Why October Feels Weird

Trevor 0:00

Once you have their attention, you may only get it once.

Mark 0:02

I think every year everyone freaks out in October. Yeah. Seasonality is real. And so how do you approach October and Black Friday?

Trevor 0:10

The last thing you want to do is have a mediocre offer, but you're like, well, in two days it's going to get better.

Mark 0:15

Your customer's wallet is a finite resource. It runs out. They're buying from other places. You're not the only place they're going to buy from.

Trevor 0:25

You're not only competing with actual competition, people selling the same products as you, but you're competing with every other brand who's running a promotion.

Mark 0:34

So there's not a lot to think about, guys. Pretty simple. Good luck. Just 20 things. Godspeed.

Trevor 0:39

Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me as always, my co-host Mark Goldhart. Mark, how are you?

Mark 0:48

Doing well. Good. How are you?

Trevor 0:53

Wonderful. Post-Labor Day. Kind of back into like what? A few normal weeks, and then we'll get into October. Which will not be normal. But normal. Not normal, but expected. Which is the down slump of the pre Black Friday slump.

Mark 1:21

Yeah.

Trevor 1:23

Which everyone should be aware of. That doesn't necessarily mean your media buying team and whatever is doing.

Mark 1:33

It's all just a matter of perspective, you know?

Trevor 1:38

Isn't everything though?

Mark 1:39

I know. That's what I mean. I think every year everyone freaks out in October.

Trevor 1:48

Well, it's the same thing with summer, too, right? Everyone's going to be able to do it.

Mark 1:50

Everyone freaks out when seasonalities hit. Yeah. We talk about it a lot, but just yeah, seasonality is real. And so how do you approach October and Black Friday? That is the big question.

Trevor 2:05

Yeah, that's the topic today. Um so let's talk about October 1st. October comma first, not October the first.

Mark 2:18

Yeah.

Trevor 2:18

First of all, let's talk about October.

Mark 2:20

Well first of all, if you're writing out the date, you would also have a comma, but yeah. Yes.

Trevor 2:27

No. It's October 1st, then the comma.

Mark 2:31

October 1st.

Trevor 2:34

No.

Mark 2:35

So you just mean F-I-R-S-T. Yes.

Trevor 2:38

Not one S T. Correct. That's why I said first of all, let's discuss October. Yeah. So October um naturally becomes a more challenging month for both new customers and returning customers because they all know what's coming. And October tends to, I feel like, get even worse because people also

Cohorts That Make October Worth It

Trevor 3:05

know that brands oftentimes earlier start Black Friday sales earlier in November as well, instead of just towards the end of the month. So I think that's one thing that everyone needs to be aware of. I think another thing that people need to be aware of in October is there's a lot of people who make an argument to just like pull spend back completely. And sometimes that is the right call. Like Mark said, everything is perspective based off of your brand and what works best for you. However, we have recognized, um, depending on the brand, there are some very strong correlations with the consumers who purchase in October and how likely those consumers are to come back and buy in November from a cohort data perspective. Yes?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yeah.

Mark 3:54

So and we have also found we talk about this all the time, but your November cohort of new customers can often be one of your worst long-term customer base.

Trevor 4:07

Yeah. Yes, they can. And we have a slight solution for that, potentially. Maybe. Um, so the point of October is look at your cohort data. If you're a Shopify brand, which I imagine most of you are, look at your cohort data. They have good cohort data, and just look back at um the last couple Novembers and see how many people, when it comes from like a total sales perspective, how many people came back and bought bought who purchased in October, who came back and bought again in November. My guess is October is going to be the highest outside of the month of November repurchasing time frame. Yes?

Mark 4:56

It's always the highest in terms of month zero to one. Yeah.

Trevor 5:00

So so look at that.

Mark 5:02

And if that's the case. Especially if they buy at full price.

Trevor 5:05

Yes, exactly. So if that is the case, then there's an argument to make that while everybody's pulling back, maybe you should potentially even spend more on new customers, yes. Yes, on new customers always.

Mark 5:22

Yeah.

Trevor 5:22

So that's anything else you'd like to say about October?

Mark 5:27

No, just I think that's pretty much it.

Trevor 5:31

Yeah.

Mark 5:33

It's not as bad as people think. But consumer behavior changes, so bake that into your expectations.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Yeah.

Mark 5:43

And just remember that a first customer in October might be worth something different.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah.

Mark 5:51

So that's another way to think about it. Like, yes, the cohort data, but just think about it as once you go back and look at how much each of those cohorts is worth over time, it might justify, for example, if you look at last year, your October base, maybe they're worth after four months 180, but your November base is worth 120.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Yeah.

Mark 6:17

Well, then isn't it worth to spend a little bit more for a CAC in October than it is in November?

Trevor 6:24

Yeah, for sure. For sure. So look at your numbers. Don't just look at CAC increasing or efficiency dipping. Secondly, what are some things that brands can start doing now and should start to think about now when it comes to Black Friday preparation?

Lock The Offer Early

Mark 6:49

Site offer first. What's your offer gonna be? Put it in stone. Yeah. So that you can make sure that everything else is coordinated. Your emails, your text, messages, your site.

Trevor 7:07

Yes.

Mark 7:08

Your ads. The worst thing is if you start making too many tweaks near the offer, something will get missed. And you'll wind up not having a banner on your website for three days.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Yeah.

Mark 7:26

And so anyone coming to your site organically won't know there's a gift with purchase won't work or something like that.

Trevor 7:32

Just something weird. So I think I think the other thing to that is making sure that you have the inventory to support whatever offer you have. I think that's that's important.

Mark 7:41

Yeah, for sure.

Trevor 7:43

If you're thinking about 50% off, but you're gonna sell out within the first two days, is that worth it? Maybe you go 30% off or 25% off. And so the daily burn is less, but you're gonna end up making more in profits. I think that's an important thing. That is important.

Mark 8:00

I think another that was gonna be my second most important thing.

Trevor 8:05

Let's keep going with this because I have another one for that.

Mark 8:06

Like my second profit.

Trevor 8:08

Yeah.

Mark 8:08

So I think one one thing right now profit goals, not just revenue goals. Yeah.

Trevor 8:13

Yeah. Very smart.

Mark 8:18

So too many people are wrapped up in revenue goals. And we as an agency have made that mistake too. Sometimes I mean, just last year we we had a client that crushed it during November, but the revenue looked great. The profit was bleh.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah.

Mark 8:40

They weren't unprofitable, but it was just the lifetime value did not materialize out of that very well. And so the way we're approaching Black Friday this year with that client, they've had a great year, but the way we're approaching this year will be very different than what it was last year. Yeah, for sure. Last year they just had a very serious new customer acquisition issue, and we we got with them right before Black Friday. So we made up all their new customer acquisition goals during October and Black Friday, but it just didn't materialize and the profitability of those customers did not pan out. So that's why we say just look at your profitability numbers because revenue's great, but fix your offer based off of your profitability.

Trevor 9:33

Top line revenue isn't great at the expense of the bottom line.

Mark 9:37

Yeah, when you could have just had a smaller offer but twice as much profit. Yeah, for sure.

Trevor 9:43

Um, I think another thing that kind of I'm jumping around a little bit too, but like I think another thing that goes into what I was saying about inventory and making sure you're gonna have as much profits as possible is depending on where you're at right now, make sure you're gonna have enough inventory. So, like if you need to air stuff in, um if stuff, if you can get stuff on a boat here in time, I'm I'm trying to think you're for some brands that's gonna be a little bit tough because we're like 45 days out till November, a little less than that, a little more than that. So that's one thing. Like just because you're having a 40% off sale doesn't mean the stuff that no one wants to buy, people will start buying it.

Mark 10:28

And then that that goes back to number two, right? Yeah, is it worth it to air freight? Sure.

Trevor 10:34

Yeah.

Mark 10:34

Do the based off of your offer and your profitability goals.

