The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 161: Your 2021 Black Friday Schedule

Today, I am talking all about one of the biggest sales days of the year: Black Friday! I am giving you everything you need to know about planning your Black Friday schedule so you can have your best Black Friday sale yet!

Your 2021 Black Friday Schedule

By: Melissa Lin

Welcome back to another episode of The Fierce Business Babe Podcast! I am so excited to dive into this brand new episode with you. If you are brand new to the podcast or to my community, welcome! I am so excited for you to attend to this episode and over a hundred and sixty other episodes before this. I'm so excited, today is going to be all about Black Friday, your sales, how to start to schedule them out, and things to think about. And it's just so exciting because we are literally getting into Q4. So I'm recording this podcast episode a few weeks early. We like to be at least a few episodes ahead, that way we can get everything out for you in time, and so I am actually recording this on a Friday morning because Fridays are my content days and today we're recording some podcasts. So it is actually on the very first day of October and so I know that you'll be listening to this a little late, but I just have to say, happy October, happy beginning of Q4 and that start to the last quarter of 2021. It is so, so wild how fast this year has gone. It has just flown by. I'm so excited, this last quarter is going to be so fun. Definitely going to be a huge quarter for my clients, for my own business, and a huge quarter in terms of seeing family and traveling and things like that, so I'm definitely excited for this last quarter as we wrap the year up. There are some exciting things going on in November, of course, Black Friday sale, you know we're going to have one as well. So we're going to dive in and I really want to prepare you as much as possible for Black Friday and you know, whether you're going to host a Black Friday sale this year or not, it’s definitely not required as a business owner, however, if it's something you want to do whether it's this year, or maybe you just want to take notes for next year, you definitely want to be listening to this episode to give you ideas. It will also give you ideas for other sales that you may want to do for your business, if you want to do a flash-sale, a birthday sale, whatever that looks like for you and your business. So we're going to walk through a Black Friday sale and today we are going to dive all into creating awareness for your Black Friday sale, deciding on the length of your sale, and chatting about the different types of content that you can create during your sale, and of course, so much more.

A few podcast episodes ago, I believe it was podcast episode 158, so very recently, I actually walked you through how to actually map out and decide what to choose for your Black Friday sale and give you ideas for different offers you could put out there for your own Black Friday sale, and if you're going to be selling multiple items, I chatted through that and different things you can do. So if you haven't yet decided on your offer or what offers if it's going to be multiple items, I would definitely go and listen to that episode first. That way, you have an idea of what you want to sell and then this episode after. So go listen to that first episode 158 and then come back to this episode to help you map it out. We really need to know what we want to offer before we can actually map it out, and the things that I'm going to walk through today will be very helpful once you know what you want to sell. So just a quick recap of that episode. I walked you through how to plan your Black Friday, how to let it be easy and simple, and gave you some ideas to help you brainstorm and map out your own Black Friday in your business, in terms of what type of offer to put out there or what things or what offers or parts of your product suite you want to put on sale or do different bonuses for. So let’s go ahead and get into this episode.

Creating Awareness

The most important part of really any sale or any launch is the beginning and creating awareness around your offer around your sale around relaunch is what can really either pump your numbers up or not. So, for example, if you have put out an offer for the very first time today, and you've never talked about it before, you’ve never prepped your audience, are you going to get a hundred new clients today? Probably not. It’s possible depending on your audience size, however, we need to create awareness. We get to hype our audience, and the more excited you are about it, the more excited your audience will be about it too. And so we want to create awareness way, way, way before the sale, including the Black Friday sale. And so if you're going to host a Black Friday sale, let your audience know ahead of time. Let them know in your Instagram stories. For example, as you start to plan it out, create a caption that shares awareness and a few call to actions with, you know, “Get ready. This is coming. P.S. get ready for a sneak peek at my Black Friday sale. P.S. we're having a Black Friday sale this year, get ready for it.” We want to create awareness around us and thinking back to last year, we usually will create Instagram stories and then also an entire caption around our Black Friday sale and create awareness of it and we will literally say, “Get ready, we have a sale coming, make sure you mark your calendar or set an alarm.” We want to create as much awareness as possible. If you're able to create awareness on your platforms, I would definitely do so, and I would recommend doing it on all of your platforms. If you spend the majority of your time on Instagram and only talk about your offers there, then only your audience who will see it through the algorithm will see that. And we all know that not everybody sees every caption or every story. And so, I definitely recommend putting it on all of your platforms you're active on. So, you know, for example, you most likely have an email list, so I would definitely send it to your email list as well. And again, just with the algorithm we cannot guarantee that everybody will see it. Not everyone's going to see your caption for it. Not everyone's going to see your story for it. Not everyone's going to see the one story that you have on your account for your Black Friday sales, so do it multiple times and send it out in a few different ways. The more awareness you can create, the more your audience will be ready to buy when you open doors for your Black Friday sale.

Definitely utilize your email list. I have heard so many people come to me before, even to my current clients who sometimes avoid sending emails out to their email list, it happens, and I love to remind them, you know, some people just need a different permission slip. Maybe that one email that they see is the email that they needed to see that day to take action. For example, I had a client, a few weeks ago, wrapping up one of her launches, and she hadn't sent anything to her email list the last week of her launch. She thought that all of her warm leads and her hottest leads were going to be watching her Instagram stories. We tweaked a few things, she sent out some emails, and after we took a look at where opens were happening and where clicks were happening, things like that, within that first email that last week that wasn't originally planned to go out, two more sales came through. So you want to keep in mind, people just need different permission slips. I have been talking about this a lot in some of my more recent podcast episodes because it's true! Just this past week we've had people apply to our program organically through Instagram. We've had somebody from the podcast come in and apply. We've had somebody who has been on my email list for a few years, apply this week to one of our programs. And so you just never know what permission slip that person needs, or various people in your audience need. So we can create awareness in multiple ways, multiple times. You can never over-communicate this. You can never over-communicate anything. You never know who saw or didn't see it, and if someone sees it a second time, it's a wonderful reminder for them. Maybe they were, let's stay on the treadmill running or something and checking exercises, or maybe they're doing sprints, that would make a little more sense, let’s say they were doing sprints. And as they were resting between sprints, they checked Instagram stories and saw your first countdown for Black Friday sale or your awareness you created around it, but then went back to their sprints and it slipped their mind and they didn't write down a reminder or mark in their calendars, it happens all of the time. So you want to create reminders because if they see it twice or they see it three times it's a great reminder. People need to see things multiple times, so you need to create as much awareness as you can around your offers and that you've got a Black Friday sale coming.

So create awareness way before your sale and continue to create awareness throughout it. Again, you cannot over-communicate anything ever, share, create awareness, hype it up. The more excited you are about it, the more excited your audience will be about it as well. And you can do so and so many different ways, right? You can share behind the scenes on your Instagram stories of you creating your Black Friday sale. You can write a caption about it. You can send an email about it. You can share testimonials about some of the offers or the testimonials from the programs that you will be offering in your sales. There's just so many different things, and that doesn't necessarily mean you need to be hopping onto your stories everyday and saying, “Hey, audience. I have a Black Friday sale coming this year. Make sure to mark your calendar.” We don't need to do that every single day, but you can do it several different ways. Showing behind the scenes, showing a graphic talking about it, letting people know, but that definitely creates some awareness around it, just as you would any other launch or any other sale, right? Yes, people usually expect the Black Friday sale and there's also a lot of noise during Black Friday with a lot of people doing Black Friday sales, so you want to make sure those who've been waiting for something from you, are aware of it. Start creating awareness.

Deciding The Length Of Your Sale

Now, the second thing that I want to chat about today, in terms of really getting your schedule put together for your Black Friday sale in 2021 this year is to decide on the length of your sale. So how long do you want to keep your sale open for? This will determine how much content that you may want to create around it. For example, if you have a sale open for seven days versus three days, a seven day sale will most likely have more captions and more Instagram stories because it's a longer length of time, and a bigger window for people to hop in. Whereas if you have a three day sale, you won't need to create as many captions. You can probably create one a day and a few stories. The window is also tighter, so if someone misses it, they’ll miss out. So decide on the length, and it's definitely a personal preference for you. If you want to have it open for a few days before Thanksgiving and then shut it before Black Friday even gets here so you can enjoy time with family, that’s okay. It’s a complete personal preference. Look at some of your goals that you've got. So if you've already mapped out your Black Friday offers, which you should have because you went back to listen to episode 158, right? So you've got your Black Friday offers mapped out, you know, if you don't yet start to, you know, brainstorm and map out how many of each you would like to sell it? How many can you sell? Do you have the capacity of some of your programs? And if you're adding the bonus to one of your group coaching programs, for example, how many are you going to be selling ? How many would you like to sell? That could impact the length of your sale because if you want to fill, let's say ten spots in one of your coaching programs during your Black Friday sale, but you also do sales calls, a three day sale may not be long enough for you to hop on all of the sales calls. So that's something you need to take into account and just think about. How long do you want your sale to be? How long do you need for it to be? And then again, start to create behind the scenes of your offers, sales page, and start to create content around some of your offers as well, which is my next point.

