Hey there and welcome to the Bringing Business to Retail podcast, where we talk all about solutions that will make more money for your retail and e-commerce store. Now, today's episode is a little bit different. I've been given permission from some of our retailers to share the questions that they asked inside of My Million Dollar Store. Now I've done this because the questions that they have asked are so pertinent right now.

And they're very similar questions that I am hearing from lots of different retailers all around the world. And so I thought it would be great, because there's a very good chance that you're going to be thinking something like this too. And so I went and asked these retailers if they would give me permission to share their questions to help you out at this very, very busy time of the year. And they so graciously said thank you.

So let's jump into today's episode, where we are going to be sharing a very great marketing question from Stacey.

So first question is from Stacey. She has a children's shoe store. She's got two children's shoe stores. One of them is in her own neighbourhood, and the other one is further away, but it doesn't have a store manager. Thank you for including that. Nothing she sells is bought from anybody else. All of their items are manufactured for their store. They take two months to be made. And they only get a couple of deliveries a year. So what she orders in is what she has until the next drop. The shoes run, ooh, I love this, premium. About $180 a pair, so well above what chains are charging. And around half the revenue comes from the website. She does have a small team.

Alright, so the question. I've been doing the customer work and love, love, love sitting down with my team to go through it because they know the customers better than I do. My VIPs are extremely wealthy. They wear designer gear head to toe. They have nice cars. Some of them come in every single month. They buy full price, even when things are on sale. They don't complain and they don't return things.

This is the truth. Can I just say, you know, hallelujah, amen? To the fact that our best customers are the ones who come back more often, they spend up big and they never complain. This is why I'm always pushing you to go after those people who are the big spenders. All right. And I love that you have just reinforced that.

My sale customers are completely different. They're working mothers. A lot of them are running their own businesses and they buy because things are on sale. They want more for their money. And they need reminding over and over and over before they turn up.

Ooh. I love that. I'm guessing you've dug into your customer pillar to be able to notice that. But that is so important because, before we get to the question, I'm just doing a little sidetrack here. You know I'm good at sidetracking. This is so key because sometimes we think we are so over our own promotions, but you have to think about who they are targeting. And so we've just noticed that the people who are busy need reminding over and over again. So they need all of those emails that I keep telling you guys to send.

All right, going into Black Friday, I've got two problems in two stores. The one near me needs its sale customers back. The one that is not near me needs new people in. I've got plenty of stock sitting here, and I'd rather have the cash than the boxes. I love that. Almost everything happens in store because the kids have to be fitted. Okay, interesting, because you said about 50% was online. So all right. So everything happens in store because the kids have to be fitted. So I'm expecting a crowd for Black Friday. All right, got it. Our busiest days are Sunday and any day that school is closed, but not Friday.

My dress shoe season is finished and my boots are only starting to sell now, and I don't usually discount those. So here is my question. I was going to do 25% off the dress shoes since that season is done. And then I thought, well, it's sales season and people expect it anyway. So should I just do 25% off everything? Which way should I go? And does the discount need to be deeper than 25% to be worth doing?

This is a question I think a lot of you are probably thinking. And it's one of the things that I would say that, going into Black Friday, we feel like customers are so trained to have discounts that we need to make them big, chunky discounts to make them worthwhile. And look, the data is there. The data says that it has to be around about 30% for someone to buy if they weren't planning on buying anyway. So that's a little bit of background.

But here's what I would say to you. You are picking a percentage before you pick the outcome. And the offer needs to get built backwards from the outcome. You know that I always talk about reverse engineering, and this is no different. So the outcome, you've kind of given me three. So we need to pick which one. So you said you want sale customers back at one store, you want new people at another store, and you want cash instead of boxes on the shelves. So those three are very different things, but what they tell me is a discount is not necessarily what you're looking for. All of those three things, sale customers coming back, new people at the other, cash instead of stock, what that tells me is your outcome is volume. You're looking at the number of units that you can move, the number of shoes that you can sell.

So how big to make the discount, I think, is the wrong question. Because a flat 25% off everything is probably going to bring in those bargain hunters who come in and buy one pair. And you're going to be giving away a quarter of your profit to do so. So you told me that your sale customers buy because it's on sale and they want more for their money. You literally told me the answer. So I want you to build your campaign for that. I would try, and I don't have the unit economics, but I would try something like buy two, get the third pair free. Because at worst it is a 33% discount. But you move three pairs instead of moving one. So yes, you're giving away more profit in total. But you're getting far more cash back from the stock room, which is what you said you wanted. You said you would rather have the cash than the boxes. And so that is what I'm looking at.

