If your Black Friday sales didn’t meet your expectations this year, you’re not alone. Many small business owners face challenges during Black Friday, from relying too heavily on discounts to missing the mark on value-based marketing. Here’s why your Black Friday deals didn’t work and actionable strategies to turn things around.
You Relied Too Heavily on the Discount
Many business owners head into Black Friday with rose colored glasses on thinking that now is the chance for them to get a bunch of clients and use the relief of a discount to justify it on behalf of their clients- as if the discounts are the shoo-in of new clients or rather, their regular pricing is why people aren’t buying. That’s simply not the case.
The good news is that if you have any remaining scarcity mindset or doubt around what you charge, you can rest easy now knowing that your lack of Black Friday sales has nothing to do with what you’re charging throughout the year.
People LOVE to spend money, shop, and buy things.
In fact, this past Black Friday season broke a national record in spending– $10.8 Billion dollars in online purchases- up from $9.8 Billion dollars spent online in 2023. So an extra ONE BILLION DOLLARS were spend this year on Black Friday shopping alone.
Here’s the thing: so many business owners project their own financial situation onto their clients.
I used to do this, too. At the start of my business, I was in a dire and desperate financial situation, so I assumed and projected that onto everyone else- despite my clients pulling into my single car garage driveway with BMWs and Mercedes.
Someone who is truly struggling financially is not looking for a luxury service like personal training- there’s no ifs ands or buts about it.
But if you’re in a tricky financial situation, there’s a decent chance you may be projecting that ‘trickiness’ onto your clients and audience as well and then that projection is showing up in how you’re approaching marketing and sales.
If you approached your Black Friday deals hoping that the discounts would be enough to get people to buy- at the very least, it means it’s not your prices that are prohibiting people from buying in the first place– it’s something else entirely.
You didn’t educate, show value, or the transformation in your content leading up to Black Friday
When it comes to marketing online, it is your job to educate, show value, and the transformation. This is why people buy things.
They want to feel, be, or do different than what they’re currently doing, feeling, or being like.
In the weeks or even months leading up to Black Friday, your social media posts should have pivoted into an education phase and a future-casting phase.
What does their day or life look like without your product or service?
What does their day or life look like with your product or service?
In 2024 and beyond, it’s more important than ever to not hold anything back in your content or marketing. When scarcity is high, it can be easy to try to hold value close to the vest but this will work against you and your marketing.
Here are some examples of how you might educate with your content within the health, fitness, and movement realm:
- mistakes that keep their workouts inefficient
- form cues and improvements they would benefit from
- common myths and misconceptions
- new movement variations and applications
Here’s how you might show value:
- highlight the benefits of your offer, product, or service
- many business owners get stuck in the weeds of the features of the offer their selling. Guess what? No one buys for the features, they buy for the benefits. For example, saying your program includes 3 days of strength training is a feature. What is the benefit of that feature? What does that mean to them? One way you can figure this out is by including the phrase “so you can…” and then finishing the sentence.
- what is getting in their way now and how is your product/service the answer to that?
- what is their current experience now and how is your product/service the answer to that?
- For example, maybe your people are skipping their workouts because they’re bored. Show us a few examples of movements and sequences from within your program and explain how it helps to combat workout boredom without being a random workout routine.
How to show the transformation:
- part of marketing is painting a picture of the future. No one is going to spend money to stay exactly the same. This is true for all things we buy, especially on Black Friday. People buy clothes as a form of self-expression, feeling like they ‘fit in’- that is part of the transformation of buying clothes. Or, if buying fitness clothes, it’s the transformation of not having workout leggings that roll down or give you camel toe.
- in order to do this, you need to be able to accurately capture and explain where your people are at right now and what that experience is like for them. If you’re not “getting inside your audience’s head” today, you won’t be able to sell to them tomorrow.
- will they be more consistent? feel less embarrassed at the gym? finally get a decent workout at home? be able to do cool, new tricks? feel smarter about their approach? you need to be able to speak to their inconsistency, embarrassment, at-home workout frustrations, lack of ‘cool tricks’, or how they want to feel smarter before you can sell them a picture of their future.
Your Black Friday Deal Was Too Big or Too Complicated
Black Friday deals will not save your business. My goal for many of my clients is to get them to get new people into the door, build a solid relationship, and then upsell them into a longer or bigger package as time goes on.
If you were trying to sell your bread and butter service, let’s say 6-months of personal training, to your audience- they may not be ready to invest that much time (or money) with you just yet. An introductory offer like 3 sessions at a discount may work better- for both of you. You get a feel for the new clients and can decide if they’d be a good fit to upsell them into a bigger package and the client also gets to decide the same.
It’s Not 2017 Anymore
If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ll know that the internet works a bit differently today than it did years ago. It’s louder, moves faster than ever, and even more impactful, people have smaller attention spans than ever before.
This means you’ll want longer runways for all of your promotional periods. Additionally, it’s more important than ever to build trust with your audience.
If any part of you is hiding while marketing, it will show up in your business with lack of sales. In 2024 and beyond, the “know, like, and trust” factor is more crucial than ever. You have to be honest with yourself first, and then honest with your audience.
Why do you want people to buy your program? Is it because you want to make more money and feel good about yourself? That’s definitely something you’d be hiding from your audience, right? This will lead to a disconnect. I’m not saying hop on IG stories and announce “buy my service because I want to make money and feel good about myself!” because that won’t work either.
What I am saying is that some part of you will need to be strongly tethered to your why, your purpose, your mission, and your vision.
Why is it important for people to sign up to work with you?
What kind of person would do well in your program? How can you be even more honest about who those people are? And how can you say in a way that no one else has said it before? The “busy mom” trope isn’t going to cut it anymore. The “get stronger” trope isn’t going to cut it anymore, either. There’s just too much noise and almost no room for ambiguity and lack of personality.
People want to feel excited when they buy something- so you will have to bring the excitement.
Are you excited about what you offer and deliver? Or just excited about the money?
Does inviting people into your services feel liberating or stressful? If stressful, you likely need systems as I’d have to venture a guess that most things are manual, unclear, and un-systemized.
If you’re stressed when inviting new people to work with you, that stress is going to translate into your marketing one way or another.
If you’ve managed to make your marketing all about you (because your primary why is that you want more money), that will also come through in your marketing- you won’t even have to utter a single word about it. There will just be a lack of connection between you, your audience, and your marketing related content.
Closing Thoughts
If something in this post resonated with you and ignited a spark to market and sell again, do it! You don’t have to wait for Black Friday to sell, promote, or invite anyone into anything. You can simply revisit the drawing board and try again. The bright side to that is that once you’re ready to relaunch again, things will have mostly calmed down in on the online space so you may have better visibility anyway!
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