What Type Of Content Should You Create?

The third point I want to get into is what type of content to create. So you've decided on how long you want your sale to be, whether it's 3 days, 4 days, 5 Days, 7 days, and now you get to start to create content around it. What I recommend is stick to the same themes of your offers you're going to have. So for example, if you're only selling one offer or two offers, or maybe you've got three offers for Black Friday, create content themed around those offers. So, for example, if we have a Black Friday sale offer around my Fierce Business Academy, my social media content will relate to that to then start to draw in my audience members that are interested in that topic. So, you know, how to start your business, creating foundations. I'll chat on my Instagram and other platforms about creating your first offers, how to create social media content that sells, sales content, and more. If we have a Black Friday offer around my Six-Figure Mastermind, then my social media content will relate to topics that I teach inside of my Mastermind. So inside of my Six-Figure Mastermind we help clients scale to 10k months in their business. And so with that, I would talk about and teach about on social media, going up until Black Friday, how to expand your product suite and why it's important to move from one to one to one to many. Group programs, courses for passive income, funnels and systems for your business, hiring team members and more. So the things that get you to 10K months, I will create themed content around. So create content that matches the themes of your offers, and yes, I just gave you some pretty big hints about what is coming for our Black Friday. And yes, we will have more than one offer. So keep that in mind, and if you have any questions we will be putting out some sneak peeks and allow first dibs early. So, definitely keep your eyes out, keep your ears out, because we'll be having some amazing bonuses for Black Friday this year for some of our signature group coaching programs, wink-wink, hint-hint. Okay, so we know to create awareness before your sale, way, way before your sale. We know that we get to decide on the length of your sale, please decide on this beforehand. This is not something you want to be doing during your sale and creating content, every single day. Prep as much of this as you can beforehand so you can really enjoy the holidays with your family, with your loved ones, with friends. And then we get to start to create content that really relates to the themes of your offers or theme of your offer if it's one offer.

Bonus Tips For Your Black Friday Sale

I wanted to go into some quick business tips and bonus stuff for you, because, you know, I just could talk days and days and days, hence over a hundred sixty podcast episodes just around business and growth. And something I do want to say is as you're creating all of your items for your Black Friday sale this year, if you're going to be doing it this year or maybe you're taking notes for next year, if you're doing it this year, mark them as templates so that you can reuse these items for next year. So, for example, our Black Friday sales page that we’ll be using, the body itself is a template that my team and I created to use every year. So we'll be going in and making updates to last year's page. So instead of creating something from scratch, something brand new, we're making updates to our prior year's sales pages. We have a template of a foundation that we can make edits to. As you are creating your items for your sale, you know, graphics and captions, you list out everything that you're doing, right? You need to decide on how long you want your sale to be. You need to create Instagram stories and some captions. Maybe checkout pages. List out all the things that you're doing, all of the steps that you are going to create yourself, that way you can take a look at your Black Friday sale to do list next year and do exactly what you did and you can replicate it very easily. So, we have templates very similar for each of our launches, for example, so that we know every single launch, these are the things that we need, these are the deadlines typically, we have something for our flash sales, for bonuses when we create a new program, same thing. We've got a whole step-by-step checklist, like, okay, this is our process, this is what we do. That way we're not starting from scratch. We have a temple, you got some foundations to work off of. It just allows us to follow a step-by-step process. So anytime we do anything new that we know we're going to do again in the future, we create a template so it's easier for myself and for my team members. And we just love sharing this with our clients as well. They get access and get to see all of that stuff behind the scenes, which I love as well, sharing all of that. And so, we touched on so much today: creating awareness for your Black Friday sale, deciding on how long you want your sale to be, what type of content to create during your launch sale, and so, so much more. We are getting so excited for next week's episode. We've got some incredible topics coming these next few weeks, these next few months, and even into 2022 and I cannot wait to share with you. We will see you next week in another brand new episode of The Fierce Business Babe Podcast, bright and early on Monday morning.

Topics we cover include:

Creating awareness for your Black Friday sale
Deciding on the length of your sale
Types of content to create during your sale

And so much more!

Times to check out:

(10:25) Planning your Black Friday sale recap

(11:02) Creating awareness

(18:54) Deciding on the length of your sale

(21:25) What type of content to create

(25:10) Bonus content!

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