Trevor 10:38

Yeah, do the math. Um, I think

Profit Goals And Inventory Reality

Trevor 10:40

that's important. Um, if we go back to offers, um, this is going back to a um another client of ours that we've had, you know. Sometimes you want to get really creative, like too creative with your offer. So for example, oh day one, we're gonna do 25% off of pants, and day two, we're gonna do 18% off of tops, and day three, we're gonna do 20% off of skincare, you know, like yeah, we've recognized that that model just doesn't work as good. I think it's okay to do some of those things as long as the main sale is always gonna be X amount of percent off site wide. But the problem, actually, no, I'm gonna take that back. The problem with that is like people will see that kind of stuff and they'll recognize that you as a brand are a dime a dozen for the most part, a clothing company, a skincare company, whatever it might be. And if if that's your offer, they're gonna go to the person who's gonna have something a little bit more simple. Oh, it's site wide. So now I don't just have to worry about socks or a t-shirt. I know that if I want the full outfit, I can get it for 30% off, 25% off, or whatever.

Mark 11:57

Yeah.

Trevor 11:57

So I think simplify your offer.

Mark 12:00

Um can I just say why this is so important? Yeah. Um, maybe that used to work because uh of two reasons. Number one is Black Friday used to be three days. Yeah. And so people would do these kinds of like specialty offers as a way of extending Black Friday.

Trevor 12:22

Yeah.

Mark 12:23

That doesn't matter. Everyone extends Black Friday now. Yeah. So your brand is not special because you have extra sales days. Yeah. Number two is it's harder to just get in front of the eyes of your existing customers.

Trevor 12:37

Yeah, and you don't want to waste it.

Mark 12:39

And you don't want to waste it.

Trevor 12:40

We talked about that, I think, in the last episode, right? It's like once you have their attention, you may only get it once.

Mark 12:46

That's it.

Trevor 12:47

And so, like, the last thing you want to do is have a mediocre offer, but you're like, well, in two days it's gonna get better.

Mark 12:53

And you know, reason number three is your customer's wallet is a finite resource, it runs out. Yeah. Meaning what Trevor just said, they're buying from other places, you're not the only place they're going to buy from. And so if someone else made it easier, whether it's not I'm not even saying a competitor.

Trevor 13:15

I was gonna say the same thing.

Mark 13:17

It's just uh it there's other offers for other categories that they're looking for in terms of Black Friday spending that will eat up their share of wallet that they will not now spend on you if you make it too hard for them.

Trevor 13:29

Yeah, you could be in the market for shoes and hoodies. And if you happen to see an offer that's better for shoes, you might spend all of your money on shoes, even though you wanted a hoodie. It's like uh, but I just dropped $400 on these two pairs of shoes or whatever.

Mark 13:45

I got a great deal at the Nike sale or exactly whatever.

Trevor 13:49

Like I couldn't pass it up. So you're not only I like what you said, you're not only competing with cost like actual competition, people selling the same products as you, but you're competing with every other brand who's running a promotion.

Mark 14:03

Yeah. So just think that your customer has three thousand dollars they're going to spend over Black Friday.

Trevor 14:09

Yes. And and you only get one shot at getting them. And so capitalize on I think it's I think the average is less than that.

Mark 14:17

Yeah. But let's just say it's three thousand. What's your offer? How much is your AOV? Okay, you're let's just say you're at $300. So you oh, well, that's only 10% of their budget, sure. But what if they overspend? Yeah. And then you're doing all these little sales throughout the week, and then by the time it's over, they're like, Oh, I I didn't want that, I wanted the other thing, so I guess I'll wait till Friday. Well, I they forgot about you, they went spent somewhere else.

Trevor 14:44

What are acceptable Black Friday offers and what are not acceptable Black Friday offers?

Mark 14:50

Well, well, this gets into how um prestigious is your brand. But generally speaking, anything under 25% off is absolutely not a Black Friday offer. Yeah, we run we run surveys every 25% is like I think the number acceptable, but 30% is the true acceptable mark.

Trevor 15:15

Yeah. So I think the real number is like 20%, no one considers that anything.

Mark 15:19

No.

Trevor 15:20

25 people are disappointed. 30, that starts to look at it.

Mark 15:24

It's like okay, but yeah. They're not stoked on 30, but they're not mad.

Trevor 15:29

Yeah. And then once you're above 50, it doesn't make a difference. If you're doing just a straight discount, meaning your conversion rate doesn't increase much if you go from 50. It was really 50%.

Mark 15:39

Yeah, like over 40 to 50, it's the the conversion rate improvement is very minimal. At least last time we ran the test.

Trevor 15:48

Yeah, well, the last few years.

Mark 15:49

Yeah. So if you're saying 40%, usually people in their mind are rounding up to 50, anyways. Yeah.

Trevor 15:56

Yeah, I agree.

Mark 15:58

So 45, 40, but 30, 30 is kind of the the watermark. Yeah. Anything below that is just looked at as what about BOGO stuff? BOGOs. People love BOGOs. Yeah. But again, it depends on your kind of product and if you have the ancillary type of items to support it. Yeah. But BOGOs always have to be a buy one, get one fifty over Black Friday.

Trevor 16:32

Or buy one, get one free.

Mark 16:34

Or buy one, get one free.

Keep Black Friday Offers Simple

Mark 16:35

So like none of this BOGO 30 stuff.

Trevor 16:38

Like But BOGO 50 is only 25% off.

Mark 16:42

Yes.

Trevor 16:42

So you have to remember that one.

Mark 16:43

But it's a little bit of a masking technique if you're trying to appear like you're doing more than 25% if your margins just can't support a supported. And so you're just trying to get better AOV buckets over that time. Yeah. Like it's a decent strategy sometimes for for you.

Trevor 17:00

But I like a percent off and then like a gift with purchase when you spend over a certain amount of money. I think something like that is great.

Mark 17:10

So going back to keeping it simple, keep the overall offer simple. Yeah. But like Trevor said earlier, if you want to get, if you want to have some fun, that's where you have fun. Yeah. Is meet a certain threshold and you get something special. Or for the first thousand people, you get a sweatshirt or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Yeah.

Mark 17:33

That's how you do, that's how you keep it fun without cutting people out at the knees and getting people excited and then they're let down when they get to your site.

Trevor 17:42

I think a really cool thing that you can do is it's it's probably too late for most brands listening to this, but if you can create a custom thing that is just for Black Friday, so anybody who spends over $100, $150 gets this thing that is only here for Black Friday.

Mark 17:58

Or gets cash back. That's a fun offer. Oh, yeah. But they have to spend again.

Trevor 18:02

Dude, you know what is actually one of the best offers I've ever seen. I think it's really cool, and I think some brands should brands should do this. Is so you know the brand Free People. My wife falls for this every day.

Mark 18:14

You think you like them, don't you?

Trevor 18:16

My wife likes free people.

Mark 18:17

That's right.

Trevor 18:18

Um anyone who so I want to say if you spend over $300 there, they give you $100 in cash for the for like pretty much a hundred dollar gift card the next month. And so what this does is what Mark said is a lot of times your November cohorts suck. But this incentivize them incentivizes them to come back. So not only does it incentivize after their wallet gets a higher AOV. Right? A higher AOV, $300, and then it does that the $100 doesn't come to them right away. It's 30 days or something like that. And she loves it because guess what? It's gifting season still. So if she's buying something for let's say my mom, who loves that as well, like she uses that money for a gift or for herself. I think that's a huge thing.

Mark 19:16

So it's a way to get people back from one of your worst exactly acquisition cohorts. Yes. In terms of how often they they'll repeat. In terms of lifetime value.

Trevor 19:25

Yeah. So now you're and and a brand like Free People, they had that is a slightly more expensive women's clothing company. So, yes, could you buy something for $100? Absolutely. But most people are gonna look at that and be like, well, this is normally $300, but I'm only paying $200 for it. Or this is normally $200, I'm only gonna have to pay $100 for it. And now they're winning. So I think that's an awesome one because $100 to the brand is probably only $20, $15 to $30 in actual costs. Right? About a $15 to 30% margin. Yeah. So I love that idea.

