LOCAL MARKET MONOPOLY EPISODE 30
The Black Friday Episode
Podcast by Clarence Fisher
Black Friday

About This Episode

Does your small business get into the Black Friday ring? Or do you feel like it’s not worth the effort?

In this episode, we will discuss three ways to position your business for profits on Black Friday and throughout the holiday shopping season. Even if you don't offer the deep discounts and deals that fill up your parking lot with shoppers at 4 A.M., you can take these steps to encourage customer engagement and increase sales.

Listen now to discover what you can start doing today to reap the rewards on Black Friday.

Disclaimer: The transcription below is provided for your convenience. Please excuse any mistakes that the automated service made in translation.

Intro: You're listening to Local Market Monopoly with Clarence Fisher, uncovering the tools tactics, and strategies. The most successful small businesses use in their local market and own the block.

Clarence Fisher: Hey, Hey, what's up. Welcome to Local Market Monopoly. I am Clarence Fisher, your host. And I know what you're thinking. And you're like, Hey, that was weird. There was, there was no, there was no intro. As a matter of fact, he went straight to the intro. What happened to the intro to the intro? All right, this is, this is why, because it's Thanksgiving. Like I want to get back to my family. Just like you should. I mean, you're the, you're in the better position right now because you're probably, you know, with your family, uh, probably in a Turkey coma. And you're like, Hey, you know, I might as well learn some marketing because everyone else is asleep and I'm not, let me see what Clarence has to talk about. So I am here entertaining edutaining you, but I've got to get it back.

Clarence Fisher: So this one's going to be about, I don't know, 13, 15 minutes. And that's why we just jumped right into the intro. Okay? Don't judge me. Today, we're going to talk about, this is the black Friday episode, and I know you're, you're thinking, listen, I always know what you're thinking. This is what you're thinking. Hey, Clarence, it's the black Friday episode. You probably should have, had this episode a little bit later so that I could get prepared for black Friday. But if you are listening like you should be, you will know that we started talking about this probably three weeks ago, three episodes ago. So make sure you go back and pay attention and take out some paper and pen and write down what you should have done. And what you should have done is created your promo calendar.

Clarence Fisher: If you go back and you listen to the promotional planning, the yearly promotional planning strategy, it details what you should be doing as far as next year and creating your promotional calendar. So what I'm getting at is Black Friday is tomorrow. So if you haven't, if you're not ready for this episode, the Black Friday episode will be, will show up insurgence and all that stuff, but people who listened to it, this is for you to get ready for next year. If you're listening to this recording after, Black Friday, say 2021 or, or after that, uh, just take what I share with you today to heart. We are still on this pandemic so it is going to be more online shopping this year than ever, ever before. And I don't think that I mean, it's forever online. Shopping is going to be forever increased after this year.

Clarence Fisher: So let's go ahead and jump into it. This is the Black Friday episode and it is Thanksgiving today. Happy Thanksgiving to you. I am so thankful for you. Hopefully, you got a Thanksgiving card for me, uh, if not reach out to me and make sure that you get a Thanksgiving card next year. But hopefully, you got a Thanksgiving card if you did, please know that whether you did or you didn't, please know that I am so thankful, especially if you're hearing this right now, okay? So let's get started. On the Black Friday episode, which again, you should be putting into, you know, open your promotional calendar and take notes and put this down. We know that it's the biggest spending day of the year. This is the week when a lot of businesses getting back into the Black, they make most of their money this weekend and or this week.

Clarence Fisher: Last year, 2019, there were 84.2 million shoppers during the Black Friday week. And people that bought online or they bought online and picked up in the store, saw a 43% increase from the previous year. And like I said, that's not going to change. Nope, not putting the genie back in the bottle. So here's what you can do to get ready and take advantage of this influx of shoppers during Black Friday. Number one, you want to generate the buzz early. Like I said, today's Thanksgiving. And this is not early enough that let's just say that. But I mean, if you re, if you haven't done anything this year, what you can do in all seriousness when your family falls asleep, think of quick promotion and send out an email to your prospects or at least the customers you have now, alright?

Clarence Fisher: Shoot out an email and at least get something out for in the morning. Alright? But number one, ideally generate buzz early start early. Nowadays, people are talking about Black November. So you could do that promotion and you can send out a special, if you have enough services, you can send out a special every Tuesday or Thursday. So now an email with a new product, new service, new deal. Again, if you listen to one of the previous episodes where we talk about when during black Friday, you don't necessarily have to discount your services and cannibalize your profits and all that. you can do what we call 'stack the cool' and just add services to it. You know, if you purchased during this week, you'll also get this. If you really, really want to have a, what we call an irresistible offer, which is one of these steps here, then you'll say, Hey, you know, you get this discount, but if you buy during this week, not only do you get a discount, you also get this, but either way, you want to generate buzz early because everybody, all the cool kids are going to be talking about it.

