Article13 BFCM Offers That’ll Make Your CFO Smile
BFCM is less than 8 weeks away – and many of the brands I’ve spoken to are still debating their offer for Black Friday / Cyber Monday. The reality is many of these brands will hem, haw and ultimately default back to a standard, tried-and-true discount. And while discounts come in many varieties ($ off, % off, stepped (i.e. X off first $100, then Y off next $500), conditional (spend $500 get $/% off), every one of these comes with the same three problems:
- They’re Prohibitively Expensive + Often Unprofitable. Most eCommerce/retail brands operate on relatively thin margins, usually between 10% and 30% (and yes, there are some outliers that are much higher). Giving 25% off the retail price is often equivalent to the entirecontribution margin on that sale (and, in some cases, exceeds the contribution margin on the sale). Losing money to sell a product, even during a massive retail moment, is not a great strategy.
- They Have Limited Ability to Activate New Audiences. The most common strategy to distribute BFCM offers is email and SMS. The second-most-common? Meta Ads. Both of these will over index toward known individuals/existing customers.
- They’re Overdone + Non-Differentiated. Let’s face facts: discounts aren’t original. They don’t stand out because everyone is doing them (or trying to). It’s gotten so bad that customers hold off buying for much of October until those discounts show up.
So, what’s the alternative? Here are 13 ideas for brands looking to offer something a little bit different (and maybe a little bit more profitable) this Q4:
#1: The Random Refund Lottery
Let’s start this list off with a bang: the random refund lottery. The concept is simple – one order, at random, from a specific time interval (an hour, an afternoon, a day) will be refunded in full. No matter how big or how small, one lucky customer gets 100% of their money back (plus they keep the products, too).
Mathematically, this is a LOT cheaper than an across-the-board 10% off or 15% off discount. Assume that you do about $1M per month ($33k/day) with an AOV of $200. Even if the order you refunded was 10x your AOV ($2,000), that’s STILL less than a 10% off discount for a single day (and let’s be real: no-one is excited about 10% off).
As we’ve covered in many other issues, most people are quite bad at probability and quite fond of gambling – this is a little of both. A user shopping during one of these “random refund” lotteries is more likely to increase their order or buy everything they might need (and thus, their potential reward), so you (a) accelerate revenue; (b) potentially save on shipping costs and (c) pay less to do so.
#2: Free Gift With Purchase
FGWP offers are becoming more and more common among successful eCommerce/retail brands, and for good reason: they work. There are a ton of advantages to the FGWP offer, including:
- Targeted Promotion/Cross-Sell: FGWP is an ideal way to introduce a new or returning customer to a new product type or product line that they’ve not previously purchased from your brand. You’ll obviously lose on the first “sale” (the free one), but if your promotion is relevant and the gift is good, it can easily lead to that individual re-purchasing going forward. It’s for this reason that I always recommend making the “free gift” something that can and should be bought again (or be bought multiple times, like multiple articles from a new line).
Aside: Precisely no-one wants another branded tote or travel kit. That’s not a gift, it’s just stuff you couldn’t give away (or sell) that’s going to be tossed in a closet until it’s rage-cleaned into a gigantic black garbage bag in a few years.
- Higher Perceived Value / Lower Actual Value: the other advantage of a gift vs. a discount is that, for the same raw dollars, you can create 2-3x higher perceived value. Let me explain: assume you’re a cosmetics brand (I may, or may not, be doing some early Holiday shopping). Any user that’s been shopping at your store/location will have seen some of your other products, and will have anchored their value to the price you’ve displayed. The actual cost of that item to you (the brand) is obviously far less – probably ~$0.20 on the $1.00. So, a “free gift” of a $50 bottle of skin serum actually costs the brand ~$10. The customer believes s/he has gotten a great deal: I spent (for argument) $100 and got $150 worth of stuff. But in reality, that “Extra $50” in perceived value cost you $10.
Contrast this with the alternative: you give the customer $10 off $100 purchase (same underlying economics). Does a measly $10 get your consumerist engine going the same way that a free $50 bottle of skin serum does? Absolutely not.