Cash Back Ideas And Sponsor Break

Trevor 20:10

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Two Black Friday Sales Strategy

Trevor 21:05

So we love it when brands do a like an early bird Black Friday, but they don't call it Black Friday.

Mark 21:11

It's important to tell everyone that there's a big difference between two and an extended.

Trevor 21:16

Yes. So what we mean here isn't Black Friday starts on what day is Black Friday this year?

Mark 21:23

I don't know. But Black Friday starts November 1st and it runs through Thanksgiving. Or Black Friday starts as early, two weeks early, and it's gonna run to the end of the month.

Trevor 21:34

We've done these time after time, and it never pans out great when you do a full month or three weeks or two weeks because you eliminate FOMO. And that is no urgency. Huge, huge, huge technical piece or technique to a sale. So what we mean is two sales. So what this would be is it would start somewhere on let's say the first Friday of November and it runs through Monday. And you call it your Black Friday sale. You don't say pre-Black Friday. You don't say early Black Friday. You just say Black Friday's here. 30% off site wide. And what this does is three things. Number one, you're competing with less CPM, less competition. That's number one. Number two is those early type A people who are like, oh, I'm on top of it because I'm doing my shopping. I don't want to miss it. What if this is their only thing? I'm going to go buy.

Mark 22:39

Yep.

Trevor 22:39

So you buy. And then the third thing that it does is what happens is the people who don't buy, now they have FOMO, like, oh shoot, I should have done it.

Mark 22:48

What if I didn't? What if? What if they don't do another sale?

Trevor 22:52

Exactly. So they're more hyper-vigilant.

Mark 22:54

So then you run that And between us, uh between all of us marketers. No one ever says they're not running another sale, but that is it's called a it's called an anchor bias. So it just creates that doubt in someone's mind that it's possible they might not be running as good of a deal, or maybe they're not going to have the product that I wanted later.

Trevor 23:17

100%. Or what if they run out of stock now?

Mark 23:20

Yeah.

Trevor 23:21

So I need to jump in there. So so then what you do is you actually run the Black Friday sale. Started on Thanksgiving, whatever.

Mark 23:28

So never lie about your inventory levels or if you're going to do another one.

Trevor 23:32

Yeah. Very true.

Mark 23:34

But you can plead the fifth. You don't have to say anything.

Trevor 23:37

Yeah. Um, so then then you run your sale, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, exact same sale. We usually say exact same sale because if you go 30% off the first time and then 40% off, then you're gonna get all the people who bought, like, well, I just spent 30%. I only got 30% off, match it. So you match you, the sale just matches. Sometimes what I like to see brands do what we like to push brands is doing a gift with purchase. Yeah. Or, and that gift with purchase could be what Mark said. First 500 people, first 10, you know, 3,000 people to buy gets this, or spend X gets gets a free gift. So that one's different. And when what this does is now all of the people who had FOMO and missed out, they're they definitely don't want to miss out now. So they jump on it. Number two, all of the people who bought the product loved it, come back and buy again because they wish they would have bought more, whether that's for themselves or as a gift.

unknown 24:36

Yeah.

Mark 24:37

So that's because they're getting their emails for their original order.

Trevor 24:41

Exactly.

Mark 24:42

So they're actually tuned in to your emails.

Trevor 24:44

Yep.

unknown 24:44

Yep.

Mark 24:45

And SMS. And then all of a sudden they see there's another one. Oh, was there anything else I needed from there?

Trevor 24:49

And what you should do, and this is something I'm just thinking of because we haven't told brands to do this. Anybody who buys from round one, in all of your thank you emails and all of your um order confirmations, you should probably let them know and put them in a sneak peek. Hey, this sale's coming back in three weeks. Because once again, what did we talk about last week? If you were listening, there are only a few times you have your like guaranteed customer attention and in order confirmation, shipping confirmation emails, you always have their attention. So, hey, something's coming November 27th. Keep your eyes peeled.

Mark 25:28

Yeah.

Trevor 25:29

And then if you can take it a step further, the inserts in anybody who's buying something from that, let them know what's coming down the coming down the pipeline.

Mark 25:39

And just like in pricing, the 99 cent thing creates bias and favorability in people's heads, right? They look at 0.99 as different than one dollar. Yeah. All these techniques are doing the same thing. You're just playing with the way people perceive it.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Yeah.

Mark 25:56

Another way to do that for FOMO is just including a little asterisk and saying while supplies last. Sure. Letting them know that just letting them know like you don't have it. And that is true. Whether you're gonna run out or not, I don't know. But it's true that your inventory is finite. You don't have unlimited.

Trevor 26:17

Yeah.

Mark 26:18

So find little ways to have an edge. You know, another thing that I while inventory lasts is a simple little just disclaimer at the end. Like we don't we can't guarantee this forever. So while inventory lasts, like we're gonna have this deal, and then that creates just one little extra motivation for someone to say, Oh, if I miss this, then I'm not gonna have this sale for how long?

Trevor 26:44

Yeah. Another thing that I think is I always like it. I don't know if I've ever been able to tie great success to it, but I love the idea of incentivizing people to post about your deal. And so anybody who shares about your offer gets entered into raffle or cash back or whatever. Yeah, a raffle to re-refund five orders a day. Rewards. Ten orders a day.

Mark 27:08

Yeah.

Trevor 27:08

So like you post about it, and I have a chance of getting that order for free. And now my audience knows.

Ads, Email, SMS, And Final Do Nots

Mark 27:15

Everyone knows.

Trevor 27:15

Everyone knows. I think that that's a great little tactic.

Mark 27:18

Um then this Black Friday partnership ads will be important. Yeah. Um, just getting as much max visibility across the board, utilizing audiences in the right way. Um's and don'ts. Yeah, let's go through some do's and don'ts. So just when in your media buying tactics, you're gonna probably lean heavier into your existing customers than you have in the past, just due to what you're gonna expect out of email and SMS. Um, yeah, you're going to want to use partnership ads and meta. That is a way of extending your reach. So, creative diversity. We've talked about this. You don't want to just rely on one single type of static offer, although those tend to be some of the best during Black Friday, something super simple.

Trevor 28:05

Yep.

Mark 28:05

You know, some of the best ads are just here's the deal, come get it now.

Trevor 28:08

While picture of the podcast the discount off, yeah.

Mark 28:11

You don't have to get too crazy. But this year I would recommend in your hopper having at least a variety of ads ready, including UGC, the whitelisting slash partnership ads, spark ads. Um under that same breath. Ready to go.

Trevor 28:28

Don't turn off anything that's you know, like you're not shutting things off just because yeah, don't don't turn anything off. Yeah, just let the algorithm do its thing, just add to it.

Mark 28:37

Yes.

Trevor 28:39

Um plaster your plaster the offer everywhere on the hero, on the on the top banners. Plaster it everywhere. Don't be the person who's like, well, if somebody comes to the website, I still want them to buy full price. You'll lose a lot more people just don't know what the offer is. They're coming, yeah, they're not coming to your site to buy.

Mark 29:03

Yeah, they're coming to your site to find the offer.

Trevor 29:06

I'm trying to think what other things to do.

Mark 29:08

Again, don't get people doing all the time or too big-brained about it. Just make it easy.

Trevor 29:12

Automatic promo codes. Don't make people put their promo codes in or just mark down the site.

Mark 29:17

Ooh, never have promo code and manual promo codes over Black Friday is the worst thing you could do to people.

Trevor 29:25

If you're a Shopify Plus uh brand, use Launchpad and deck that site out so that the moment so everything is calling towards Black Friday.

Mark 29:36

Strikeout on prices across the board and your bulk editor. Um don't make it complicated.

Trevor 29:44

Yeah, don't overcomplicate the offer. Uh we haven't said this one, but um send so many more emails than you can ever imagine. If they're not if your customer's not gonna buy during Black Friday, they're never buying from you again. So you already know that 90% of the time they're not gonna see any of your stuff.

