Are you thinking it’s time to host a Black Friday sale?

You’re cutting it awful close, my friend. But I get the appeal.

Black Friday is a great way to increase brand awareness, build trust and connection with your audience, and make some extra money to finish out the year strong! So it only makes sense that you want to be a part of all the Black Friday fun.

As someone who’s done a decent amount of Black Friday sales, with a mix of great ones and a few not-so-good ones, I can tell you that planning is key. Of course, if you’re reading this a few days (or the night) before Black Friday, that’s out the window.

But there ARE a few ways to ensure strong sales for your Black Friday promotions. Read on (or watch below).

A peek into the history of Black Friday

I realized recently that I talk a lot about Black Friday, but never talk about where TF it came from. 

Black Friday has always been a kickoff into the holiday season. It’s kind of like a highway sign that tells you, “NOW LEAVING FALL…ENTERING A WINTER WONDERLAND.” Because once Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is over, then it’s officially time for the winter holidays to shine. 

It started as a way to entice businesses to sell more right before Christmas rolled if their numbers were in the red. Everyone is shopping around this time of the year, and it helps businesses get their numbers back to black. 

People used to camp out overnight to elbow a stranger for a flatscreen TV (I never did that, but I did wait in line in the early hours of the morning as a kid to get a Digitpet, which was just a knock-off Tamagotchi. I never got it because they were sold out, but the anticipation was part of the fun!). 

But now, we just keep that waiting game alive, at home in our best leggings waiting to shop online (which, TBH, is fine by me).

With that out of the way, let’s talk about Black Friday for your digital products, courses, and other offers.

Sales-Boosting Tip #1: Know your audience

The bottom line is people aren’t going to spend money on things they don’t want. No matter how good of a deal it is or how you promote it. If what you’re offering for Black Friday isn’t what your audience wanted to begin with, it could really take a hit on your sales. 

Knowing what your audience wants typically takes listening to them all year — in the comments, in your reviews, in emails, and DMs — but there are other ways you can get inside the mind of your ideal client/customer to find out what they want…

Just ask them! 

No need to overcomplicate it or use any fancy marketing psychology. Hearing what people want directly from them is THE BEST WAY to find your answer. You can do that by shooting them a quick email, creating a survey, or even pre-selling your products to gauge interest in real-time.

Sales-Boosting Tip #2: Offer an *actual* discount

You know what we aren’t going to do? Price gouge our products for the sake of a good sale.

Not only is that not ethical business, but it’s a really good way to cut trust with your audience. Once they catch wind of a sham deal…you can kiss that solid reputation goodbye. 

Don’t raise prices right before your sale, then lower them back down to their original price and say they’re on sale. That’s called lying. Doing business the right way always pays off. You owe it to your customers (and the business you’ve worked so hard to create) to do things the right way. 

Sales-Boosting Tip #3: Bundles anyone?

But do you know what is a sound way to boost your BF sales? Bundles, baby!!

Bundles increase the average order value, which means that even though your customers are getting more products at a discounted rate, your bundle of three products for $100 is still more money than just one product for $35. 

Bundles are also a great way to introduce another offer to your customers. They may not have known you had resources adjacent to what they wanted to learn. And them being happy to have found exactly what they were looking for is great for business! Good reviews are the best marketing your business can have. 

Sales-Boosting Tip #4: Extend the sale into Cyber Monday

It’s pretty common for a business to decide to extend their Black Friday sale into the Cyber Monday holiday with the same offer and added bonuses. This helps create a sense of urgency because people know once Cyber Monday is over, the sale is donezo. 

You could also offer bonuses that are only available during the sale — as in, you do not and will not offer them at any other point in the year. I would suggest doing this with a lower ticket offer so you don’t have to use a lot of brainpower reinventing the wheel trying to come up with a last-minute offer! 

Sales-Boosting Tip #5: Reach out to people on the fence

As a Millennial and introvert, I totally understand not wanting to reach out to strangers more than you have to. But if one little nudge in the right direction could potentially convert into a purchase, isn’t it worth it?

That’s where we must take the extra time to nurture our audience, even people who may still be on the fence. All hope is not lost at the last hour!

Reach out to people you know are on the fence by email (because they’ve verbally expressed this to you through a message, or they’ve clicked on every single one of your links in your emails but never purchased) and up the ante a bit. 

Give away something like a 15-minute laser coaching session for free — or something similar. You don’t have to pull out all the stops and give your hard-earned work away for free, but sometimes a small incentive is enough to make people think twice about skipping out on your sale.

My best last-minute Black Friday prep tips

Look, Black Friday is basically this week (as of this writing, it’s November 22, 2022), and I mean it when I say there’s not much time left. But luckily for you, I’ve got a couple of pro tips that may be able to help, even if you’re a procrastinator. Check them out below!

https://youtu.be/MOC8ITL_64Q