Looking for some tips and strategies for Black Friday / Cyber Monday / Christmas / End of Year / New Year sales campaigns?

First, it's important for you to know that the one day Black Friday or Cyber Monday mega sale is now considered old school. No longer will we see these big promotions and urgency sales to get as much revenue as possible in one day.

With the promotional changes happening in big box stores, like Target and Walmart who are stretching their Black Friday promotions across weeks instead of days, we too can utilize their strategy for our small businesses. 

And the good news is, for service-providers, this is the most ideal sales campaign strategy (shhh, all year long).

Why is it the most ideal strategy?

It is the most ideal strategy because you have many more opportunities to reach your audience, help them, build relationships, and sell multiple offers over your promotional weeks. Rather than, the old school one day sale where you only have one chance to get people in your virtual doors to buy your offer(s).

STEP ONE -- FOCUS ON MAKING CONNECTIONS WITH YOUR PRE-SEASON CONTENT

Making new connections, cultivating existing & new relationships, and creating super helpful content should be your main focus during your pre-holiday campaign. The earlier you begin, the better your results will be.

First things first, create a new freebie opt-in that directly relates to your main seasonal / holiday offer.

YOUR SEASONAL PRODUCTS or service

Consider which products and/or services you want to include in your seasonal promotion campaigns. I suggest (if you have multiple products and/or services) that you choose more than one at different price points, so you can extend your campaign over many weeks (or even months).

When it comes to freebies (lead magnets), you will want to create one that is designed to help promote each product or service that you want them to buy. You may even need to create more than one freebie per product depending on how many customer types you have who need your solutions.

The great thing is that if you monetize each freebie you’ll end up getting paid while you’re also promoting your programs, products, and services.

To help you create more than one freebie follow these steps . . .

CREATE MULTIPLE CLIENT PERSONAS

When you create your ideal client persona you'll want to create more than one. The reason is that different audience members will respond better to more direct marketing or a specific message.

The way you say or write about your solution will help certain members of your audience identify with you and your offer. The more prolific you become at expressing the transformation you provide, the more you will attract the various members within your perfect-fit client personas.

For example, if you offer plant-based diet coaching as your flagship offer you may want to choose more than one audience member. Some of your audience is already vegan, but some of your audience may just be beginning to learn about becoming vegan.

Creating two different freebies based on these two audience personas will be beneficial because you’ll be able to encourage more people to come into your program. The vegan audience may be easier to bring in, but the non-vegan audience can still benefit from your plant-based diet options if they feel accepted too. It’s a win-win for you and them.

CREATE ONE FREEBIE PER PROBLEM 

As you're building a community and start getting questions (or you observe questions from your audience in other people’s groups), each is an opportunity to create a new freebie designed to answer that specific question.

Remember that a free gift should be short and to the point. It should solve one problem at a time and be super easy to implement and consume in just a few minutes. If it's a series, like a video series, keep the videos short and specific. 

Keep a list of questions so you always have ideas of what your next freebie will be. I'd also keep track of how many times you get the same questions. The more a question is asked, the sooner you should create that free gift.

Whether it be a “How to eReport,” a short video or even a full-on webinar addressing that question, you'll get more sign-ups, more customers, and make more sales because you're directly answering their need. 

KEEP YOUR FREEBIE UPDATED AND CURRENT

In addition to creating more than one freebie directed to different segments of your audience who need the same solutions, you also need to keep your freemiums up to date.

That might be as simple as editing them to add new resources that are more current. It might consist of recreating them entirely due to new technology or changes in your industry.

You might even want to update them to offer a different look or layout. Or you can add better branding elements that look and sound more like you. Either way, it’ll look newer and get more interest when you keep everything updated and feeling fresh.

Just remember, one lead magnet will not grab everyone’s attention. Different freebies designed to promote the same products can be designed and created for each subset of your audience which can exponentially expand your traffic, signups, and bottom line because you’re always speaking directly to your audience.

And don't forget, to spread kindness and joy in everything you create.