Clarence Fisher: And as a business owner, one of the best things you can do is prepare yourself for Q4. You know, definitely, next Q4, be prepared for it and start teasing on your social media. We'll tell your followers at the beginning of November. One of the things you want to do is as Q4 begins is step back and say, you know, what products and services do I want to promote? This is something you can be doing right now. What products or services do you want to promote next year? How and where will you advertise those specials? Will it be online? Will it be in your email address, email list? I would recommend you do both of those. And when will the marketing campaign begin? Again, are you going to do a Black November where it's going from November 1st, all the way to November 30th, are you going to do separate campaigns?

Clarence Fisher: Maybe you do a Thanksgiving type of campaign. And then you do a day after or Black Friday campaign. And then you do a cyber Monday campaign. You can break all those down into three different campaigns. You can have one campaign. Like I said, all November, the choice is yours, but you want to make a decision beforehand. And then step number two, once you have that is to do what we were just talking about. And that creates an offer that your customers, your clients, or patients cannot resist. People are looking for deals. But most importantly, what they're looking for is to get the most value out of their money. It doesn't necessarily have to be a super cheap deal. Like I said, you don't have to cannibalize all your profits. What they're saying is during this time, I want to maximize my dollar.

Clarence Fisher: What is the best value I can get for my dollar? And that's what they're looking for. I mean, you can bundle products, you can offer a free consultation, maybe in your consultations, instead of just giving this deliverable on the free consultation, you add something else. Maybe there's another deliverable that you add to that you can stack the cool, you can come up with something that is super duper, irresistible. Listen, if it doesn't, if it doesn't, if it doesn't kind of make you cringe a little bit to offer it, it's probably not going to be irresistible to your ideal customer. I think we have to get over this idea that we're going to hold back and it's not going to hurt. I remember, and this is not about black Friday, but my pastor once said that especially we that are doing well, giving can be set on autopilot, right?

Clarence Fisher: And so, you know, we give this much and it just goes, don't even pay attention to it. But, and you've heard the story about the lady who gave the two, the two coins or however many coins it was, and that's all she had, right? That's giving what to the hertz. And even in this season, I want to impress upon you to do that. Sometimes if you're so used to giving on a level to where it doesn't bother you. I know you're giving, but I wonder, are you really, are you really giving? So with your offers, when you're with your offers, especially your irresistible offers, your tripwire offers, you're welcome, your red carpet offers are called all kinds of different things. To get someone into your fold, make it irresistible.

Clarence Fisher: You can make your money back on the back end as you should. You should have something else to offer. So I'll get off my soapbox but I just run into so many times business owners that are like I don't want to do that, but you want a customer, right? You have to start thinking about the lifetime customer value, lifetime client value. What are they going to spend with you over the lifetime? Restaurants? And sometimes restaurants get this so horribly bad. When it's you treat a customer like the 20 or $30 that they're going to spend right now, you have to treat them and have your wait staff treat them like the thousands of dollars they will spend at your restaurant if they are treated well. Again, I'll get off my soapbox, create an irresistible offer.

Clarence Fisher: Think the long play. 2021 go along. All right. So number three is to maximize your online presence. You know, what services you're going to offer, you know, the deal you're going to make, or you're going to stack the cool. And now you're going to maximize your online presence. This thing should be everywhere. I mean, from the time of this pandemic, and then many, many, many, many years to come, your online presence is going to be so, so important. If you need help, call me. Use your email list. Email marketing is a great way to promote it. You should be promoting. Email is not dead. Email is not dying. If you have text messages, definitely use that. You've heard the stat on the email that every $1 you spend on email, you make $42 back, potentially.

Clarence Fisher: I'm not, you know, I'm not giving you a claim or anything like that, but, very routinely, it's not unheard of to make $42 back from every $1 invested in email. Just make sure your subject line stands out. Right now, you can put Black Friday on your subject line and then put anything else. And you're probably going to get open because people are looking, they're just curious about what Black Friday is, right? You can just put the Black Friday sale in your email and it'll probably get open. Be careful about making your subject line too spammy and promotional though, because let's say you use active campaign or MailChimp or Infusionsoft or Constant Contact. Most of these major systems now have some sort of intelligence in it that will alert you, that you're sending spam. Your email looks like spam. So pay attention to that.

Clarence Fisher: And you can keep your promotional, but maybe not too promotional. Now there are two sets that you want to send emails to two sets of people. One to your previous customers. As I said before, a customer, a buyer is a buyer, is a buyer from old Dan Kennedy from your previous customers, more likely to purchase from you. So send emails to them and speak to them in a certain way. They're comfortable with you. They know you, you can speak to them. You don't have to build so much rapport and you don't have to discount so much. They already know you. They're already spending with you. The only thing I will say with your previous customers, and I guess if I say previous customers, they're not your customers anymore but they know you. Then, you could offer a discount or totally, totally 'stack the cool' on your existing customers, send them things that will take them to the next level.

Clarence Fisher: I mean, you don't want to offer things just to be offering them. And it's not going to be useful, not for anyone, but especially not for your existing customers. So I would say you actually have three different groups. I wrote down two, but you actually have three different groups. And you have the ability in any email software today to do this. Communicate with your previous customers, meaning former customers, clients, and then also, you know, to get them back, maybe a comeback campaign comes back offer, and then your existing customers, clients, patients. What is it that they need to get to the next level? Maybe it's a higher-level type of mentoring, coaching, or some type of VIP day, and then your potential customers, those who have not spent any time or money with you yet, what do they need? They possibly need the best deal of all.

Clarence Fisher: If you can discount or if you can stack the cool again, there's nothing wrong with stacking the cool, do that, but be sure to pay attention to the email subject lines, that's, what's going to get it open. Makes sure, do your Black Friday thing and just don't get too, too promotional. And number four, this is big right now. When you're running Black Friday campaigns, especially on social use the Black Friday hashtag. Hashtag Black Friday, hashtag Black Friday sale, hashtag Black Friday deals. People are using it. People are using it, they're looking for it. So use those hashtags on your social. So now is the time that you want to get started. Hopefully, you enjoy that. Are you getting another piece of pie right now? Is that what you're doing, uh, Hey, do it.

Clarence Fisher: Hey, you know, uh, calories, the calories today and tomorrow don't count. Okay. Just, just tell them, Clarence, hashtag big juice told you that. All right. So now is the time to get started with your Black Friday strategy for next year, if you have not today. And if you don't have anything, I'm telling you seriously, think of something. While you're watching TV or whatever, think of something of, just a quick deal that you can make and get that email out. Just log in, type that email and have it go out tomorrow. And at least, you know, you have now until Cyber Monday, you can make all pull all of that together. So this is what I'm going to do. I don't know if you've heard or not, but you know, we have a, I've been running a group, a really tight-knit, group called, in my inner circle.

Clarence Fisher: It's called Fisher Inner Circle. And this is where I take small, medium-sized businesses and walk them through step-by-step what to do in order to increase their online presence and what we call Own the Block. You know, I believe in a local market monopoly, not in a selfish sense, but for you to become the authority in your market, a lot of businesses, this is what they're doing. Either their marketing person, they sign up and then their marketing person takes all the, all the consulting like we meet every single week, every Thursday at two o'clock, we are on live marketing. We call them the Marketing Meeting. So you have a marketing meeting every Thursday. And then at the beginning of the month, then I come out with new training and then we get those systems for reputation, reach sales, referrals, get these marketing systems implanted into your business.

Clarence Fisher: So it's, it's like having me consult your business, but without paying the $1,500 a month price tag, because it is only $297 a month, they get also a private Facebook group and then access to me through email to answer specific specifically your questions, but we're handling whatever you want to handle on the Marketing on the marketing meetings, be it your ads. We want to look at your website. We want to look at analytics. You want to know what your analytics mean. We want to come up with the promotion with a Black Friday promotion or anything like that. As a matter of fact, every month. Now, what we've just implemented is these campaigns in a box. So every single month, the campaigns have done for you. So where everything that I'm talking about right now, if you were in the inner circle, you had already had this.

Clarence Fisher: So this is what I'm going to do for black Friday is, if you go to Clarence fisher.com forward slash Black Friday, what I'm going to do for the next, we'll say four days, it's typically 297. What I want to do is give you a month of that for you to get in and see if it will fit your organization. But we're going to do that for $97 never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever have done that. Matter of fact, I'm just not kind of pulling this out of the rectal extraction kind of method here, as I told you to just come up with something. So Clarencefisher.com/BlackFriday read about the Inner Circle. If you want to jump in, I'd be glad I'd be happy to help you and your business, but until we meet again, which would probably be next week, man. I'm so thankful for you. You have no idea how thankful I am for you that you spend time with me. And I don't take it for granted. So get a little rest for this weekend. Do a little shopping, do a little hugging because Monday, Tuesday, we're going to get back to owning the block.

Outro: We appreciate you listening to Local Market Monopoly. Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and visit ClarenceFisher.com for more resources that will help you dominate your local market and own the block.

Resources

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NEXT EPISODE:
Episode 31: How to Create An Irresistible Offer