For most small businesses Black Friday is the biggest sale of the year. It’s called Black Friday because this is the day when businesses go from being in the red (losing money) to being in the black (making a profit). This is true for huge national companies and it also can be true for small, creative businesses like mine.
When I first began selling sewing patterns and sewing supplies online I didn’t realize how important Black Friday was. I didn’t prepare and then all of a sudden the morning after Thanksgiving I woke up and saw that all of these other makers has come up with Black Friday deals. I totally missed out. That was 2013.
In 2014 I got wise and set up a Black Friday coupon code for my Etsy shop. I was excited. I got prepared for a rush of orders. And nothing happened.
In that moment I felt like casting blame. This was Etsy’s fault for being too big of a marketplace. This was my customer’s fault for shopping at big box stores instead of shopping small. Most of all, this was embarrassing. Running a sale when nobody buys is almost as a bad as throwing a party when nobody comes.
That’s when I came to an important realization: you have to prepare all year-long in order to have a successful Black Friday sale. The work required to make Black Friday a smash hit begins on the first day of January.
I want to show you a graph:
These are my sales results for Black Friday weekend 2016 in my online shop here on my site. Like most businesses I set up a special sale – 25% off everything in my shop plus free shipping on orders over $50. The sale grossed $3,841.17 and made a net profit of $3,476.61. That’s up $735.90 from last year.
How did it work this year when back in 2013 it didn’t work?
The answer is email marketing.
At 5:00 am on Black Friday I sent out an email announcing the sale to my list of 14,000. The email was simple, with big photos of my products and a clear call to action (I love Apple’s Black Friday emails and used the as a model). I made $922.05 that day.
The big change I made this year was to send another email the next day, for Small Business Saturday. Honestly I was a bit worried about overwhelming people, but I got brave and hit send and it was totally worth it. That email out performed the first and I made $1190.29 the second day.
I sent a third email out for Cyber Monday and although it didn’t perform quite as well, it was still worth doing.
You Can Do It Too, But You Have To Start Now
I realize it’s easy to shrug off these results by saying, “Well, her list is big. My list is small (or I don’t have a list), so I this won’t work for me.” And that’s where I want to reassure you that you can definitely do this. But…you have to start now. You can’t wait until August, or October, and expect big results. This is a strategy that builds slowly and now is the time to begin.
I’m really excited to be launching my first self-published course on email marketing. It’s called Email Marketing Jumpstart and it will provide you with a solid foundation in email marketing, setting your business up for success all year-long, and especially for the next holiday season when you’re ready to run a sale.
The course is a combination of short videos (5-15 minutes each), worksheets, and resources that spell out exactly what to do. It focuses on using MailChimp because MailChimp is free until you have 2,000 subscribers, and because it helps you to make beautiful emails without knowing any code. I actually take you into MailChimp and show you how to set everything up and get started the right way. You’ll figure out what to include in your emails, how often to send them, and how to be confident that you’re not annoying your subscribers.
Email Marketing Jumpstart is a self-guided course which means you work through it at your own pace. I’ll be there to answer your questions and help you along, but you can begin anytime.
The course launches on January 2. Right now, through December 31, I’m offering a special presale price.
Begin 2017 by investing in your business and make email marketing a priority. Get the course and you’ll have what you need to make next year your most successful year yet.
That’s amazing, Abby!
I had a sale too and it went quite well, but I’m pretty sure I could have promoted it much better. I think it’s my fear of annoying people that held me back…Working on growing my email list and sending out my newsletter consistently is one of my goals for 2017. I first read about email marketing on your blog, and without your book I probably would have never started a list in the first place.
Thanks for all the great tips and advice!
Nadra
I totally understand (and relate to) that fear of annoying people. I nearly didn’t send out the Small Business Saturday email, but then my husband got one from an online shop where he orders socks. He was like, “Yeah, I totally expected to get this and it’s not annoying.” That convinced me and that campaign turned out to be the most profitable of the three. It’s all about developing confidence in yourself and your business and it’s hard to do!
Abby, I am so pleased to be in the group that made your black Friday worthwhile! It was great having a sale from you.
What is even greater is that you share your knowledge with others like myself and Nadra in the previous comment. I am not in business but am quite intrigued with this kind of information.
Thank you for sharing and caring! I think you are the best!
Linda in OK
I just finished sewing the Liam doll I made thanks to your Black Friday sale. I had my eye on your patterns but wasn’t sure when I would be able to buy them with my budget. The sale came and bought more than I had planned to get. The Liam doll turned out so well, I am excited to make the other patterns too!
Hi Kandra, That’s so wonderful to hear! The Liam and Emma dolls are some of my favorite patterns. I’m glad the sale gave you an introduction to them!
Improving my newsletter is on my ‘to do’ list for 2017 as I have quite a few subscribers who I’d like to encourage to become customers, so this was perfect timing. After giving serious thought to the expenditure ( I’m a very small business and as I’m in the UK have been charged an extra 20 % ) I’m looking forward to getting started and improving an area of my business that I struggle with.
This was a great post to read. I hope you’ll consider a companion topic in the future. The big hurdle for me is “free shipping”. How does a vendor calculate the advantages of free shipping; how does offering that option impact the bottom line on top of an already discounted product?
I keep thinking this should be an easy calculation to make and a worthwhile one for customers put off by shipping costs, but I can’t seem to wrap my head around the concept. Thanks, Abby, for any information you have.
I honestly didn’t put too much thought into it beyond it being an incentive for people to add more to their cart. And it does seem to work, although to be sure I’d have to run a report looking at how many orders met the threshold. People really like free shipping.