Last year, I put together a full breakdown on building a profitable Black Friday promo..the math, the templates and little calculators I've been collecting over the years, all of it. 

Part of it was sorting brands into the promo lanes they fall into heading into BFCM:

- Gas pedal

- Piggy bank broke boys

- Drip drop boys

- Velvet rope

- Forever fans

- A handful more

You might be able to identify with a couple of these, and the whole point is being honest with yourself about which one you're actually in.. which means being honest with the money + inventory you have.

And from your weekly scheduled Shack Time a few sends back, I asked whether you should even run Black Friday the way you think you should, and honestly the answer is maybe. 

Does your brand allow for it? Maybe. 

Does the margin allow for it? Potentially. 

You've been selling since January, maybe years before that..so you should have SOME understanding by now of what you can or cannot do.

Generally speaking, if a customer costs me $20 to acquire and they spend $40 with me, and maybe they buy two more times, so by the end of it that's $120..I don't feel confident spending against that $120 in the early days. 

BUT forever fans is where we're okay doing it cause our game is the subscription, so we'll spend into a 3-month LTV, sometimes even 6 months if the AOV on that first purchase is high enough. You still need a first-order incentive, usually a gift for us, plus some sort of subscription bonus like a bonus month or a double-up on the order. 

And if the discount's not deep enough or sexy enough, some people might not be able to take action, so be ready to pivot toward a higher AOV bundle and away from the subscription.

But if you're ready to hit the gas pedal..you know your numbers, and you feel confident..buy into the LTV too. 

We’re leaning more into the drip drop side at BREZ so for us, I'm looking at profit per unit, + brand equity… cause I really don't want to piss off customers by overselling and not delivering on time.

If anything happens, go right to a waitlist. We've done a couple of things on the site where we can take the cash but communicate ahead of time that it's not going to be fulfilled for X amount of days, and then you owe them an active email update after they buy.

And if you're cash constrained and potentially needing to maximize profit on every single order, you're what I called the piggy bank broke boys (no shade thrown) 

You're heavy email, heavy re-marketing, probably not prospecting outside of early October, maybe early November, leaning on your affiliates and partners, and PR is probably a bigger play for you. 

Be aware you might have to pivot into a shorter flash sale. It won't be as fun as the gas pedal guys, but you'll still have a good time.

I can keep going on all of this, but your time is precious and so is mine… however I think a part 2 is in order to answer any questions you guys might have about everything I talked about above.

TLDR: 

Each of these groups are great 

Each of these groups can suck 

It is all VERY depending on your brand, your customers, your inventory, and what you’re willing to offer this year.

(This was a long one. I recommend you sit and chew on it a bit before deciding what group you’re in this year.)

See you next week.

- Shack