There’s truly nothing worse than running a lame, last-minute flash sale that no one sees or cares about until after the promotion ends. And yet that’s how most Black Friday campaigns go: someone remembers in mid-November, slaps “save 25%” on a graphic, and then wonders why the money didn’t roll in.
In this episode, I’m walking you through my step-by-step guide to planning a Black Friday campaign that’s actually profitable. Yes, I know it’s October, and you might be feeling a little behind, but you’ve still got time to warm up your audience so you’re not jump-scaring them with a “surprise, you’ve never heard from me, but please give me your money” situation.
We’re picking a promotion, mapping your timeline, figuring out why your audience should pay attention in the loudest month of the year, and I’m taking you behind the scenes of a campaign for one of my fractional CCO clients that did so well they had to apologize to their audience for running out of inventory mid-sale. Their people were literally waking up at midnight to place orders!
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Start warming up your audience before November
A good rule of thumb is to ramp up your organic marketing in August and September. If you’re planning a big launch in November for Black Friday (or a year-end sale in December), that gives you roughly 60 to 90 days to warm up a colder audience. No one wants a “surprise, you’ve never heard from me, but please give me your money” situation. The campaign starts way before November, and the marketing starts before the campaign even exists.
If you’re reading this in October, you can still start now and get a solid 30 days of nurture in. Just don’t stay silent until launch day!
Decide what the promotion is
You don’t need a crazy discount. I always remind my clients who are small businesses of this, because big price cuts aren’t always possible when margins are already tight. And as a service provider, I’m not someone who runs sales in the traditional sense either. Instead, I’d look at bundles and limited-time offers.
Say your package is normally a three-month retainer. For a limited time, people can lock in a full year, and if they do, they get a free extra call, a free month, or another bonus that makes it a steal. (More bonuses than free things.) Or if someone buys package A and package B at the same time, they get a little extra something.
You can also add a free one-time upgrade. A photographer could include 30 extra photos with a gallery, or a service provider could add an extra hour of time. It’s not much lift for you, but to your client it’s a freaking win.
An expanded payment plan works too. If you normally offer pay in full or a 50/50 split, maybe this is the one time of year you offer four installments instead of two.
You can also bring back something outside your usual offer suite. I pretty much stopped offering strategy sessions a couple of years ago, so for a limited time at the end of the year, I brought one back. Instead of having to become an ongoing consulting client, you can book a one-off 60-minute strategy session with me. You get my brain, we do all the things, and that’s the whole offer. It’s something I already do, just in a container I don’t normally sell.
Pick your timeline
Black Friday is basically a month-long event at this point, so it’s up to you when you run your promotion and how long it stays live.
A one-day-only sale is super exclusive. If you’re in the know, you’ve got it, and if not, pay attention next time. This works well for something limited, like that one-off strategy call.
You can also run it all weekend, covering Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday in one swoop. I love this for anyone who wants to run a sale without maintaining momentum for an entire week.
Then there’s the beat-the-rush option. People are primed to buy in November, but everyone has a limited spend, so getting your sale up before everyone else’s means people spend with you first. Maybe you open cart two weeks early, or you tease it to your email list or waitlist and give them surprise early access or an extra bonus.
Or you can do all the things. Start the Monday before Thanksgiving and run through Cyber Monday for a full week of discounts. If you want to get fancy, change the savings or the offer each day. How complex you get depends on your bandwidth.
My suggestion is to figure out your (or your team’s) capacity and work backwards from there. Then make sure the timeline fits the promotion you chose, since rotating daily tiers don’t make sense if you’re selling a one-time strategy session.
Build the messaging: why you, and why now
This is the loudest, busiest time of year, and a lot of people are competing for your audience’s money. You need to figure out what makes your offer the no-brainer decision.
Highlighting the discount or the limited-time offer isn’t enough. Show them why this offer exists, why they’d be bananas to pass it up, and how it helps if they’re dealing with a specific problem or trying to hit a specific goal.
Then drive home the why now. Do you know how long I tell myself I need a haircut before I pick up the dang phone and book it? Your customers know they need what you’re selling. We all do. But we push it off, so what’s going to get them over the edge? Remind them of the savings, and also of the non-monetary cost of waiting: if they don’t do this, they’re probably going to stay stuck doing the same thing they’ve been doing.
Map your content plan
This is the fun part, where you fill it all in like a big old puzzle. Before you create anything, decide whether you’re doing organic social only, ads and organic, email marketing, or a little bit of everything. Then figure out whether this is exclusive to your email list or public on social, and whether you’re trying to reach new audiences in addition to your current one.
Plan it now so you know exactly which assets you need to create and which funnels you need to build. If you’re connecting funnels from here to there, test them before you go live.
Pre-launch content is general nurture and awareness, so people know you and your offers exist before you start asking for their money. Then announce the sale ahead of time and tell people something is coming so they keep their eyes peeled. Ghost-town silence until launch day means you’re already behind.
Once you launch, ramp it way up. Post daily, send multiple emails in one day, and be a little obnoxious with it. There’s so much noise competing for your audience’s attention that you need to hit publish a lot more than your normal efforts would lead you to believe. If you say “by the way, I’m hosting a sale” once and sit patiently waiting, people will miss it.
After the sale, don’t ghost your people. Some of them were excited, but it wasn’t the right time, or they weren’t nurtured enough beforehand. You’ve built momentum, so keep it going, and when your end-of-year or new-year offer comes around, you can bring them in then.
Behind the scenes: the campaign that ran out of inventory
Last year I ran a Black Friday campaign for one of my fractional CCO clients, and it performed so well they had to issue an apology to their audience for running out of inventory mid-sale. Their people were waking up at midnight to place orders, and by 7:30 that morning they had over 470 orders. This was a product-based business, but the strategy was the same one I’ve laid out here.
First, we gave the campaign a core message. Instead of “Black Friday sale,” we came up with something cute and creative that told people why we were doing this and who it was for. That gives your audience a storyline to latch onto and helps them see why this is the sale they need to be part of.
Then we carried that message everywhere: website headers, the home page, a dedicated sales page, every email, every social post. Not everything says the exact same thing, but it’s all variations of the same thing, so no matter where someone stumbles onto the campaign, they get the same through line.
We also created multiple assets for every phase. There were about three teasers before the campaign went live, then three to four social posts reminding people it was coming. On launch day, the announcement laid out all the details in one easy-to-understand place. The sale ran Monday to Monday with continued promotion on social, an email to the list every single day, and a few extras on the last day: last reminder, last call, last chance.
You’re inviting people into a story instead of just offering a little bonus or a freebie, and that sells so much harder than “Black Friday sale” alongside everyone else shouting from the rooftops.
Make it about the person on the other side
These campaigns take time to plan, and the more strategic they are, the more successful they’ll be. Everyone loves a good saving, but why you, why now, and why this? Create a narrative around what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and why it’s beneficial to the person on the other side.
We’re in business to serve people, whether you’re a service provider or a product-based business. Root your campaign in that, and you’ll have a profitable sale on your hands.
Grab the free campaign plan guide
To make all of this easier, I put together a free campaign plan guide that walks you through everything we covered, with a plug-and-play template. It includes your timeline, offer details, target audience, success metrics, campaign direction, messaging, and touchpoints, all fill-in-the-blank and ready to go.
→ FREE BFCM CAMPAIGN PLANNER: https://panemarketing.kit.com/ab5d57a6cf
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