- Recoup The Losses: My favorite part of a well-constructed FGWP offer is that it provides the brand the ability to recoup the entire cost of the promotion in relatively short order. If I (or the gift recipient) love the skin serum, I’m probably going to buy more – after all, it’s not easy to find good skin serum (or so I’m told). In fact, I’ll probably make it part of my routine and need multiple bottles per year. Let’s assume that’s 4 bottles per year (low), with a COGS of $10/bottle and COD of another $10/bottle – so my contribution margin on a single bottle is $30. 4 bottles, at $30/bottle is $120. So, in the span of a year, I’ve turned my $10 promotional investment into $120 for this one customer – meaning that if just 1-in-12 customers (8.3%) who received my FGWP repurchase at this rate, I’ll have broken even on my promotion.
- Widely Applicable: While the example above focuses on a consumable product (skin serum), this type of offer is widely applicable to just about every business – from fashion (give them a free article from a new line; watch them come back for the rest) to service businesses (free consult to sell them more) to kids stuff (as a parent, if my kid loves something, we’re buying more of it). The key to a successful FGWP offer is the gift – it has to be something that will hook the buyer and/or recipient into buying more. It has to be valuable, not convenient. It’s even better if you have a few gifts available – either matched to certain products (i.e. buy makeup, get skin serum; buy skin serum, get foundation; buy foundation, get lipstick or lip gloss) or available for the customer to choose (i.e. spend $100 and get your choice of X, Y or Z – giving the customer the choice increases the value of the item and the probability that they’ll use it, since they now picked it).
#3: Upgrade The Product / Service
There’s nothing better (from a user’s standpoint) than getting a surprise upgrade – we all know (or long for) the feeling of that first-class upgrade on a flight, or getting a fancier room at a hotel, or getting a luxury car instead of the generic one, or getting promoted to the stupidly-good seats at a live event.
As a brand, take advantage of that (very human) desire with an upgrade offer – we’ll upgrade you to the next size/next tier/next whatever with a purchase during a specific time.
The cost of this upgrade is usually trivial – 10%, 20% of the price of the object (maybe less if it is something like food, cosmetics, perfume, a service, etc) – but the value to the user is far greater: the user will value the upgrade as the difference between the original item (say $50) and the price of the more premium item (say $100) – or $50. The actual price – as you know – is ($100-$50)*0.2 = ~$10.
But there’s a hidden benefit here, too: anchoring + loss aversion
Once you’ve upgraded someone, you’ve established (in their mind) a new standard for what they expect and want in future interactions with your brand. There’s a reason airlines strategically upgrade customers who are predicted to be frequent travelers – it’s so that they get the experience of traveling in a class (or two) higher than they’re used to, and now that “upgraded” experience anchors their perception of future travel, and any future trip in a lower-class feels like they’ve lost something.
That same phenomenon holds true for products – if you “upgrade” a customer from (for instance) the Merino Wool sweater ($69, retail: $129) to a very similar Mongolian Cashmere sweater ($99, retail: $278), what do you think that customer is going to buy next time? The cheaper Merino, or the silky-soft, oh-so-luxurious cashmere?
Why do you think Butcher Box provides a “free” upgrade to every new customer of either free steak tips, free chicken nuggets or free ground beef? It’s because (a) it’s difficult for a customer to value the upgrade (ergo, higher perceived value) and (b) it creates an expectation that the ground beef or chicken nuggets will be free – so they’ll keep ordering.
#4: Upgrade The Shipping, Wrapping, or Experience
If you don’t have a product to upgrade, then upgrade the shipping. This one may come with higher costs, but highlighting that orders over $X qualify for free priority shipping or free 2-day shipping ($XXX value!) is another way to make customers feel like VIPs.