Mark 30:04

Just spam.

Trevor 30:06

And if I were you, I wouldn't send out a single design email. I would just have it all be text-based for the likelihood of it getting through the from the promotions.

Mark 30:17

Or at least half text-based. Yeah.

Trevor 30:19

Note from owner Hey, this is Trevor. Just want to let you know.

Mark 30:22

Well, yeah, going back to some of the ads that work the best, it's just simple. Like when you enter Black Friday territory, most consumers do not care about your cute little stories. Yeah. They don't. They're they're just in it for a deal. Like most people are just looking or waiting for the deal.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yeah.

Mark 30:46

Now I'm not saying turn off those stories because a lot of those are still some of your evergreens. That's another do. Don't ever turn off your evergreen ads. Yeah. Leave them running. They will still perform very well because if that you have a good ad that's still working, they'll click on it. But they're clicking on it even more because they're like, oh, it's Black Friday. Like maybe they have a sale right now.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah.

Mark 31:07

Um, which goes back to just keep it simple on the site. Like always have your sale plastered, let people know. If you don't, if you don't have one, then obviously don't. But yeah, it also doesn't hurt to let people know it's coming. Yeah, I think a couple of days before. Don't do it too long.

Trevor 31:25

Because but you can do it at least, I think, seven days, five to seven days before, personally.

Mark 31:30

I think that's up for debate right now with what we're seeing from just the attention span of consumers.

Trevor 31:38

But like a mark your calendars seven days in advance, like just one more thing to like. I like it personally because I think you're not gonna diminish your sales before.

Mark 31:49

Yeah, most people just yeah, your buying behavior is already suppressed. It's a debate. I'm not gonna say I'm not saying no. I'm just saying it's a debate and it depends on your consideration window. Yeah. But what I am saying is don't be afraid to to do it for at least some duration before, because there's nothing worse than as a consumer, you bought something two days before, and then they had a sale, and then your customer service team is dealing with it, all these people are complaining. Um just have that in the back of your mind how you want to approach it.

Trevor 32:28

What do you think about running like a wildly cost-effective top-of-funnel campaign a few days before letting everyone know that the sales a sale is coming? At least everyone from a retargeting existing perspective.

Mark 32:45

Yeah, we've we've been running some of those tests this year for sales, and it looks promising.

Trevor 32:54

I mean, I'm talking like click view base stuff, not purchase base.

Mark 32:58

View base, click base, no. Okay.

Trevor 33:03

Yes.

Mark 33:04

Yes. Okay.

unknown 33:06

Nice.

Mark 33:07

Lead gen is looking nice.

Trevor 33:09

Okay.

Mark 33:10

Um you just have to have like a legitimate action tied to it, not just a view. Not just a passive action. Like even a click is so passive now, it doesn't like it counts for something, but then the algorithm just tries to get more clicks. Yeah. Now, here is something that we have run in the past. So sometimes you can actually run these campaigns with a seven-day optimization window three days in advance because you're gonna get purchases within seven days of that.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Yeah.

Mark 33:45

Click. So think about your windows. I don't think people think about those optimization windows enough.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Yeah.

Mark 33:53

And how to use them.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

Yeah, I think you're right.

Mark 33:55

Same thing, like if you have a short sale, like I don't we find that one day click is gonna work a lot better than seven-day click.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Yeah.

Mark 34:02

Because the whole point is to get someone to click and buy immediately. Yeah, yeah. Like you can't bank on people coming back seven days later. Correct. Now, if your sale is seven days, then perhaps like there's reasons for doing that there, but but nonetheless, yeah.

Trevor 34:16

I think another thing that is important to note is if you have a giftable product, create giftable ads.

Mark 34:22

Yes. Call that out for grandmas, grandpas, moms, dads.

Trevor 34:27

Yeah. So if it's giftable, the way you can figure out if it's giftable right now is to be honest, I would say giftable from what I have seen on the gifting ads.

Mark 34:36

I have yet to see gifting ads perform well when it's adult gifting to adult.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

I don't know. I can think of one example in a golf space.

