I never really did any discounts, marketing campaigns, or anything with newsletters for my business. I’ve done Black Friday sales several times but never got much in return. I thought my product or business just wasn’t a good fit for anything related to this.
That being said, my expectations for Black Friday were quite low. Maybe at least some more sales? Maybe nothing. Who knows. Some of you already shared the results of Black Friday, and especially the one from Mihai matches exactly what I’ve experienced over the last years:
Table of Contents
What I’ve done for preparing Black Friday
I’ve made sure my website is ready. I checked my landing pages and documentation, added a couple of tutorials, and fixed typos and layout issues before starting the real preparation.
While this seems obvious, I highly recommend ensuring everything is working and there are no bugs on your website. The last thing you want to do is touch anything while Black Friday is running.
I added a discount banner to my website on top of the navigation:
It was also the first time I submitted my Black Friday Deal to all of the curated deals list available in our community:
I also was hyper-active on Twitter. I commented on several tweets regarding Black Friday and dropped my offer everywhere possible. I also engaged with many people and tweeted a lot myself (not only BF-related) to keep my name and offer out there.
I also designed a little banner in Figma to have a little visual eye-catcher for Black Friday and pinned it to my profile:
As you can see, there is nothing fancy here. I would say most of you have done a better job here!
New feature release for Simply Static
I worked on the new Tiiny.host integration for Simply Static and released it on Wednesday before Black Friday. I also promoted that quite a lot, and the awesome folks at Tiiny.host also shared and retweeted my posts about it.
This was because of two things:
I am sure the integration is awesome and something many people will love using with Simply Static Pro. Tiiny.host provides the simplest way to host your static website, and with Simply Static Pro, you can automate the entire process with just a 5 seconds setup and a click of a button. You can read all about the integration here.
The second one is important and related to Black Friday – I think people get tired of all the buzz around Black Friday, so they tend to ignore a lot of the news around them. You get more attention by giving them something different (aka a new integration) while everyone else pushes their deals.
I know that seems counter-productive, and I’m not sure that will work for different products, but at least for me, it was a good decision. The tutorial was quite popular, and I kept promoting the integration until Thursday.
The Before-BF-Deal
I started my discount on Monday. I know, it’s called Black Friday for a reason, and I know many companies make this whole BF thing an event for an entire month (I’m not a fan too..), but starting early was a good choice for me as I got the first sales early on and was able to stand out for a short period of time before everyone was promoting their deals.
That’s all I’ve done for preparation.
What I haven’t done for Black Friday
I haven’t sent a single damn e-mail. I already know people’s inboxes are getting spammed with deals, and honestly, I don’t really want to be included in that list 😅.
I did not go crazy with the discount. Offering 50% and up? Seems hilarious to me. Before I offer such a discount, I better offer no discount at all.
I skipped things like timers, ads, and other tactics that may increase sales.
My Black Friday results
While I’m not really comfortable sharing actual revenue numbers (I’m sorry), I want to share some statistics with you:
- My revenue went up to 250% for November
- I sold 42% more licenses than I usually do
- 72% of the sales came from Simply Static
- The most sold license was Simply Static Unlimited
Conclusion
I’m sure sending massive e-mail campaigns and other tactics will work for many products, but I would recommend only using what fits your business. I’m using my own name to sell my products, and a lot of my branding is about myself, and I really don’t want to be seen as shady or greedy.
My learnings of Black Friday 2022 (you may want to steal that for next year):
- Release a thing before Black Friday and talk about it
- Offer expensive license types (Lifetime or not, but make it huge)
- Choose marketing tactics that fit your kind of business
- Don’t go crazy with the discount (Quality of product vs. grabbing a deal)
I’m not a marketing guy or running a multi-million dollar business, but I hope my insights and experience (especially after several failed Black Friday sales) are helpful and give you something to think about for next year!
If you want to get some more insights about Black Friday, check out those tweets/threads: