Happy Sunday!
If you’re reading this, I hope you had an amazing past week, full of celebration, good food and good people. We’re back, it’s Sunday night, tomorrow’s a new week (it’s GROW NY week!), and I’ve got a quick(er) newsletter for you today.
Before we get into the newsletter, I need confirmation that you are on a couch, butt sinking in, AC on, beverage in your hand, maybe a Keinemusik set on in the background, and you’re feeling relaxed. Side note — I just saw Keinemusik in New York and I understand the hype; I’m a fan now.
If you’re planning to be at GROW NY or the Lead Summit this week, come say hi to me while you’re there. I’ll be there all day! Also, if you’re a founder or marketer, and in NYC this week, I have a couple exciting events for you:
- Founders Poker Tournament — Apply here, the event is Monday (7/8/24) evening.
- Private SoulCycle Ride — Sign up here for a Wednesday 7am ride in NYC!
- Blowouts after SoulCycle — If you sign up for SoulCycle, you can let me know if you’d like a blowout after.
I’ve had so much luck finding most of my team through the community this newsletter has built (now, 80,000+ weekly readers!!) so I wanted to share 3 more roles that Sharma Brands is hiring for, below:
If you’re reading this and think you might be a good fit, please apply! Or send it to someone you know who might be a great fit. Our office is in New York City, but many of us are remote around the USA. Thank you for your help in advance!
This past week on Limited Supply, Moiz went deep into the world of a question we both get asked a lot…, “WTF is an ERP?!” If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, it’s a great listen while you run, go pick your kids up from school, or get ready in the morning. Listen on Apple or Spotify! The last episode of this season comes out this week, before we take a small break for Season 9.
Lastly, Postscript is launching their new AI product on July 24th (17 days from now!), and it’s going to change the future of SMS. Sign up to get first looks/access! As a marketer, you know most of the AI stuff is BS... the time you "save" is spent trying to make copy sound more on-brand. With Postscript's new AI launch, you'll be able to use AI to A/B test messaging, drive higher revenue from your flows, and unlock new insights about your customers that was previously unattainable. Sign up here to get on the list!
Okay, now for today’s email, I know you’re probably tired, your body needs sleep tonight, you’re in need of water (here’s a reminder to drink some)... but I wanted to hit you with some thoughts as I put together my Master Plan for BFCM 2024. These were 10+ thoughts/ideas that came to mind as Must Do’s this year for BFCM. Once I finish the grander 2024 BFCM Master Plan, I’ll share that here as well. If you have anything you’d add, please reply to this email and share it with me! Let’s get into it…
Use TikTok Shop this BFCM!
I just wrote a 9 page email about the state of TikTok shop and the TTS affiliate program.
If you want to read it, search your inbox for it. In the next 2-3 weeks I’ll have a website with all my past content I can link back to!
The most important thing about TikTok shop is that if you want to use it for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you need to start NOW! If your business is not already on TTS, the process to get started can take anywhere from 4-12 weeks depending on the category and complexity of your business. That means that you need to get started TODAY, in case it takes longer than you think.
You also need to start creating organic content there ASAP so you can build some traction and establish your profile before BFCM. You want to create social proof on your product cards with purchases, you want creators posting, and you want those who are organically posting to start tagging your products. You can’t add shopping links to past videos, so getting this live is important!
Once you’re live on TikTok Shop, you need to start tapping into the TikTok affiliate network to begin building relationships, content, and sales, that you can leverage for cyber month this year. As I mentioned above, all of this takes time and I believe it’s important to start early in case any issues arise.
Once you have TikTok shop setup, you will be able to leverage the channel for BFCM in 2024. When you work with affiliates for your BFCM planning (this will be in the 2024 Master Plan), figure out who can create for you on TikTok… you want this done for two main reasons:
- Why not? You should have all your affiliates who you’re doing deals with or pushing, push for you on TikTok. The more, the merrier. As TikTok Shop continues to develop, you want more people posting and linking your product card.
- SEO. Yes, SEO on TikTok. You know where 28% of Gen Z goes when they want to see if something is actually legit? They search it up on TikTok! Simple Modern? Warby Parker? Lemme? All of it is searched on TikTok for unbiased reviews. Get more of your content on TikTok!!
Also, the growth of TTS is pretty crazy. Don’t quote me on this, but I think it might be one of the fastest growing product features of any platform in the world right now.
As a reminder:
- TikTok has 1.9BN users globally, and 150M users in the US as of last year. They also claim to have 5M US businesses on the app, already.
- TikTok shops are on track to do $17.5BN in GMV this year. Up nearly 10x from last year.
- Americans spend an estimated $7 million per day shopping on TikTok Shops.
- Americans spent a total of 4.43 billion minutes per day watching TikTok videos in 2023. I did the math and that’s 8,422.69 YEARS of collective watch time per day. Pretty insane.
- Adult users spend an average of 54 minutes per day on TikTok which is 64% more time than the same cohort of Instagram users spend on Instagram.
