BFCM is right around the corner. 

Literally.

Some brands are well prepared and have everything locked in place already.

Others are still wondering what on earth they need to be doing in order to capitalize and hit yearly revenue targets… 

And this is the final leg of the year.

The last lap.

We’ve put together a little checklist / guide on how to get ready for this final sprint to the big event, and what should have already been done…

And what to keep an eye out for in case you need to make some last minute changes.

The Approach

Let’s cover a few truths when it comes to your BFCM approach:

• Top-Line sales focus is a distraction

• A lack of focus on profit is not sustainable

• This time of year you’ll see some of the highest traffic costs

• You can’t acquire at a loss unless you’re a funded enterprise company

• Most brands on a 10-15% (Even 25%) net margin simply cannot acquire at loss

Many brand owners have a top-line focus when it comes to BFCM. 

They worry about hitting revenue numbers without any regard for what cost those revenue numbers are achieved.

They slash margins beyond comfort in order to hit a magic number, only to realize how risky a decision it was from a sustainable perspective.

If you’re a bootstrapped brand without an exorbitant level of funding…

You MUST take a profit-first approach to this holiday season.

Traffic costs skyrocket, and considering most brands operate at a 10-15% net margin, with some even reaching the 25% mark… 

Having a profit-first approach to Q4 is crucial.

What You Should Already Have In Place

Ideally, you already have your BFCM offer in your popup to encourage people to sign up and make your current offers / deals visible.

If this isn't done yet, this is one of the highest leverage things you can do.

Adding your BFCM offering in your popup dramatically improves your signup conversions.

Make sure to have this in place ASAP since many shoppers are on the hunt during ‘Fake Friday’ (A term brought to me by Josh Graham from Alpha Inbound).

Search volume about Black Friday dramatically increases a week before the actual Friday.

Shoppers scout deals from their favourite brands and take a peek at what they are offering during this event, so they know where to spend their money.

Putting your offer in your popup helps make that decision easier.

Also, your flows / automations should be matching the offer you have in your signup form to add a seamless and congruent experience.

Nothing kills sales like buyer confusion & lack of congruency.

Understanding Q4 (Nov/BFCM/Dec) Buying Motives

There are 4 core (but not exhaustive) motives for people to purchase during BFCM.

These motives are:

Gifting

It’s the perfect time of year to buy gifts for Christmas for friends, family and colleagues. It’s one of the biggest motives behind purchases in BFCM - getting great deals to spoil loved ones.

Sharing things like gift guides for loved ones in the lead up to your BFCM event is a great way to captivate this portion of your audience who are on the lookout for gifting deals.

Holiday Savings

Friends and family aren’t the only ones people are looking to spoil this year. They’re also in the market to spoil themselves! This motivation appeals to people’s self-indulgence.

Here, people are simply motivated by offers. Try and strike up a larger AOV by bundling products and items together…

Give people a REAL reason to spoil themselves!

The offer will be paramount here, and it’s a brilliant opportunity to ramp up the cart value.

New Years Resolutions

This is also a time where people are looking to the new year, and how they can improve themselves for it.

We’re on the final lap of the year, and many people are future-pacing.

They’re thinking about their new year goals, what they want to achieve next year, the changes they are going to make…

So positioning yourself correctly for these people in your emails can be a great bet to ensure they spent their money with YOU this BFCM.

Paint a picture for this audience about how your product can help them achieve their goals and desires for next year. Your customer research should give you some pretty good insights into the desired state of your customer.

Status

Finally (but not exhaustively), we have status. 

These buyers are the opposite of the future pacers - They want THIS year (the little that is left of it) to be a stronger reflection of the same time last year.

They want to feel as though they have deserved an upgrade / uplift in whatever they are out seeking…

And your product is the perfect thing for it.

They want to feel elevated with their purchase.

For this cohort of buyers, it’s important to use language around being deserving.

Validate them to treat themselves to your products, and position your product as the upgrade they deserve and were seeking.

It’s a great angle for sure.

The Offer Ladder

This image was made famous by Russel Brunson, CEO and Founder of Clickfunnels.

He talks about the importance of understanding your value ladder, and how your company can offer different products/services at different prices, and at different points of the sales funnel.

Understanding your value ladder when it comes to BFCM is crucial. It’s the basis of all the exciting offers you can run.

Variety

Have different offers for different days, spicing things up.

More importantly, different offers based on where someone is in their buyer journey.

If you rinse and repeat the same exact offer throughout the entire BFCM period, it can get a bit dry and exhausting.

Mixing things up keeps your audience on their toes, and anticipating what’s next.

And you never know which offer will appeal to which audience.

Segregation Audience Type

Breaking the audience into 3 sections can help determine the type of offers you want to run.

For example:

New Customers

If you have a high LTV product, focus on maximizing conversions on your first order.

If you have a lower LTV product, this is even more important and you must be extremely prudent in making sure you are first-order profitable.

Directly applied, this means your offer to new customers should be focused around getting the conversion while maintaining first-order profit, so be creative in your approach.

Existing Customers

For your existing customers, focus on upselling complimentary items to the purchases they have already made.

Also, you can incentivize better deals on the items they have already purchased, such as a second purchase with a strong offer (That is still profitable, of course), but one that helps get that quick LTV boost during this buyer frenzy.

All Customers

Ultimately, the goal is to push towards a higher-value AOV with strategically placed downsells.

You want to try and get the highest AOV that is possible through things like bundling and tiered offers (more explained later in this post), and then offer alternative offers going down the value ladder.

That’s why it’s crucial to map it out in the first place, so you can mix and match offers at different points in the funnel.

Sales Strategies

There are 3 core ways to maximize profits during this period.

The 3 approaches are:

Tiered Discounts

This encourages bulk purchases by offering discounts at different purchase levels. This is great for brands who need to stay competitive in the marketplace and allowing your BFCM strategy to improve the AOV allows you to be more flexible with offers as someone commits to purchasing more.

Make sure the unit economics make sense, where the buyer gets a deal, but improving your AOV helps you be more profitable overall.

Minimum Thresholds

This strategy drives higher sales volumes by setting purchase minimums. Spend $X to get a Y Offer (It doesn’t need to be discounts, it can even be a high value perceived gift with purchase).

You can get real creative here and offer something of value based on a certain threshold of purchase that works with your unit economics.

Product Bundling

This is great for brands who position themselves as more premium, and may not want to subscribe to the almost violent discounting that happens during BFCM.

If your product is patented or non-commoditized, this is a great way to go.

Offering bundles allows you to offer a better price for a much higher AOV, allowing you to really take a profit-fist approach for BFCM.

Examples of offers:

Sending Rules

Here are some important housekeeping rules when it comes to your send strategy during BFCM:

VIP - Early Access

You want to treat your VIPs like royalty. They are your core customer base who have either:

a. Purchased a high frequency of orders
b. Purchased a high dollar amount

They are the advocates of your business who have proven their desire for your brand with their wallets - the ultimate form of validation.

You want to ensure they get early access to the BFCM sale so stocks last and they feel valued based on their purchasing behaviour - which further reinforces it.

Send to EVERYONE

There are times in your email marketing strategy when you want to be more safe and cautious with who you send to.

Throughout the year, sending to the engaged portion of your list helps keep deliverability high and overall engagement levels in a good place.

But for BFCM - this mentality needs to be thrown out the window.

There are times to err on the safe side when it comes to sending strategy, and this is NOT one of those times.

This is the part in the year where you want to maximize your sales coverage because people will be expecting offers in their inbox - it’s culture.

Also, as mentioned above in this post, people have genuine motives to purchase for the winter season and are on the lookout for things to buy.

VOLUME

Everyone’s inbox is going to be crowded at this point. It’s just the way things are.

So if your plan is to just send a couple of emails, rest assured you WILL be drowned out by the competition, as well as everyone else.

The more you are able to send during this time, the more coverage you will have overall, and the higher the chances you have to convert.

Remember, inbox crowding is practically culture at this point, so your audience WILL be expecting a much higher volume of emails overall filled with offers.

Resends

You don’t need to stretch your resources when it comes to more email coverage.

Resends are a great strategy you can add to your arsenal when it comes to sending more emails overall.

You can reuse the same email creatives later in your campaign, and even resend the same creative to non-openers in your previous send.