This works even better if you have a way to accelerate the customer’s use of the product, such that they might need to buy another one (i.e. if a parent is shopping for a Christmas gift, and you send it super-fast, now: (a) there’s a chance the kiddo will find it, and the parent needs to buy something else – so be ready with those upon-delivery + 1-2 days post-delivery emails) and/or (b) the parent will see it, love the quality/product, and buy another for another child, a friend, a colleague, etc.
Again, this does have real costs – but the costs of upgrading shipping are often trivial when compared to the costs of a discount. For many brand we’ve worked with, going from USPS ground to USPS priority is a $7 to $15 incremental cost – not nothing, but also far cheaper than 25% off a $150 AOV.
This can easily be bundled with free gift wrapping ($2-$3 per box additional cost) – something that every customer loves around the holidays. Let’s face it: no-one both enjoys and has time to gift wrap.
While these may seem small and unexciting to most marketers (who have become accustomed to 25%, 50%+ off deals), the reality is that these small things are often the things that customers care about. Do I really care about paying $10 more for a product if I know it’s going to be here well in time and I don’t even have to think about wrapping it? Not even a little bit. In fact, I’d go one step further: carefully-considered offers like this often stand out because it feels like the brand is actually helping me during one of the busiest times of the year.
#5: Support The Cause
My first interaction with a “Support The Cause” offer was nearly a decade ago – a brand was offering to preserve + protect one acre of rainforest (the brand was all about sustainability) on every order above a certain threshold.
As a (relatively) newbie marketer with a ton of real estate experience, I remember being perplexed at how this brand was able to make the economics work: even at $100/acre, how was this brand making a profit?
This turned into a research project, which led me to uncovering wonderful organizations like the Rainforest Trust that work with corporate partners to achieve these ends. As one (concrete) example, there’s an ongoing project now to protect 20M acres of rainforest (about the size of South Carolina) for a total cost of $50M USD, or about $2/acre.
This gets to the core of why I love these types of offers: they have massive actual vs. perceived value deltas.
From the customer’s perspective, their purchase is advancing a unique good (it’s not just a donation that can be assigned a monetary value; it’s something memorable, and differentiated) – and their perception of how much good they’ve done will be anchored by their perception of the value of (in this example) 1 acre of land (likely $100 – $1,000). You can reinforce this by issuing a certificate, letter (on nice paper with some official letterhead) or some other document highlighting the acre of land – bonus points if you can get some drone shots of each “parcel” to include alongside their certificate.
The key to making this type of “Doing Good” offer successful is aligning the good being done with the brand values of the organization and the things your audience cares about. If your brand is eco-conscious, then land preservation might make sense. If the brand is focused on nutrition, health and family, then something like Feast & Fettle’s child malnutrition partnership with Edesia could make sense; if your audience is more conservative, veteran or blue-collar, you might consider something along the lines of “every purchase helps a homeless vet.” If your audience is artsy or affluent, partner with some local artists to include original paintings or pieces with each purchase (what’s the value? I have no idea – but I can guarantee that the value of each painting goes up when a few are hanging in rich people’s houses). Specifics aside, what’s important is that your “doing good” has three characteristics:
- Difficult to value: the ideal “doing good” doesn’t have a straightforward conversion to dollars/euros/whatever. You want something – like buying a star, preserving an acre of land, planting a tree, feeding a child, etc. that likely has a lower cost than what an ordinary member of your target audience perceives. Speak in units of uncommon measurement.
- Important To Your Audience: the good must impact something (a group, a place, a people, a thing) that your audience genuinely cares about. The closer the audience cares about the thing, the more likely they are to (1) think higher of your brand for supporting it; (2) buy more in order to increase the support and (3) share the campaign with others who are like-minded.
- Make It a MacGuffin: in film, a MacGuffin is an object that serves as a trigger or driver for the plot (a magical box, the One Ring, the Death Star plans, the Maltese Falcon, etc.). You want to make your gift the same – an object that can help drive the narrative of your audience’s relationship with your brand forward. What’s so brilliant about (for instance) the people who sell stars is that they give a map and a picture and a letter and a whole bunch of other details about each star, all in a very nice and made-to-be-displayed package. The result? People who buy stars tell all of their friends about the star they bought. It becomes a talking point – something that helps the customer feel good AND that can compel their friends to do the same.