Little bit of a side note from Sal. Something that I have done wrong is, for the buy two, get the third free, I positioned it as buy two, get one free. And I had people lining up in the first hour with two things demanding that they get one free. So in my head, that's buy one, get one free. But for a lot of people, the context of buy two, get one free means I buy two and one of those is going to be free. Maybe it is a little bit different where you live, but buy two, get the third free is probably going to be a much clearer offer, just to make sure that we are getting the right offer out to our customers.

Now, for the people who only want one pair, that's not who this offer is for. But I would say if you really want to go a discount, maybe 10%. But you know me, I am all for having different offers on different days. So I think there is a version where you could definitely be rewarding VIPs and you could definitely be grabbing those bargain hunters. But remember, each one of those needs to have an outcome that you are building back from. So if volume is your biggest thing, then that is the offer that I would really be drilling down on: how do I get that across to the most amount of people that are likely to buy?

Now, if getting rid of three pairs but giving one of them away worries you, maybe you could do buy one and get the second one 50% off, because that is a 25% discount spread across the two units. But it does mean that you're moving double the amount of units. And we know from experience that when you do offers like this, customers will buy. Now, your best customers may just buy the thing at full price, but those discount hunters will find the extra third thing, or the extra second thing, to get across the line.

I would leave the boots out of it. If they only start selling now, I don't think your Black Friday offer should go anywhere near those. I mean, you don't want to be discounting your freshest, most wanted stock in the week when it's just starting to land. That's just my opinion.

I think that you definitely can create an offer for the VIPs. If you're going to use My Black Friday Formula, definitely do something for those guys. You've already told me they don't come in and buy discounts. So whatever you're building needs to be built around what it is that brings them back. So that is what I would do. And for those people, I would not have a sale.

Now remember, you just told me that your sale customers need reminding over and over and over. So where are we? We're at the 7th of October. I would definitely be planning out those reminders. So I would be telling them over and over again. I know that you're using WhatsApp and SMS and you've got a Facebook group. Like, I am all over that thing. Put that in as many places as possible, because I know that I am the person who sees 15 minutes left and that's the thing that triggers me to buy, because I am like your person who loves a sale. When I love a sale, it's always in the back of my mind, but until the last minute, I never actually make the effort. I will browse and I will add to cart, but I never actually push the buy button. So that is what I would do. Alrighty.

Before you go, if Black Friday is still sitting on your to-do list and you're not even sure what it is that you're going to sell yet, let alone how you're going to find the time to sit down and plan it all, listen up. We know Black Friday weekend is the highest revenue weekend of the year. It's the time that brings in the most money, but it's also the one that needs the most marketing. And it lands exactly at the time when you're already flat out. You've got stock arriving, you've got customers, you've got staff, you've got orders going out.

If you are anything like the store owners that I work with, here's what usually happens. Black Friday is just weeks away. You need to work out what to sell, you need to write all those emails, you need to get all those social posts done, and you probably should have started earlier. But then today happens. A delivery turns up, someone calls in sick, there's a problem with an order. A customer needs you, and all of those five-minute jobs end up taking most of your day. And so Black Friday planning gets moved to tomorrow. But tomorrow looks pretty much the same.

And then suddenly you're a few days out from Black Friday, you are looking at stock, you are trying to work out what to discount. You're writing emails at 8pm. You're trying to tell your team what it is that you're selling, but you haven't even worked out the campaign yet. And so you build what there is time to build. And that's usually a discount. You send a couple of emails, maybe some social posts, and when it's over, you tell yourself that next year you will be more organised.

You've got this massive sales opportunity sitting right in front of you. But if you are trying to build the marketing for it in whatever gaps you can find, then is that really going to bring in the sales that you need? That's why I created My Black Friday Formula, or my BFF. It interviews you about your store and then builds you a custom Black Friday campaign designed to get your customers buying more than once. It will work out the offers, the products, the emails, and all of the socials, all built for your store. It is the same formula that Michelle used to bring over $120,000 into her toy store. So if you want to take the biggest campaign that you will create all year off of your plate, head over to SalenaKnight.com forward slash BFF and get started.

That's SalenaKnight.com forward slash BFF.