Mastering the Art of eCommerce Promotions: A Behind-the-Scenes Guide to Refining Your Approach and Boosting Success

After completing some of your biggest sales events like Cyber Monday and Black Friday, what are your next steps to prepare for your next promotion? In this episode, we dive into the process of learning from your completed promotions and refining them for the future. 

From collecting data on your promotional events to approaching the refinement process with a positive and realistic mindset, we aim to guide you towards improving your promotions, setting you on the path to future success in your online business! So, sit back, relax, and get ready to elevate your eCommerce game!

This week’s episode is sponsored by our Search Engine Optimization Mini Course.  Our Free online digital course that teaches eCommerce and website owners how to level up their search engine rankings with some simple, doable steps!  Join us at www.ecommercemadeeasypodcast.com/seominicourse/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

If you're listening to us right after this episode releases, then we just had Cyber Monday of 2023. Even if you aren't listening in real time or listening in the future, after this recording has been posted, then we can also utilize this to really evaluate promotions in our business. So if you're a business owner who does promotions, whether it's just during Black Friday and Cyber Monday or a few times a year, you want to make sure that your promotions and your sales are really digging in and doing what you want them to do. So how do we know this? Join us in this episode as we discuss how to analyze and revise any promotions that we have recently had, to make sure that we do a much better and effective job next time and really learn from these situations.

Speaker 1: 1:26

Welcome to the eCommerce Made Easy podcast. I'm your host, kiri Saunders. When we started this business, all I had was a couch, a laptop and a nine-month-old. My main goal To help others. Now, with over 20 years in the eCommerce building industry and even more than that in web development, I have seen a lot. I love breaking down the hard tech and to easily understandable bits to help others be successful in their online business, whether you're a seasoned eCommerce veteran or just starting out you've come to the right place, so sit back, relax and let's dive into the world of eCommerce together.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Welcome back to this week's episode of the eCommerce Made Easy podcast. Today, we are talking about how do we evaluate our big business promotions, such as Cyber Monday or Black Friday, or really any time of the year that you're really doing a big promotion or push for their business, whether it's you sell digital goods or whether you sell physical goods or whether you sell services. They're all kind of have a little bit of a different flavor, but we can really learn from our marketing efforts in a similar way, no matter which type of offering that we have. So, first off, we need to really analyze where did we end up? What was your previous goals? Hopefully you wrote down, before you created the event, your goals, your monetary goals, the number of items you wanted to sell, how many new people you wanted to reach. Hopefully you wrote those goals down. So what you really need to do is look at where did you hit, and if you don't have this sort of data available to you, then drop us an email and we will help you figure out how to collect this data on your website, but you really need to be having this sort of data so that you are effective when you want to rework your promotion and make sure it's working well.

Speaker 1: 3:18

I also recommend that you use something like Google Sheets or Excel to keep track of these promotions. Track what was your target monetary goal, what was your target number of items you wanted to sell and how many new people did you want to reach? What are your targets there? And then I want you to put down your realistic numbers and I want you to do this every time you have. Either you can either do it for every promotion that you do, or you maybe you want to group them based upon only Black Friday promotions, only Cyber Monday promotions, only, maybe, anniversary of your business promotions, memorial Day depends on where you are.

Speaker 1: 3:55

I know some of you, that many of you who actually listen are across the globe and aren't necessarily in the United States, so you may not celebrate quite all the holidays that we do and all the sales that we do. So really decide, okay, one. Do I want to group them based upon the event it is, or do I want to look at all my promotions as a whole and you can really do this flavor a few different ways and then I want you to really evaluate where did it go well and where did it not. We need to make sure that when we're doing this, we're not just critical about the situation, because there could be some things that are outside of our control, and we also want to look at what went well so we can do more of what went well. For example, did you promote the event early enough? Do you think that might be a reason that you didn't quite reach where you wanted to hit? Or maybe you did hit your goals and maybe you ran over your goals and really exceeded your goals. Why do you think that is? Did you do a better job of promoting it this time? Did you promote it early enough so that people were prepared and ready for your sale and intrigued and captivated and really curious as to what you're going to offer?

Speaker 1: 5:15

Sometimes we really need to create that curiosity and that excitement around an offer before we have the offer, so that people are really paying attention, because it's a very noisy world out there, as I'm sure you're aware. And another thing that I want to talk about and caution you to is just because something didn't work the first time Doesn't mean it's not going to work the next time. Sometimes our promotions need to be done at least three times to decide whether they are a great idea or not. It can take some time to really build up the momentum for something. So don't just give up if you've tried something only once and it didn't work or didn't work as well as you wanted to.

Speaker 1: 5:58

There's a lot that they say in marketing and sales that you really need to be trying the same thing at least three times to decide whether it is a great idea or not. Because, like I said, you might need some warm up time from your audience. You might need to refine your. Maybe your offering is great, but maybe your wording around your offering isn't great and doesn't really talk to your audience well so that they understand what you're offering. So just because it failed the first time, maybe you just need to go back and revise your wording and making sure that you're drawing your audience in to your story. You're drawing them in to the solution that you provide and making it very clear on what you can help them with, or what pain point can you help them with or what joy can you help them with.

Speaker 1: 6:51

So, like I said. I know I feel a little repetitive here, but it's really important not to just give up on your first try of something. They say practice makes perfect, and it's true in business as well. If we're not practicing the same thing over and over again, obviously you don't want to beat a dead horse, so the saying is kind of an awful saying. But so the saying is once you realize it isn't working, then you do need to pivot, but you need to at least try a minimum of three times just to make sure it isn't working first. Okay, so then what do you do when you find the things that do work? Well? Well, you obviously want to make note of this and I highly recommend that you do debriefing. I'm talking just a few days after your promotion. You want this to be fresh in your mind.

Speaker 1: 7:45

If you have a team, discuss it with your team. I would probably caution you to make sure the team isn't too big when you're making this discussion, because sometimes too much input is also overwhelming and not effective. Maybe a group of three to five people that are the core people who helped you with this process and if you're a solo prettier and doing this all by yourself, grab a buddy Could be your best friend. It could be a good work colleague that you found online that you really mesh with. I know I've found online in the past few years some really good friends that also run businesses as well and we like to really ping ideas off of each other and it's really great to have that outside perspective. So go over your promotion what went well and what didn't with others to make sure you're not missing a perspective that somebody else is going to see. That might be the key to making it better next time and really just blowing things out of the water.

Speaker 1: 8:49

And then, whenever you do want to redo your promotion the next time, try to be a bit scientific about it, and what I mean by that is don't change a bunch of things at once. Make your main thing that you need to focus on. That you know would help improve it, or you have a really good idea it's going to help improve it. Maybe it's your communication tactics, maybe it's your wordings on your offer. Work to adjust only that. Try not to adjust too many things at once or you'll never know what worked. If something did get better in your promotion, or if it got even worse, you won't know what really made it good worse.

Speaker 1: 9:33

So you want to make sure when you're reiterating on these promotions and trying them again, change one, maybe two things if you really think you need to, but try to limit the number of things that you change so that you can measure better whether it affected it positively or negatively. It's super important to do that when you're in business, because it's so easy to get distracted and think you need to do all the things and fix all the things when sometimes it's just something small and minor that really will leave you to the next level. And then in this whole process and I've alluded to this some already you need to stay positive in your mindset of it. Like I said in the beginning, we need to be thinking about the things we did do well with our promotion. And we need to do that because it's so easy to have negative self-talk, no matter who you are. It is so easy no matter how you grew up, etc. It's so easy to be very self-critical. We are so much more critical of ourselves than anyone else. So when you're evaluating those things, look at a lot of the positive things and if things didn't go well, if a specific thing didn't go well, you know. Obviously, be real about it, but be mindful of how your words are in your brain about the part that didn't go well. So, even if something didn't go well, we can think about it in a way that's healthy and not downgrading and not pulling yourself a steam down. So when you do think about what went well and what didn't, I'd want you to be mindful about this and it's kind of something that's a bit of a nuance, but it's something that can help you survive so much longer in business is your mindset around the things that didn't go well. Because if we are always beating ourselves up, even if we're doing a good job in general, but there's these little things that are driving us crazy, even if we're beating yourself up, that's going to really drag us down and make it hard for us to run the business effectively. So keep on your mindset when you're doing this exercise. It's very, very important.

