How to make Black Friday a success for your Studio
Whether you’re a Black Friday fan or foe, there’s no denying the pull of a great deal. The ultimate goal? An influx in cash, especially as you head into the holiday season. But how do you make your Black Friday offer shine? Here are our 6 tips to get you prepped and ready for some big sales.
1. Prepare early
A few weeks before Black Friday create a pop-up on your website, letting potential clients know that if they sign up for your email they’ll receive exclusive offers for Black Friday. This will help you build your email list in advance of the big push closer to November 25th. You can apply this same strategy with your ads focusing on generating leads who are interested in being in the “Black Friday List”.
2. Go Beyond the Discount
Discounts are the obvious Black Friday choice, but many consumers are drawn to additional perks. Retailers will often offer a free gift with purchase for instance, but for service-based businesses the perks can be a bit harder to conceptualize. Memberships are an easy sell—purchase a membership on Black Friday and receive a free hoodie! So instead of marking down your membership price, you’re offering an additional gift. (Plus this makes the offer really giftable—with something tangible to actually wrap!) The same type of offer can go with a gift card purchase. For every $50 you spend in gift cards you can add an additional gift. (Water bottle, sweat towel, etc.
3. Focus on the subject heading
You’re battling for attention, so make your subject heading count. (One report noted that 116.5 million emails are sent on Black Friday—and as you might suspect, this exceeds any other day of the year.) Traditional subject headings will be lost in the blur of emails. Make your subject stand out by either being catchy, contrary or even add a bit of surprise.
For instance, instead of letting email subscribers know what’s coming, make them open the email for the big reveal. For instance, something like “Get Excited… a big sale is coming!” Or “Like our yoga classes? You’ll ❤️ this Black Friday deal.” We often are quick to share the details in the subject heading, but perhaps this is a time to consider keeping it a bit more allusive.
4. Create a limited time (and perhaps limited quantity) offer, but be willing to extend the sale (and be prepared)!
Limited time offerings are more likely to drive impulse sales and capture the attention of deal-seekers over the long weekend. Start your sale by having it open Black Friday and end Saturday night at midnight. Let clients know that you have a limited number of items (for a 10 pack sale for instance), so that the urgency is only increased. If, however, Saturday rolls around and you’d like to capitalize a bit more on the clients who haven’t purchased, have a follow-up email in the queue. Something like “Black Friday is extended! Join us on Cyber Monday for…” This will give you an additional shopping day to capture the last shoppers.
5. Black Friday not your thing?
Consider Small Business Saturday. This event tends to be more of an in-person offering and really showcases local businesses. You’ll want to highlight the uniqueness and history of your business and invite clients and potential customers to come by and get to know you. And be sure to still include a great promotion. Shoppers who prefer Small Business Saturday are still wanting to save some money while supporting their favorite local shops.
6. Utilize the cart abandonment feature
If your email marketing software has a cart abandonment feature, or the capability to follow-up with a lead who starts a landing page but doesn’t complete it, create a follow-up email or SMS to encourage them to follow-through. Traditional emails for the health and fitness industry have an open rate around 22% and a click-through rate of around 2.5%. By sending out cart abandonment emails during Black Friday you’ll see dramatically higher numbers, in fact, the average open rate is almost 34 percent, and the average click-through rate is more than tripled at 9 percent.
And finally, have fun. Black Friday isn’t meant to feel like a stressful or overly serious event. Grab clients attention with a great deal—and then be sure to follow-up to convert them to loyal customers!
Telomere Consulting provides business consulting and marketing services to studio owners in the boutique fitness and yoga space. The Telomere team helps you navigate business strategy from conception to implementation. We provide end-to-end marketing support and would love to hear from you. Click here to book your free intro call. We want you to treat your business the way you treat your body – making the right choices now to optimize its potential for a long and healthy life. Visit us here to learn more.