- 1 — Beauty & Skincare
- 2 — VMS: Vitamins and Supplements
- 3 — Lip Cosmetics
- 4 — Cologne and Perfume
- 5 — Body Lotions & Treatments
- TikTok Shop is already the 14th largest health and beauty eCommerce retailer in the U.S.
So the point is… Don’t wait, and get on TikTok shop today.
Also, YouTube’s Shopping Platform.
The same advice can be said for you YouTube shops this year. They recently announced their direct integration with Shopify. This is another sleeper channel for BFCM this year.
I still believe that YouTube is one of the most under-utilized channels for DTC (I need to write an email about that!) and I also think brands will see strong performance from YouTube shops throughout Q3 and Q4 if they can figure out how to make creative that converts on the platform.
It’s still a new channel which means that, realistically, YouTube/Google is likely going to juice the performance for the next 12-18 months. YouTube is now rolling out an affiliate program, similar to TikTok Shops, which is going to have a similar effect on YouTube Shorts, as it did on TikTok. I also believe integrations into longer form videos are going to be really interesting. You can already see MKBHD has his Atoms shoe collab in his YouTube Store… I imagine this is going to become the default for any brand deals with Shopify brands.
Leverage Old School Direct Mail
Another one of my favorite hacks for BFCM is to use direct mail campaigns to your top 1,000 to 10,000 customers (depending on how large your brand is) to warm them up the prior weeks to Black Friday. You want to make sure that when someone starts to think about the shoes or fragrance they want for Black Friday, you are a part of that thought process. The best way to do that is warming up an audience for BFCM, and direct mail is a great channel for that.
You can leverage a remarketing list (going to people who are already in your CRM) or a prospecting list, taking a look at who your best customers are, and then building a model off that. With a service like Post Pilot, you can even have your postcard be a part of a Klaviyo flow… so when someone completes their third purchase, they get a special email and Post Pilot sends them a hand-written note, calling them out by name, coming from the CEO of the brand.
I bet that will boost CVR and overall brand affinity.
Limited-Edition Product Drops
Another good strategy for BFCM is to have a limited edition drop only for that week or month. That could be a new style, colorway, collab, or something else. You can drive a lot of FOMO and exclusivity with a limited edition SKU that’s only for BFCM. Jones Road Beauty does a phenomenal job of this selling their Mini Miracle Balms JUST on BFCM and for Mother’s Day. They don’t discount, they just sell it as a limited edition SKU.
Product drops are one of the best ways to generate hype from your existing audience of potential buyers and existing customers. If you aren’t able to fully develop a new product, you can alter a current best-selling product (like this yellow Caraway cookware set) or source something you can brand with your logo and call it an added gift with purchase (like the Jolie tote bag).
Leveraging Influencers & Affiliates
Using influencers and affiliates as a core strategy for BFCM is pretty obvious. TikTok affiliates are going to be the largest channel that folks are paying attention to this year. That said, you can also activate other affiliate networks (and even your own customers) with smart affiliate campaigns.
The next big piece is influencers and content creators. Influencers are just one kind of affiliate. These are the folks that already have followings and hopefully some level of influence with your target demo. You should absolutely try to leverage them as whitelisting partners, moreso than just posting with your affiliate link.
In that similar vain, leveraging and whitelisting with content creators should absolutely be a priority this year, if it wasn’t for you in years past. This will be my 8th year running whitelisted BFCM ads with creator and publisher pages pushing the ad, and it’ll be my 8th year paying CPCs lower than my competitors. Take advantage of it, especially with verified pages.
If you have a few influencers that you have been working with this year that have been performing for your brand, you might want to front run the conversation with them to see if you can get them to make some custom and exclusive content for your brand for BFCM. If you don’t have influencers ready to make content for you, now is the time to start reaching out, running some tests and getting your rates locked in for BFCM deals.
Send More Emails!
This next one is so important. According to Klaviyo, the average brand sent 11 emails during BFCM weekend in 2022 with an average open rate of 49% and an average CTR of 1%. That’s only 2-3 emails per day. In my opinion, you should segment and send way more more.
A more aggressive email strategy on Black Friday might look something like this:
- 12:01am, you send your first email blast announcing your sale.
- Between 7am and 9am, you send your second email blast reminding them of the sale.
- At 11am, for anyone who didn’t open your first two emails, send another segmented blast.
- At 12:30pm, for anyone who opened but didn’t click or convert, you should send your first text with a “Text only offer” around lunch.
- At 3pm, send another email telling subscribers that “Inventory is moving fast and they better act now.”
- At 6pm, send a plain-text email from the founder thanking the subscriber for one of your best Black Friday’s yet and adding another offer like a free limited edition gift with purchase available on all orders now thru EOD to drive more sales.
- At 8pm, send one more text to anyone who has clicked but not converted and increase the discount with a new custom code. Offer an additional 5 to 10% off here.
- At 9:30pm send one more “Last Chance” email to push for the final purchases of the night.
