Black Friday Marketing Tips — Nathan Ho | How To Run BFCM Deals, Why To Prep Early For Black Friday, Why Free Gifts Boost Cart Size, How Gifts Help Launch New Products, Why Tiered Promos Boost AOV, How To Simplify BFCM Promos For Clarity (#444)

In this episode, we dive into how to run the best promotions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM). 

Nathan Ho, Product Manager of EasyGift, shares his experience and advice on structuring promotions, using tiered spending to increase average order value, and the power of free gifts. 

He also discusses different marketing strategies like scheduled rules and audience targeting to maximize sales during the busiest shopping days.

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• How to start preparing for Black Friday as early as possible.
• What tiered minimum spend promotions are and why they work.
• Why a free gift is a strong trigger to encourage customers to buy more.
• How to use gifts as product samples to introduce new items.
• What scheduled rules are for setting time-specific deals.
• How to simplify promotions to avoid confusing your customers.
• What the classic promotion triggers are: cart value, products, and collections.
• How to use magic links to target new customers from ads.
• Why testing promotions before launch is critical to avoid conflicts.
• What optimizing shipping can do to stand out from competitors.
  
  

Links & Resources 

Website: https://www.506.io/easygift
Shopify App Store: https://apps.shopify.com/gifter-cart-auto-include
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/506-io/
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/506_apps

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at https://tinyurl.com/ab8jb8p3

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Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;15;26
Speaker 1
You should think about Black Friday as early as possible. So I've seen in previous years I've got a lot of notes from Reebok that give better amounts of per each level of spending. I bought some skin care for my mum and they gifted marks. She was smiling and I think to buy the mask next time she needs to get some more cream.

00;00;15;27 - 00;00;29;09
Speaker 1
You want to try and keep it quite simple so that customers don't get too confused. The biggest problems I see are maybe running too many promotions at the same time. Create urgency. Say that next day delivery cuts off at 3 p.m.. Sort of make it more compelling for your customers to check out sooner.

00;00;29;11 - 00;00;35;22
Speaker 2
Why a gift is such a strong trigger to get people to buy more.

00;00;35;24 - 00;00;59;09
Speaker 2
Hello and welcome to another episode of the E-commerce Coffee Great podcast. Q4 was on us and was that Black Friday? Cyber Monday are coming very, very soon, at least in the cannabis of merchants. So if you have not started to get prepared for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, you should do it now. Now. Running promotions for these specific sales holidays is a specific topic that we want to dive into.

00;00;59;12 - 00;01;25;12
Speaker 2
So how do you do the best promotions? What kind of, different marketing strategies can you follow? And with me on the show to discuss this today is Nathan Ho. He is a product manager of Easy Gift and in e-commerce. For one and a half years, Nathan's role has been, product manager and was overseeing the development and marketing of Isaac interacts with merchants daily, learning from them and at advising them on how to run the best deals in their stores.

00;01;25;12 - 00;01;30;03
Speaker 2
And that's what we want to talk about. Let's welcome Nathan to the show today. Hey, Nathan, how are you today?

00;01;30;05 - 00;01;33;04
Speaker 1
Hello. Very good. Thank you. Excited to be here.

00;01;33;07 - 00;01;54;08
Speaker 2
Nathan. Black Friday, cyber Monday. Everyone is thinking about doing the right promotions. And a lot of people do just the same that they did last year. And there is a lot of different options. I want to dive a little bit into that. Give me a bit of, from your experience, how should a promotion for these Days be structured and when should you start thinking about it?

00;01;54;11 - 00;02;18;22
Speaker 1
Or straight off the bat, as, you should think about Black Friday as early as possible. Ready? You want to have the best one each year? Always growing from what you've done last year. So, yeah, I'd advise any shop to always check out what their competitors have done recently to try and beat and excite their customers to, to get the best gifts and promotions that that they can offer and perceived by the customer.

00;02;18;25 - 00;02;23;06
Speaker 2
Give me some ideas on what kind of promotions you can run on these days.

00;02;23;09 - 00;02;56;17
Speaker 1
I feel like the best ones that I've seen used in the previous Black Fridays, have been the tiered minimum spend promotions. So this is where you're trying to push the average cart or the value up, by saying to the customer, say 0 to $50, you're given a small gift, and then above 50 to 100, you give a better gift in maybe including the first gifts so staggered in that sort of tiered way, and then a third tier where over orders over 100, you get a really good, deal.

00;02;56;19 - 00;03;08;16
Speaker 1
So I've seen in previous years I've got a lot of those from Reebok, where. Yeah, they give better amounts off per each, level of spending.

