Welcome back to another rundown of the My Biggest Lessons podcast! Shray Joshi, founder of Good Peeps, joined Chris Meade on the pod for a 2nd time to discuss all things Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM)! Check out the full episode below. ⤵
For the first time in My Biggest Lessons history, we have a guest on for the 2nd time! We couldn't resist bringing the one and only Shray Joshi back on to dive into all things BFCM.
The holidays are just around the corner, and you know what that means — so is Black Friday! Black Friday and Cyber Monday are pivotal days that tend to be the biggest shopping event of the entire year, so being prepared as early as possible is the best way to make the most of these days.
Shray and his agency, Good Peeps, are doing just that — preparing their clients for the most successful shopping days of the year. Both Shray and Chris, our host and founder of CROSSNET, have a lot of thoughts on BFCM and how to make the most of it.
Start early 🌅
Black Friday is one of the most competitive and profitable times of the year for brands. To get ahead of the pack, Shray has been suggesting one simple action to most of his clients: start your sales early. In past years, a majority of ad spend on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube starts about 10 days before BFCM weekend. By getting started early on BFCM deals, especially for acquisition audiences, it lessens your chance of being drowned out by the masses amping up their ad spend closer to BFCM week.
Make your deals simple 🤝
If there's one thing Shray cannot stress enough to brands, it's to make sure your BFCM promotions are simple and clear. Far too many brands overcomplicate their BFCM plans with daily and weekly deals, flash sales, and different promos running on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. To remove any complexity from the short attention spans that consumers hold during this time of year, Shray has planned straightforward promotions that are consistent across retention, acquisition, and social channels.
Know your ad strategy 📈
One of the most important avenues to BFCM success is an obvious one: nailing your ad strategy. A lot of brands will turn on every single ad and let it run throughout their sale periods, just hoping for the best. While ads are almost always successful during BFCM, it's important to know what exactly is working, and focus your spend there. Understanding where to put your ad spend and how to drive more sales will ultimately lead you to a more successful BFCM.
Get on PR Placements 📺
The holiday season always brings with it gift-giving guides — whether they're on TV, in articles, listicles, or other media placements. For Chris and CROSSNET, finding their niche of writers and PR placements has shown to be successful, with partnerships like USA Volleyball bringing in $20k+ revenue via email placements. Shray has also found success for his clients through gifting guides and suggests trying to get your products in there as early as you can to move the needle.
Fix your email flows 📧
Shray has seen his fair share of mistakes being made by other brands during BFCM, one of them being within their email flows. It's super important to ensure that your email flows, especially your welcome flows, don't have your old discount codes active during your BFCM promotion. Unsubscribe rates skyrocket during this time, especially when potential customers are receiving a welcome discount that is lower than the BFCM promotion being offered — which obviously isn't good for customer retention!
Contact your 3PL 📦
Now that you've got all the marketing strategy down pat, the last thing you need to do is make sure that your 3PL has enough product and staff to execute on your BFCM sales. It's all fun and games when your sales pop off, but not being prepared on the fulfillment end will really bring you down with customers potentially losing trust in you. Shray has seen many instances where 3PLs were not prepared to handle the influx of orders, and it would take them 2+ weeks to start getting everything out the door.
If you want to ensure you're 100% prepared for BFCM and everything that follows, check out our 5 Final Tips for BFCM 2022 Masterclass hosted by Gorgias Senior Platform Partnerships Manager, Rohan Kapoor!
Want to learn more about eCommerce growth through the personal trials and obstacles of industry professionals? Subscribe to the My Biggest Lessons podcast on YouTube, Spotify, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.