Remember: Brands work the entire year to build awareness and anticipation for the Q4 sales season and then when shoppers feel ready to spend (i.e during BFCM and the holidays) you need to go all out to clear your funnel and get viewers to convert. I call this flushing the toilet… you’ve got all that build up from the year, now it’s time to flush that tank!
I feel very confident that no one will remember that you sent 8, 10, or 15 emails to them 2 weeks after BFCM. But as a brand owner or marketer, those extra emails or “chances” to convert could equal a meaningful increase in revenue (and hopefully profit) for your company and team. In short, don’t be afraid to send more emails. 11 is the average. I think 15-20 throughout the weekend is more than okay!
Gamify the First 1,000 Orders.
To get sales rolling, try giving exclusive offers to early birds like “the first 1,000 orders receive a free gift with purchase.” As long as you have an engaged email list, this works every time!
Make sure that if you know this will go fast, you have extras. So if you have a list of 450,000 people, and you offer the first 1,000 orders, then have 1800 or 2700 set aside to account for the overages or for people who purchased at the same time.
Running Paid Media for BFCM
For ads, you are simply paying more money to get in front of people who have already interacted with you before. You should be spending the vast majority of your budget on retargeting traffic (anyone who’s been to your site, engaged with your profile, given you their email, engaged with your social platform’s shop, etc.).
You don’t necessarily need or want to spend too much time and money trying to convince cold traffic or net new people to try you for the first time, though with the right offer it can work. The downside, even if you go after net-new customers, is in most cases, these aren’t your high LTV customers… they’re hunting for a deal, they’re glad they got you at a deal, and they won’t be back until you have a steep deal, again.
Yes, new customers. But, good new customers, not just any new customers.
Start your BFCM early!
The last tip I’ll give (and really the theme of this email) is to start early!
This is my 8th year running BFCM campaigns for brands. We have a number of clients at Sharma Brands that we are already prepping BFCM for, now. The key is to start early. It gives you enough time to deal with things that stand in your way, whether its crafting the perfect offer or waiting for a product to arrive on time for BFCM, and will let your marketing team do what they do best — drive revenue!
This means starting early with your prep, but also your offers and sales. The funny thing about Black Friday is that even in the last 8 years, the timeline keeps getting pushed up and elongated. At first, it used to just be the weekend of BFCM, and then it was the whole week for “Cyber week.” Last year, it seemed like it was “Cyber Month” with many brands starting their ads and sale campaigns many weeks before BFCM.
I’m curious to see if we’ll have BFCM campaigns starting in October this year. I think that’s super early but I guarantee that brands will start running promos and ads on November 1st and probably before.
The point is, brands are starting earlier and earlier each year to compete for wallet share during cyber month. If you are a serious brand that wants to get your slice of the pie before consumers tap out, you should be doing this too. Regardless of what you think of the brand perception to start early… people set aside a budget for BFCM and if you’re the last to get a shot at that budget, there won’t be any left for you.
Okay, that’s it for this week. Reply with any top-of-mind tips you have, and I’ll include it in the Master Plan! Now, onto some fun stuff…
Vendor of the Week:
Black Crow — Now back with the secret weapon to increases your email/SMS reveue per recipient, past the main welcome and site abandonment flows.
One of my favorite softwares, ever, is back with another product that’ll have a direct impact on driving incremental revenue — meet Predictive Repurchase by Black Crow. The product team started working on this after realizing there was a bigger focus for email/sms revenue after paid media costs went up. What they found, was that 80% of customers who buy from a paid channel, don’t end up purchasing again 90 days later.
Now, here’s how Predictive Repurchase works… it’s got 4 main steps:
- Predictive Replenishment: someone gets an email their deodorant is likely running low and is reminded to place another order.
- Predictive Cross Sell: you just ordered the Dagne Dover luggage from the website, and now get an offer for the backpack.
- Predictive Subscription: you’ve placed 3 orders of Hint Water in a similar cadence, and now you’re getting an offer to subscribe on the same cadence.
- Automate — this is where your predictive audiences are now loaded into automated Klaviyo flows, where you can still integrate SMS messages like any other flow.
- Content — this is where the users are put into dynamic Klaviyo templates, based on the products they’re about to be recommended. This allows you to send emails without individually designing them all.
- Storefronts — Instead of sending someone to the website or to custom landing pages, Black Crow built on-brand cart-like pages for easy transactions.
Let me tell you… Black Crow has done it again. If you’re interested in seeing how this can work for you, sign up here for a demo. If your store does more than $2M/year on Shopify, you’ll get a $125 Amazon gift card for learning about the new product!
Take a demo and see why brands like Marine Layer, Tommy John, Dagne Dover, Burrow and more love using Black Crow’s products!
That's all for this week
Today’s email was shorter, but hopefully a fun read for you. I hope to see you at GROW NY this coming week, if you’re there come say hi!
It’s Sunday night, so make sure you get those 9 hours of sleep tonight. I know I’m going to need them this coming week! If you plan to SoulCycle this week, make sure you fill out this form so I can count you in.
Have an amazing upcoming week!