You can get real creative with resends, and if necessary, can just tweak a few words / the offer and resend the same creative and give it more mileage.

Add resends to your send strategy - minimal effort, maximum results.

Final Checklist

To sum it all up, there are 10 core things to keep track of and lock-in this BFCM:

Update Pop-ups

Your offer should be omnipresent across all channels - literally everywhere. There shouldn’t be a channel where your audience CAN’T find your BFCM offer, and it must be congruent across all channels.

The first place to start is your popup. People scope BFCM offers early, and putting it front and centre in your popup is a great way to build your list and pique interest while keeping things congruent.

Flow alignment

Ensure all your email flows are completely aligned with your BFCM offer, and the discount codes are all firing congruently as well.

Make sure your flows reflect supplementary offers too (aside from your core offers) since impulse purchases during this time are HUGE.

If someone made a purchase during the holiday season, and you’re going to exclude them from the promos, send them to another offer automation as well. Keep them in the buying mode.

Pre-tease warmup

Make sure to warm up your audience and keep them excited on the leadup to the big day.

Gift guides, founder letters from the CEO and everything in between, captivate your audience and let them know what is coming.

Stay top-of-mind in the inbox and make sure they know you have an epic holiday event coming up.

Excite them for what is to come and keep the communication on.

This is the time to clean up and hit your targets for the year.

Mobile Optimize EVERYTHING

Self-explanatory. Make sure all emails are email optimized for a seamless experience. This includes your landing pages, and your entire end-to-end customer journey.

Making sure everything is optimized means less things slip through the cracks and damage your potential sales from the event.

VIP Love

Again, ensure your VIPs get treatment fit for a VIP. They’re the cornerstone of your business, the advocates who have proved their allegiance to your brand with their wallets.

Giving them early access is crucial in ensuring they get the special feel, which is extremely deserved based on their actions towards your brand.

Give them early access, VIP offers and remind them why and how you’re grateful to them for being a customer.

One act of kindness sparks another.

Subscription-Based offers

You want to ensure you’re being deliberate with customers who are on subscription, if you’re running a subscription-based product.

Offer those customers a potential discount on their next subscription, or a complimentary product to the item they’re subscribed for rather than running wild promos asking them to subscribe (Which is completely tone-deaf).

You want to still ensure they receive some quality value from the BFCM event, just be sure to be relevant here for this cohort.

Holistic Experience

You want to be certain that your entire customer journey is accounted for and congruent across your entire funnel.

This means from your popup to your post-purchase, are you being deliberate with what you want your customers to do? What behaviours you want to encourage? And what messaging you want to convey?

We strongly suggest that you take a look at your funnel from a 40,000 ft view and ensure everything is congruent and aligns for the event.

Use The Playbook

Your core objectives are to:

1. Try and sell to first-time customers twice to boost LTV

2. Add an absolutely irresistible offer in your post-purchase upsell to achieve this

3. Use complimentary products to build out the upsell

4. Have automations to send promo-buyers into for alternative offers

Final sale reminders + offer extension emails

Following these guidelines will help ensure you’ve got the right mileage to make your BFCM a success. 

This is the baseline of what needs to be done.

Send To All

Forget segments this time - you want to be emailing the maximum coverage you possibly can during this time.

Assuming your deliverability is in a decent place, maximum coverage during this time is an absolute priority since customers are far more engaged and open to receiving offer communications from brands.

 Use this to your advantage. 

Email more often, and to as many people as you can.

There is a time and place to focus on building and maintaining your sender reputation - this is not the time or place.

Email Hierarchy + Offer Focus

Your email creatives should be clear, concise and have a clear hierarchy of information. The offer itself should be clear, front and centre.

A reader should clearly be able to see the offer in the first moments of looking at the email, with all additional information following a hierarchy of importance.

What is the offer? What is the urgency to take this offer? Who is the offer for? Why should someone take you up on this offer? Is there any other relevant information crucial to share like shipping time cutoff dates etc?

You want to be super clear here.

Final Checklist

Ultimately, remember you’re human and do the best you can during this BFCM. There are many things that work, but I’m confident this post should help you get your bases double-checked and affirmed.

Now seize the moment! It’s yours for the taking.