#6: Donate Some Profits
This is one of my absolute favorite promotional offers. It takes some legwork to set up, but, done well, the payoff is absolutely monumental. For your target audience, find some non-profits and/or causes they care about (use user surveys or Sparktoro). Reach out to a few of those groups with an offer like this:
“Hi [Whoever],
Every Q4, we prefer to give back instead of discounting, and we give back by selecting [number] of non-profit organizations like yours that our customers have told us genuinely matter to them.
Therefore, we’ll be donating X% of profits to your organization from our sales during the following period: [insert dates]. There’s nothing you have to do – we’ll just send you a check.
This year, we’d like to make this a bit more impactful – so we’d propose the following co-marketing initiatives:
- A press release announcing the initiative and unveiling [organization] as our 2024 partner for our [name of campaign]
- A social post on your channels announcing this and sending people to our campaign landing page here [url]
- A single email send to your list during the campaign period
We’ll cover all of the expenses related to this so that all of the money raised goes directly to your organization. We’re also open to any other ideas you may have!
Please let us know!
Best,
[Name]
From a brand perspective, this is absolute gold:
Economical: For the vast majority of brands, donating even 50% of profits is LESS than giving customers 25% off their purchase + free shipping. It’s a LOT less. Here’s an example from a brand we’ve worked with:
$225 AOV
32% COGS (actual product cost + pick/pack fees)
13% COD (shipping, allowance for returns, payment processing)
27% Marketing Costs
————————-
~28% ($63) in “profits” from this sale
50% of profits = $31.50
25% off AOV = $56.25
You (the brand) MAKE $24.75 MORE by donating 50% of your profits and not discounting than you do by discounting just 25%. From a bottom-line perspective, this 50% of profits = 14% discount.
New Customer Activation: you know (based on your customer research) that this organization’s audience shares significant overlap with your customer base (and, more than likely, your better customers). It’s also likely that you have not reached this organization’s entire membership / audience to date.
Well, what better method to reach those individuals directly than a third-party organization that they know and trust? If the organization drives customers directly to your brand, marketing costs as a percentage of revenue go down (yay), meaning the organization gets a larger donation AND you make more money on those sales (you’re -effectively- splitting Zuck’s take between the non-profit and your own pocket). Win-win (and a small L for Zuck/Big G).
#7: Gift Card Specials
I love gift card deals – yes, they are “expensive”, but the cost is mitigated due to: (1) a lot of people never redeem gift cards (just ask Starbucks) – and yes, there are state laws on how brands must handle “breakage” (consult an attorney, I’m not one, this isn’t legal advice) and (2) they often lead to future purchases in excess of the gift card balance (because most people, like me, don’t want to be stuck with a gift card that has a $2.29 balance – so I’ll spend $125 rather than $97.71. Logical, I know).
The other advantage of a gift card deal (i.e. $100 gift card for $75) vs. a straight 25% off is twofold: (1) it caps the downside – if that same individual had spent $125 on products instead of buying the gift card, my 25% off is now $31.25; (2) it gives me an opportunity to reach a pre-selected, net-new customer (i.e., the person receiving the gift card).
The best way to think of gift card specials, IMO, is a warm introduction/recommendation from a brand advocate to a new potential customer, at a fixed cost.
To get the objections out of the way: will there be users who buy a gift card and immediately turn around and use it? Yes. That’s going to happen. Will there be users who buy exactly the value of the gift card, so you effectively gave [X%]/[$X] off? Yep. Nothing is perfect. But if you’re going to discount, I think this offer is vastly superior to a straight, across-the-board discount.
#8: The Golden Ticket
This is 100% inspired by Willy Wonka (say what you want about his adherence to workplace safety standards, the guy was a marketing genius). The structure is pretty simple – in lieu of a discount or other offer, every purchase made during a specific period has a chance to come with a few (3-7 is usually a good number) “Golden Tickets” (or make up something more brand centric if your brand police don’t like the name) that are redeemable for something stupidly cool – $5,000 shopping spree, a complete makeover, a car, a trip to Europe, whatever. It has to be good.
I can already hear the CFO screaming: “HE’S GONE MAD!” And while that might be true, it isn’t because of this.
Let’s take a step back. The cost of a $5,000 shopping spree (for most brands) is really about $1,250 (25% COGS) – $1,500 (30% COGS). You’re not paying CC fees, you aren’t doing returns, etc. 7 Golden Tickets = $10,500 in actual value.
OK.
Let’s assume you’re a decent-size brand doing $5M per year, 50% of which occurs in Q4 (when this magical golden ticket thing happens). That’s $2.5M. If you did just a 10% discount for Q4 (and let’s be honest, you’re doing a hell of a lot more than that), the actual cost would be $250,000 (give or take). Not so crazy now, is it?
Let’s go more extreme. You have 3 golden tickets that each give a customer a brand-new 2025 BMW 3 Series (MSRP = $45,000). Let’s say you partner with a local car dealership on the promo (smart) and get the price down to a bit below their cost (since they’re getting a ton of exposure, too), call it $35,000.
So you’re in for 3*$35,000 = $105,000.
Again, still WAY less than the $250k you were going to give with that 10% off deal. And now you have:
- Access to that car dealership’s list for cross-marketing
- Multiple pieces of social content (that could easily be turned into ads)
- An incredible local PR story (that should turn into a massive amount of earned media)
- A potentially-viral “golden ticket” moment when someone unboxes a product and gets a car (or a massive shopping spree).
So, while the up-front cost of the “golden ticket” may give you sticker shock, the underlying economics of the promotion (as you can see) are massively more favorable than a standard discount – and this comes with significant upside in the form of social media, co-marketing and earned media.
#9a: Future Cash Back
Kohl’s is the OG of the “Future Cash Back” deals – and I really wish more brands would try it. The premise is simple: buy a product today, and the brand will provide you (the customer) with a credit toward a future purchase.
From a CFO’s perspective, this is golden: the credit is (essentially) a contingent loan from future profits – if the customer doesn’t buy anything ever again, they aren’t owed anything; if they do, then the brand does not make money (or makes less money) of that future purchase. Big deal.
These offers are IDEAL if your data shows that many BFCM purchasers do not repeat in the months following Q4. At worst, that trend continues and running this offer has no real cost to your brand, but still comes with significant perceived value to your BFCM customers. At best, this offer drives more of your BFCM customers to return to your brand in the ensuing weeks and months – which is still a win!
#9b: The Future Gift Card
Future Cash Back’s not-too-distant cousin is a future gift card: same principle, slightly different structure. I don’t love these as much as future cash back because of the laws/regulations around gift cards and breakage (disclaimer: not an attorney, not legal advice) – but they can be effective. From a customer perspective, the future gift card is often perceived as a bonus, and is usually subject to the same perceptions as a standard gift card.
#10: Exclusive Product
This is one of my absolute favorite types of offers – something limited edition or exclusive in exchange for a high-value purchase.
The catch? The item you’re offering truly needs to be exclusive. You can only do it once.
When I was growing up, Hess was a master of this – every year around the holidays, a new Hess toy truck would drop (something I always wanted, but rarely got) – and now, each one is a collectible. They were truly limited (I missed out on both the helicopter (1996) and space shuttle (1999) am still salty about it) and they were status symbols among my friends. If you had all of them, you were VERY cool (well, cool among the nerdy kids I tended to hang out with).
The exclusivity made it a thing that everyone wanted. Sagamore Spirit has done something similar – each bottle is hand-etched, and some vintages/collections are near-impossible to find. 12 Pentagons has likewise replicated this model in a wonderful way – and to great effect.