00;03;08;18 - 00;03;22;03
Speaker 2
But not every merchant doesn't really want to give away gifts. But tell me a little bit of why a gift is such a strong trigger to get people to buy more and to basically go through the promotion.

00;03;22;05 - 00;03;45;09
Speaker 1
Well. Well, yeah. Get gifts. Just create a sense of excitement and joy for for your customers. It's a great way that you can show different products to your customers that they might not be aware of. So a common example is samples. Just the other day I bought some skincare for my mum, and they gifted, there's quite a lot of skincare products that I've got, for my mum.

00;03;45;11 - 00;04;01;12
Speaker 1
So sun creams, night light creams and so on. But they gave, they gave me, mask. So I just gave that. So she. Yeah, she was smiling. And I think that's you by the mask and it's, she needs to get some more cream, so. Yeah, it's just pushing out different products that that people might not be aware of.

00;04;01;14 - 00;04;02;18
Speaker 1
And they could try it for free.

00;04;02;25 - 00;04;17;19
Speaker 2
Okay, though, was setting up a promotion. There's a lot of things that can go wrong, and that might cost you more than you actually gain on a promotion. Give me some examples on how you do a, the best set up for a promotion like that.

00;04;17;22 - 00;04;52;03
Speaker 1
So some of the best ones I've seen. Which which is easy and easiest is what we allow. And they're called scheduled roles. So we could set up a rule that's going to run maybe at breakfast time when your customers might not be at work. So that might be deal one on Black Friday that will start and stop the promotion, where you're either getting a free gift or offering a different, assortment of gifts so they can choose from that, maybe like a breakfast deal then, and at lunchtime when they're off work again, you could set another one.

00;04;52;06 - 00;05;05;08
Speaker 1
That ties in a different gift with a different discount or. Yeah, offering. And then that will auto stop at certain times and say the end of lunch. And then there could be one after work that you could set an easy gift that will start and stop it for, you.

00;05;05;11 - 00;05;14;29
Speaker 2
Know, within the flow, purchase flow once people are on the store. What's the best time or the best way to show them this kind of offer?

00;05;15;01 - 00;05;39;07
Speaker 1
The best thing would be with, well, announcements before Black Friday hits. So an email, an email shot out to all your customers. To build anticipation and make them aware the date is coming on, on offer. And then the other way is on the actual store, you could just add a banner to say what the offer is, and the simplicity of that needs to be quite clear.

00;05;39;09 - 00;05;57;22
Speaker 1
So I feel like there are a lot of costs. A lot of merchants try to go overboard with the amount of promos that they offer on Black Friday. You want to try and keep it quite simple so that customers don't get too confused. So easy give them. It's that easy as well, because we just automatically add the gift whenever the trigger on the call is activated.

00;05;57;25 - 00;06;08;04
Speaker 1
You know, asking them to add, some trainers and then add the pair of socks to make it free, whereas we will just add the socks as well. So it's all just one smooth movement.

00;06;08;06 - 00;06;14;25
Speaker 2
When it comes to triggers. And I think that was we were talking about what kind of different triggers can you use, to to activate the.

00;06;14;28 - 00;06;38;15
Speaker 1
So like scenario. So the classic one is core values to get a minimum spend kind of push up the average order value. But you could do it on products. So specific products like I just said about trainers, you could do it on a specific variant. So if the trainers have certain colors that you might want to, some more of, or you could do it on collections as well.

00;06;38;15 - 00;06;48;00
Speaker 1
So anything in that collection that's added to the cart. So a certain amount or quantity of those, once that's hit with the cart will add the gift.

00;06;48;02 - 00;06;59;06
Speaker 2
Now obviously you want to run gifts or these promotions on on different levels, maybe for different audiences. Maybe on a different schedule. Tell me a little bit on on the options that I can use there.

00;06;59;08 - 00;07;16;26
Speaker 1
Sure. In each gift, we have loads of different options on how you could target these promotions. So straight up you might on that Friday you might want to just offer it to everyone. So that's sort of a blanket deal, but you might want to offer it to people that have just seen it on a Facebook ad that you've targeted, and you could do that with magic links.

00;07;17;03 - 00;07;41;25
Speaker 1
So that means only people who have clicked the link to visit your site can activate the Easy gift rule. So it's quite a neat way to maybe not dishearten your existing customers. We try to offer new deals to to new ones that you try again. Secondly, on the other side of that, we can also trigger rules based on people that have existing accounts with your shop.

00;07;41;27 - 00;07;56;09
Speaker 1
So we could base it off certain customer tags. Their IDs, their order history. So how much? If they've ordered over $500 from you before you can trigger a rule towards them, or if they've ordered over five times from, you can trigger it on them as well.