Mark 34:49

I have yet wife to husband. Okay, why let me caveat that. Spouse to spouse is not what I'm referring to. Okay. I'm just referring to adult to adult.

Trevor 35:00

Well, I mean, not like buds to buds. Did anybody buy that?

Mark 35:05

Do that? Yeah, people do people do gifting. There's brothers, there's sisters, there's all the kinds of stuff. It has to be very intimate. Wife, wife gifting to husband, yes.

Trevor 35:16

Husband giving to wife.

Mark 35:17

Husband gifting to wife is less straight. Yeah.

Trevor 35:21

But wife gifting to husband's good.

Mark 35:23

Is good. Yeah. But usually it's it's down, it's downstream. Grandparent to kids, kids to give to kids, and grandkids, or you're usually the grandkids, but or parents to kids. Yeah. Trying to think what else. But I think some people get so caught up in like the gifting idea of like oh, they could gift it to their like gifting up like parent to child, even adult parent to to a grandparent type age. They just don't seem because Christmas is focused downward.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah.

Mark 35:59

It's focused going down to the kids.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Sure.

Trevor 36:04

I don't disagree.

Mark 36:07

So yeah, the golf one is one of the exceptions for sure.

Trevor 36:11

Um man. We just rattled it all off. What else?

Mark 36:17

That's it for now. But mostly know your offer, know what your goals are, where are you trying to hit?

Trevor 36:26

Know your numbers and what your profit should be.

Mark 36:28

Know what your profitability should be. So you're not just ravenously running towards a revenue goal, but your profitability will fall off a cliff.

Trevor 36:36

Know where your product inventory is because you don't want to then be sold out for times where you're more profitable per customer.

Mark 36:43

Yes.

Trevor 36:44

As well. That's a big one. We've ran into that before.

Mark 36:47

We ran into that last year with another customer. They had one of their best Black Fridays ever. And we just didn't sync up with them on. And it wasn't a profitability issue with them, but it was a oh shoot. They ran out of inventory and had inventory crunch until what April? Yeah, maybe, maybe just through Q1, yeah. It was brutal. So I mean, they're still doing fine, but yeah. That would have been nice. Like we probably should have planned that better.

Trevor 37:16

Yeah. Um don't make big changes too. Like if you're needing a new don't fire your media buyer. Just like get get that figured out in the next four weeks. Figure out who your agency is, figure out who your media buyers, figure out what the strategy is. Ideally, get it all dialed by October 1. Yeah. If you're listening to this, you that means you probably only have a week or two. We're recording this early September. But you're getting this probably late September.

Mark 37:54

Um But then to wrap it up, keep it simple. Don't make your offer complicated. Make create FOMO through offers and messaging. And time frames. And time frames.

Trevor 38:14

Don't turn off evergreen.

Mark 38:15

And then on the ad side, don't ever turn off your evergreen.

Trevor 38:19

Make sure you understand your numbers. Make sure you understand your inventory and product. Make sure your website is set up correctly with offers.

Mark 38:26

Then add diversity. And add diversity. So there's not a lot to think about, guys. I like it. Pretty simple. Good luck. Just 20 things. Godspeed.

Trevor 38:39

Put this through Claude. This episode through Claude.

Mark 38:42

October within a reasonable perspective.

Trevor 38:46

Do not freak your cohorts from October.

Mark 38:49

Do not freak out during October.

Trevor 38:53

And then put this episode through Claude and say, what should I do?

Mark 38:56

Be cool.

Trevor 38:56

And it'll tell you everything you should do.

Mark 38:59

Don't panic. Just be cool, guys.

Trevor 39:02

Alright, everybody. Thank you so much. We'll see you guys next time. Thank you for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. If there's a brand campaign strategy or marketing tactic that you want us to review, please DM me at the TrevorCrump on Instagram or TikTok or at the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. And of course, if you got value from this episode or if you like it whatsoever, please make sure you're subscribing, you're liking, you're following, and for sure go leave us to review to let us know that we're doing a good job. We will see you guys next time.