One of the outcomes of our collective consumerism is that we (consumers) have an expectation that we can buy anything; the question is whether or not we want to. Exclusive, limited-stock items attack that core belief in a way that compels us to act. It adds the type of urgency that a mere count-down timer could never accomplish – because it isn’t just a race against the clock; it’s a race against every one else considering this purchase. And if we’re feeling compelled to buy – then we project that feeling onto everyone else we imagine to be browsing the page, and all of a sudden, we have to be first.
It’s not difficult to capitalize on this trend: make a limited edition product (ON Running does a masterful job of this, as do many other fashion brands, perfumes, etc.), pick a meaningful number to offer to the public (don’t be lame and offer 500 or 250 or 2,000 – pick something unique. If your brand was founded in 2002, offer 2002; if you sold 662 items in your first year, offer 662). The more meaningful the number, the more compelling the story, the more your audience will want it.
How you choose to market the limited edition product depends on your brand – you could simply release one (or more) as drops during Q4. You could give them away with purchases over a certain amount. Or – my personal favorite (and your CFO’s favorite) – you could offer the ability to purchase one of the limited editions only to customers who do something special (spend over a certain amount, have a certain purchase history, are selected by your sales team, etc.)
The latter you might recognize from the “Lessons From Luxury” series, as it sounds pretty similar to how Hermes handles Birkin Bags or Porsche handles 911 Turbos) – that’s intentional. Those brands have mastered the art of leveraging coveted exclusivity to drive loyalty.
And while I can’t speak for your CFO, every single one that I’ve met absolutely loves the idea of substituting a discount for selling customers something (or multiple somethings) at full price, all for the privilege of selling them an exclusive something else (also at full price).
#11: Variable Rotating Discounts
If you must discount, try a “discount lottery” or a “random discount.” Yes, it’s more work – but it does three things:
- It gamifies the experience – There’s a reason everyone from Starbucks to Candy Crush to Robinhood to Savage x Fenty uses gamification: it works.
- It spawns the “Ikea Effect” – When a user does something (spins a wheel or plays a game or solves a puzzle) in order to receive something (like a discount, or a free item, or whatever), it triggers a cognitive bias that results in those users valuing that thing higher than its inherent worth.
- It allows you to target the offer – Variable offers can (and should) be designed to maximize the future lifetime value of your customer, in a manner similar to a Free Gift With Purchase. For example, if your brand is a meat subscription (like Butcher Box), then you might know that existing steak customers don’t tend to buy chicken or lobster BUT when they do, they tend to re-purchase both steak and chicken. Armed with this insight, you might offer the “random” or “variable” promotion to be free chicken [something] or a lobster tail with the purchase of a ribeye. Does the customer know this? No. Will they care? Also probably not.
These types of offers are designed to stand out, engage both new and returning customers, and ultimately drive profitable, in-the-black BFCM sales. The more you can think strategically and holistically about your offer structure and how those offers lever up to a better, broader, more connected customer, the better off you’ll be.
#12: Bundle Savings
I’m continually amazed at how few brands leverage bundling in Q4 – depending on your data set, the number of holiday offers containing “tiered” discounts is anywhere from 3% to 5%.
The central premise behind bundling is simple: drive up the AOV and switch from percentage-based to dollar-based discounts. But underlying that simplicity is some pure, capitalistic magic: brands that use tiers sell more and sell more profitably.
Let’s take an example from a brand with a $450 AOV:
10% off under $500 (read: $50 discount)
$75 off $500 – $1,000 (14.9% to 7.5% off)
$150 off $1,000 – $1,500 (15% to 10% off)
$200 off $1,500 – $2,000 (13% to 10% off)
$250 off all purchases over $2,000 (12.5% to 1% off)
At first glance, this probably doesn’t seem too remarkable – the discount is pretty much flat across the board. But where the magic happens is the tier breaks. This brand has a $450 AOV, the the lowest-price item being about $59 and the highest-priced item being over $2,000. The majority of SKUs are priced between $170 – $350 (Avg. items per order is about 2.3). One final – and critical – data point: the lower-priced SKUs actually have higher margin than the median-priced SKUs.
