How To Make Money From Black Friday 2017
I was unable to really take advantage of ways to make money from Black Friday this year.
This article is a rough-notes version of all the things that I’ve thought of throughout the day that you could do next year.
I’m rushed for time, so if this seems a little bullet-point-like, I apologise.
Let’s get on with how to make money from Black Friday.
How To Make Money From Black Friday If You Are a Product Creator
If you create your own products, then I hope you’ve priced them well.
If you have, then Black Friday is a great time to make money. Slap a big discount on whatever you’re selling and wait as opened wallets rush to buy.
The reasn I underlined the word “big” above was because when it comes to Black Friday sales, if you’re offering a 10% discount, that’s usually great. However, on Black Friday people are going to be seeing 75% off, 50% off or other big figures.
If your competition is offering 50% off and you’re offering 5% off, you’re losing that sale.
So, let’s assume you can offer a 50% sale. It’s never just a case of “slap the offer on and let them come.”
Here’s what I suggest you do:
- Create an auto-responder email at least a month in advance. Make it simple… “Sign up here for our awesome Black Friday deal.” That’ll get people interested.
- Send one email a week. Point them to articles about how to use the product, how other people have gotten on in the form of case studies – you get the picture.
- Two days before, tell everyone that subscribers get the deal a day in advance. Watch your signups go up.
- One day before, give your subscribers early access. Tell everyone about it so they all subscribe.
- On Black Friday, give everyone the blast across all of your platforms and use something like Thrive Ultimatum to make it absolutely clear that this is a limited time deal.
- Shut it down after the deal is up – whether that’s one day, three days or whatever.
- Optional sneaky part – if there’s more demand, open it up again a week later.
If You’re An Affiliate
If you are making money on other people’s products, you should follow the above. Obviously, you don’t set the rules of engagement and you can’t name the product price or discount – which makes it tricky.
Some affiliates offer further discounts or “pay me and then I’ll refund you” schemes. I wouldn’t touch this idea with your bank account let alone my own.
You are asking for trouble if there are any problems with the merchant, customer or anything else.
Don’t do this.
If you want people to buy through your link as opposed to the hundreds of different other affiliates who are selling the same products as you, then give something extra.
Something simple works – even, “I’ll help you with the product and answer your questions about it” will do.
How To Make Money From Black Friday As An Affiliate Part II
So, I said that you don’t control the price of the product, nor the discount. I also said that it’s hard to compete with the other affiliates who are also selling your offer as well.
There is one advantage to being an affiliate and making money from Black Friday though.
You can serve multiple offers to people.
Assuming you have nothing better to do, on Black Friday you could spend the whole day reading Twitter hashtags about the best deals. You can use any and all of those to find products, quickly sign up for affiliate programs and push those products with simple affiliate ideas.
Normally with affiliate marketing, you have to build a list, build a relationship and be very careful about not overcooking anything until you drop the affiliate offer on a warm audience .
On Black Friday, that goes out of the window, because everyone is acting in a frenzy, clicking away and looking for deals in which they can spend their money on anything they take a fancy too.
This sounds spammy and like it comes from the mind of an evil internet scammer, but it doesn’t have to be.
You can easily stick in your niche and write a compendium post about all the best deals you’ve found for your niche.
If you have niche websites, then you can write a post that’s something along the lines of “Best Black Friday Deals for X” and you’ll still have the “limited time” option.
Final Thoughts: Plan For Black Friday 2017, 2018 and So On…
I’m going to buy a couple of items this weekend. Interestingly, the offers are exactly the same as they were last year.
If you build some decent pages and get some winners as far as earners go, then you don’t need to reinvent the wheel for next year – whether you’re a product creator or affiliate.
You just slot what works into the back of your mind and get ready to do exactly the same next year, and eradicate what doesn’t work as well.