00;07;56;13 - 00;08;06;18
Speaker 2
When it comes to products alerts, is there anything that you can do that basically people get alerts. It's when there will be a gift available for that or how does that work?

00;08;06;21 - 00;08;17;13
Speaker 1
So I think that that could be covered in the anticipation sort of email trail that you you should send before Black Friday to try to tell them, I don't know, maybe next box is going to be 20% off.

00;08;17;20 - 00;08;34;01
Speaker 2
Okay. When it comes to the implementation, how does that look on Shopify? Where where does it show, when it comes to the different ways on on card pages on the checkouts, what what's kind of the flow? What can I imagine I'm seeing the the gift offer.

00;08;34;03 - 00;08;48;18
Speaker 1
So when easy gift adds the the gifts we show a little, you can show a little banner or notification, anywhere on a screen once we've done it. And that's you just have like an image and just in text, simple text, tell them that the gift has been added.

00;08;48;20 - 00;08;58;25
Speaker 2
Or you're talking to a lot of merchants. What do you see is the biggest struggle they have when they thinking about, adding gifts to their, the, flow.

00;08;58;27 - 00;09;21;13
Speaker 1
The biggest problems I see, or maybe running too many promotions at the same time, where there can be conflicts between what's in a social media code that they're trying to use, as well as making this free gift work. There's some. So Fi isn't the best that making these combined. So yeah, you need you need to test these promos before you before you release them.

00;09;21;15 - 00;09;32;14
Speaker 1
And that's what I would advise. Because you don't wanna look silly in front of your customers when you've got an influencer code and a free gift that isn't working together on that Friday, which is your busiest day?

00;09;32;16 - 00;09;43;29
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's a very good, always test before you put something live and a percent right. I agree on that one. Now, when it comes to the implementation of, easy gifts, how does that work into her store?

00;09;44;01 - 00;10;10;00
Speaker 1
So it a fairly simple, installation process. After you've put add to your store from the Shopify app store, you need to enable the app embed. That means it was, script to run into the store. And then you need to create the rules that you want to, use on on Black Friday, for example. So whether it's court value, product or collection triggers, and then the action that you want it to do.

00;10;10;00 - 00;10;28;12
Speaker 1
So whether you want us to auto add some gifts to the cart once that's triggered or, sure, pop up where the customers can choose the gift that they like. And then finally, maybe you can set schedule. It's optional or, specific targeting that we spoke about earlier.

00;10;28;15 - 00;10;34;10
Speaker 2
Do you see specific products or industries on these where gifts works very well?

00;10;34;13 - 00;10;55;19
Speaker 1
I think they work well on cosmetic brand stores as well as food. I've seen a lot more food shops becoming more aware of the environmental impact. So their gifting, products that are coming close to expiry date. So in case of a coffee shop. So it's something that your customers were still use and enjoy and it's,

00;10;55;25 - 00;10;59;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. Saving the planet. So yeah, you're you're not wasting so much.

00;10;59;04 - 00;11;04;18
Speaker 2
Okay. Okay. Tell a little bit about pricing structure. How much does the app cost?

00;11;04;20 - 00;11;25;24
Speaker 1
So, it's free to install, and to use for five days. The five day free trial. Then it is 599 a month on the standard plan, which allows you to set up to three rows. Then if you want to go above that with more settings, on triggering and targeting, then that goes up to the unlimited plan, which is 1499 a month.

00;11;25;27 - 00;11;32;04
Speaker 2
Okay. That's very affordable for what you get. I think. Is there anything that you want to share with our listeners that we haven't covered yet?

00;11;32;07 - 00;11;57;09
Speaker 1
I'd advise merchants to optimize their shipping conditions. So if you're offering very similar deals to your competitors, you want to stand out from the crowd. So make your delivery free or faster. A good thing that we could roll back to from a previous point is to create urgency is say that delivery next day delivery cuts off at 5 p.m. sort of, make it more compelling for your customers to check out sooner.

00;11;57;11 - 00;12;00;22
Speaker 2
Okay. Sounds great. Where can people find out more about the app?

00;12;00;24 - 00;12;06;00
Speaker 1
They can find it out. Find out more information from 506.io or from the App Store listing.

00;12;06;06 - 00;12;21;02
Speaker 2
Okay, I will put the links in the show notes. As always, they just one click away. Okay. Thanks so much for giving us an overview today on the advantages of using gifts in a promotion to increase your average order value, and to get the people to buy more from you. Thanks so much for your time today and talk to.