Speaker 1: 11:51

You can also seek out expert advice as well. See, you're really puzzled and you really just aren't sure what did or didn't go well. It very well may be worth you paying a consultant for a fee to look over what you did. They're going to have no emotional attachment to what you did, and they're going to have a different perspective to what you did, and they may be able to come up with some things that you just simply can't see because you're in it and they're not. So don't be. Don't hesitate to also seek expert advice if you feel like that's what you're going to need. Obviously, you don't always have to have expert advice on something like this, but it can be what you need to really prepare yourself forward, especially if you feel like you're just so close and just right there, but you can't see that breakthrough and can't see quite what you need to do. Next, having a second set of eyes and it could be an expert that you don't even pay. It could be your friend that's an expert in a certain area too, and you guys trade services for it as well. So really think about do I need to have an expert? Look at this, too.

Speaker 1: 13:00

One other thing we can look at, too, is where your goals realistic. So really be mindful here, too, because, let's say, your online business grosses $10,000 a month and you had this big promotion coming up and you wanted to sell $10,000 a month in the promotion. Well, if you normally sell $10,000 a month trying to do a promotion where that promotion itself gets $10,000 might be a bit of a stretch. It might be a little bit too far of a stretch for you at that point in time. So maybe you should be looking at $2,500 or $5,000 for just that promotional period. So also make sure that you are being realistic with your goals.

Speaker 1: 13:46

We always want to stretch our goals, though. So I want to say this a little cautiously, because if we don't put our goals up high enough, our goals tend to be the ceiling of where we hit. So if you don't have that ceiling quite high enough, you'll never grow more. But at the same time, if your ceiling is way too high and it's going to be impossible, or practically impossible, to hit that goal, that's going to be hard on our morale. So you really need to be playing with these numbers and figuring out what is the best middle ground. That one stretches me, but two isn't super discouraging if I don't hit it. So really think about that the next time you do a promotion.

Speaker 1: 14:33

All right, so that's it for this week's episode. A little short recap is make sure that you evaluate for your promotions a few days, no more than a week after you have it, to make sure that everything is fresh in your mind and you can really see what went well and what didn't. Seek the expert advice of a trusted business friend, or get paid expert advice too, if you feel like you're really on the edge and really could have pushed this a little bit further, and always keep your mindset in mind. You want to always be talking to yourself in a positive manner but, at the same time, a realistic manner. When things didn't go well. I'm not talking about just pulling the wool over your eyes and pretending like everything was great. You need to make sure that you're being realistic but also positive, so that you can really get the most out of what you learned and move forward on your next promotion.

Speaker 1: 15:33

So thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the eCommerce Made Easy podcast. Be sure to visit our show notes and other on this episode and other episodes at eCommerceMadeEasyPodcastcom, and if you're watching us on the YouTube channel, make sure you hit that subscribe button. If you're listening on the podcast, make sure you hit that follow button there as well, so you don't miss on any upcoming episodes If you're listening to this and you found value in today's episode or any of the other episodes on the eCommerce Made Easy podcast. I would love to hear from you what other content do you want to hear on the show? And drop us an email at podcast at bcsinjeneeringcom and that is podcast at bcsinjeneeringcom or leave us a review. Thanks again for listening and I will see you next week.