So:
A typical user comes in, adds about $450 worth of stuff – and is reminded that if they add another $50, they’re eligible for a $75 discount. Problem: there aren’t any $50 items – lowest is $59 (which also has the highest margin). If the user adds the $59 item, they’ll save an extra $30 (10% off $450 = $45) – but the margin on that $59 is actually about $40. The brand MAKES $10 more despite giving the customer an additional $30 off.
If the customer then goes back and adds another $220 item (the mid-point of this brand’s price-range), thereby bringing the total cart to $450+$220 = $670, the customer does get a better deal ($75 off $670 is 11.19% off), but the brand’s total contribution dollars increase (pre-discount CM is about 30%, so 10% off represents about 33.3% of profits):
$450 = $135 in pre-discount CM – $45 discount = $90 in CM
$670 = $201 in pre-discount CM – $75 discount = $126 in CM
So yes, the discount as a percentage of the order has increased, but the brand still made an additional $36 in this sale.
Similar financial logic applies to the other tier cutoffs – the discount never outpaces contribution margin growth, so the brand selling more always results in the brand making more; the tiers serve as inflection points that drive significantly more sales OR the purchase of higher-margin products.
The beauty of tiered offers is that they can be used by any business – service, product, eCommerce, retail, digital goods, luxury, commodity – it doesn’t matter. These can also be combined with other offer types mentioned above: instead of offering dollars off, offer an exclusive gift that scales up with spend or a larger donation (spend $1,000 and we’ll preserve 25 acres of rainforest in your name).
#13: Build A Legacy
This one is a little out there, but (for the right brand/customer) it can be wildly effective: in lieu of a discount, give a select type of customer (spend a certain amount, buy before a certain date, buy a specific product) a legacy gift, like a customized brick, bench or plaque.
Buffalo Bayou brewery took this in a slightly different direction, giving everyone who invested $1,000 in the brewery free beer for life (or free beer for life to the person of their choice) – plus a bunch of other legacy perks like an engraved nameplate in the actual taproom.
Now, if you’re going to pull this off, you have to build a compelling story around the offer – it can’t just be that you get a personalized brick or plaque – there has to be some heft to it. Connect the legacy item (whatever it is) to your brand’s ethos/story. Use it as a way to reject (ironically!) growing consumerism, short-termism, materialism in favor of something that lasts.
There are brands out there – Yeti, Ridge, Rolex, Modern Fuel, Shun, Mauviel, Le Cruesset – that pride themselves on creating products that truly, genuinely last. These things are heirlooms. That unique product position naturally appeals to people who think long-term, who think about their legacy, who think about passing things down. Psychologically, that type of customer is predisposed to respond well to something like,
“We don’t believe in discounts. We don’t believe in giving things away for free. We’re proud of every single thing that bears our brand’s name, and to give it away, to discount it, to slap it with a sales gimmick wouldn’t be fair to the artisans who craft it or the people who have entrusted us with their hard-earned money in order to be a part of our brand.
That’s not who we are, and that’s not who you are. We believe in building things that are passed down from generation to generation. Things that last. Things made the right way.
Instead, we’re going to offer something more meaningful: a chance to be a part of [brand’s] legacy forever. Those customers who [do thing] will be given [describe it], prominently displayed forever [here]. There’s [number] of slots available.
If you believe in what we’re building, and you want to be a part of our story for all time [here’s what you do].”
Put that in a hand-written format, throw it on a hefty, fancy bit of paper, and send it out to your best customers.
It’s the anti-BFCM message.
Oh, and for the CFOs in the room: the cost of a custom brick or plaque typically ranges from $10 to $50 (depending on the materials, quality, etc.), plus another ~$5 for installation.
So, the next time someone tells you that you must discount or that the only way to be successful in BFCM requires accepting a loss on every sale, open this issue up, find one (or more) of these offers that work for your brand and your audience, and prove them wrong.
It’s possible to stand out during the most competitive, consumer-ist, sales-frenzy time of the year without resorting to giving away money.
That’s all for this week!
Cheers,
Sam
