack them up for next year, or even hold a Christmas in July sale… but it’s really important you make this decision for the right reasons.
First, you need to understand why they didn’t sell; because your customers are going to qualify your products pretty quickly as long as you presented them well. If you sold through the majority of your units and you just have a handful of items left, that’s a pretty good sign they will sell again.
If you barely sold any of them, was that because you brought them in too late, you didn’t do a good enough job of promoting them, or did the customer just not want them? If it’s either of the first two, it might be worth it to give it a shot again in the future, but if you did all the right things and your customers still didn’t want them… it’s time to mark them down and get them out the door. Use them as a gift with purchase and write them off as a marketing expense if you have to.
What I don’t want you to do is hold onto them because you’re afraid to lose money on them. Remember, they’re worth more out the door than they are sitting on your inventory shelf collecting dust… even if you get less than you paid initially. Once you sell them, you’ll free up cash to buy better inventory that will make you more money.
You’ll also want to have a plan for any fall/winter merchandise. If you don’t move through that during the season, mark them down and promote them as an end-of-season sale that you can start an the end of December or the beginning of January
