5 Black Friday Email & SMS Revenue Growth Hacks You Can Implement Right Now!
Prime Day created a halo effect for all of ecommerce this year.
11.7% revenue jump worldwide over last year.
And $7.2 billion in revenue generated in two days.
Manufactured “holidays” are the secret sauce to ecommerce success.Â
In a world where brands are trying to sustain their own DTC business, Amazon is showing they can also impact your DTC sales on a whim.
Especially on Prime Day. Twice a year.
Here’s a secret from an ex-VP of Email, SMS and Retention: anyone can manufacture their own holiday (and make millions!)
While most DTC brands are banking on lame concepts like “Take Your Dog to Work Day” or “National Take the Stairs Day”, the top brands manufacture their own Prime Day.
So instead of holding out for the next Prime Day, you can create your own major summer or fall event.
It just comes down to a four simple steps.
Over the the past three years of running HiFlyer Digital, I’ve manufactured DOZENS of event-based sales.
I helped create Lighting Week for a 9-figure consumer electronics brand. It generated $2M extra during the slowest months of the summer.
I created Max Day for an 8-figure industrial brand. Biggest sales day of the summer, beating 4th of July.
And I created What’s In Your Bag for an 8-figure brand. Doubling their beauty bundle sales year-over-year. Manufactured sales are EVERYTHING.
Especially during the slow summer months. Brands have been doing it for years.
Nordy Week. Way Day. Singles Day.
So how do you make it happen for your brand?
It takes just four steps:
#1 – Plan for Profit
Manufactured sales aren’t like Clearance Sales or Black Friday; they can actually be very profitable.
When we ran Lighting Week, we focused on our private label, in-house items, where margins were healthy.
We could afford to sweeten the deal.
And we weren’t concerned about the deals getting out to the public or Amazon MAP pricing because we owned the DTC inventory.
By focusing on profitable collections, we could be more creative in our promotions.
Based your sale all around profitable lines or collections that can’t be found on Amazon.
Case in point: we work with a beauty brand that didn’t post beauty bundles on Amazon, saving them exclusively for DTC.
So we created a “What’s In Your Bag” event and promoted beauty bundles exclusively.
Higher AOV, higher profit.
#2 – Zero in on the best audience with segmentation & personalization
You can’t just manufacture a sale around any old product line; we need to forecast demand.
Focus on creating sales around products your audience demands.Â
Here’s what not to do: one 8-figure brand thought it would be a good idea to run a sale on winter biking gear… in the heart of summer.
They were trying to encourage early buyers for two seasons from now.
Although it’s an A+ for creativity, the audience – hence, the demand – just wasn’t there.
Hardly anyone was buying winter gear in the summer and even if they were interested, the stock wasn’t high and the new arrivals weren’t there yet.
It tanked.
We recommended the following: instead of banking on bikes all the time, focus on accessories.
We called it Go For The Gold, timed with the Olympics.
The event tripled their accessory sales over the summer.
Because the demand was there.
Be sure to have an audience for any event you run.
Easiest way to find your audience: create an affinity segment in Klaviyo for a certain product line and see how many people are ACTIVELY shopping right now for the gear.
#3 – Campaign Email & SMS Cadence
Banking on multiple sends in a week is better than relying on one homerun day for a sale.Â
Want proof?
Easy. Black Friday keeps getting earlier and earlier every year.
Brands realize that ONE DAY of sales isn’t as reliable as multiple days.
So expand your campaign email & SMS campaign cadence.
Instead of HiFlyer Day, call it HiFlyer Week.
Add in multiple touches, including: 1) Early Access 2) Going On Now 3) Best-Sellers 4) Last Chance and 5) Extended.
By turning a one-day sale into a one-week experience, you’ll make more without having to spend as much time thinking of new ideas.
#4 – Give Exclusivity & First Pass to EmailÂ
Remember the 80/20 rule: get your manufactured sale in front of your best customers on your email & SMS list.
These audiences will drive the most revenue.
Paid ads on Meta and Google are great but email & SMS are low hanging fruit.
And it’s more profitable.
As you build out your manufactured holidays year-over-year and start expanding it, you’ll have data to back up spending more on marketing it.
But if you’re just starting out, use email & SMS to the max.
We ran Max Day as a test-run this year and it KILLED IT.
So much so that we may run additional variations on it next month or in October.
We PROVED THE CONCEPT on our email & SMS list.
Even better, your customers will feel like they are indeed part of an exclusive club.
And that alone is great for customer LTV.
Give email & SMS the first pass for your manufactured events.
Manufacturing your own holidays is just four steps away.
And so is making millions.
Best of all: it’s not too late.
There are tons of opportunities between now and Black Friday so have at it!
Follow me for more tips.
Click here if you want to implement more 10-figure email & SMS strategies of the top brands in minutes, not month.
Loved the blog post? Take one of these next steps: