Black Friday Playbook

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?

Love it or hate it, Black Friday has become a time of year when people are in buying mode, with some cash set aside to snap up a few of the best offers of the year.  

After running hundreds of Black Friday offers for gyms and studios over the past 5 years, here's a few of the most valuable lessons we've learned along the way...

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OUR TOP 5 TIPS

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1. Focus on existing database

While it's a great time to run offers, the online platforms are saturated, with big players spending big money, driving advertising costs up. Play it smart and use this opportunity to rustle up some revenue from your existing database.

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2. Bank next years revenue now

You have a notoriously tough patch coming up over Christmas and new year, you can use an intelligent Black Friday offer for current members to front load some revenue into November to bridge the gap between now and January.

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3. Create an easy offer for old leads

Black Friday provides a window of peak buyer appetite with natural urgency. This is prime time to go back at old leads with something easy and irresistible, to reignite their interest and get them in the door before Christmas takes over.

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4. Go hard on referrals

This is the one time of year that a good referral incentive can spread like wildfire. Open up your Black Friday offers to friends and family and drop a juicy 'bring a friend' incentive into your Black Friday offer communications.

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5. Get ahead of the pack

If you wait until Black Friday, or even the day before, to run your offer, you're just going to get drowned out by a million other offers. Start early, even if you only run the sale for 48 hours. Releasing this a week or more early means you can lock in commitment before the spending spree starts.

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Recommended current member offer: pay 6 months up front & get 6 weeks for free (or a similar variation i.e 3 months and 3 weeks free)

Here's why this offer is the Black Friday winner...

• You get to reward existing members for their commitment.

• You get to shift some future revenue into the months it's needed most.

• You most likely get to frame the cost saving as the biggest ever
  • Saving = difference between 6 month up front membership rate and 7.5 months at full price.

• As it's a high-ticket offer, even if just a handful of people take this up it can make a big difference to November / December revenue.

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PAYMENT PLAN TIP

This does require a chunky up-front commitment, so one useful suggestion is to offer the option to pay this in 3 x bi-weekly instalments over the remainder of the year.

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EXAMPLE EMAIL TEMPLATE

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BUT... WHAT ABOUT OUR FRONT END PAID AD CAMPAIGNS?

As you may have noticed, all of the advice above can bag you some huge wins outside of the paid ad frenzy. However, I can also be a great idea to run 'Black Friday ' centred paid ad campaigns too.Our number one piece of advice: As always, regardless of the season or what the general market is doing, if your current campaign is getting strong results, keep this running!If you do decide to run a Black Friday ad campaign however, our simple advice is to play the game and go as low as you can. Black Friday, whether you just stick to the day itself or longer, is a contained period of time where people are in full-send bargain hunting mode. If there's ever a time to try out a super low barrier offer or a big discount then this is it.

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