Black Friday is going to be a blood bath

Black Friday is going to be a BLOOD BATH for Ecom Stores this year.

I genuinely think many brands will go out of business after Black Friday this year (I don’t mean to fear monger, but just reality).

I speak to over 50 brands every week, and many stores are struggling to turn a profit this year as is…

and once they have a poor Black Friday period, well who knows how things will be sitting.

This years Black Friday is going to be brutal for a few reasons… and the crazy thing is, it’s only about 20 weeks away.

During this period, stores traditionally rely heavily on Email & SMS to drive sales.

Which is all well and good. Until you consider these two things:

Firstly, Every single store is running the same playbook and has been for a couple of years now.

Things like:

• Early Access - which is getting earlier and earlier - Some brands will start their sale at the start of November (EOFY sales in Australia, similar to Black Friday, kicked off a MONTH early this year). Running huge discounts for a whole month is going to obliterate some margins

• Relying on gimmicks like “this sale will send us broke!!!” and pretending to leak internal discount codes

• And every brand will be running the same ad creative of them wearing bright workplace safety gear in a warehouse, screaming at the camera so they look like a really personable and hands on founder

• Consumers will quickly become numb to all this bullsh*t

Secondly - stores are struggling to land in the inbox and are getting lost in the sea of promotion tabs and even spam folders. Most of their communication around Black Friday won’t even be seen.

The brands who survive this Black Friday will be focusing on these things:

1. Building really good rapport and genuine engagement with their email list over the coming months

2. Finding good & creative offers that stand out during the period

3. Nailing their email deliverability, more eyes on their emails will = more sales. Doing this alone will be a competitive advantage.

If you want to see success this Black Friday, now is the time to start planning.

Focus on those 3 things and you will be okay.

If you want help planning over the next few months, book a time here.

All the best,

Angus Cowan

MKTG Emails (mktgemails.com)