How to Create a Black Friday Offer Without Sounding Desperate

It’s October, which means your inbox probably isn’t screaming BLACK FRIDAY!!! at you quite yet.

Give it a few weeks. ;)

Every year, as Black Friday gets closer, perfectly normal businesses start behaving a little strangely. Suddenly, everything is urgent. Everything ends at midnight. Everything is the BIGGEST SALE OF THE YEAR, and apparently every email subject line requires at least three exclamation points. But right now, we have something considerably more useful than another countdown clock:

Time.

Time to think about what you want to offer before the Black Friday noise begins. Because Black Friday can do weird things to a brand. Especially a personal brand. When people are used to hearing your ideas, seeing your face, learning from you and getting to know the person behind the business, suddenly turning into a flashing 40% OFF!!! sign can feel a little... strange. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sell.

People are prepared to buy on Black Friday. They’re looking for offers, comparing options and, in many cases, waiting to see what businesses they already follow are going to do. There is nothing desperate about giving them something worth buying.

The question is what that something should be.

Your Black Friday Offer Doesn’t Need to Be Cheaper

I think this is where a lot of businesses get stuck...We hear “Black Friday” and immediately think discount.

How much should I take off? 20%? 30%? 50%? Do I need a coupon code? Should I throw in free shipping? At what point am I basically paying people to work with me? A discount can be a perfectly good Black Friday strategy. But it is only one strategy. Your Black Friday offer doesn’t need to be cheaper - it needs to be unusually easy to say yes to.

So instead of starting with:

“How much should I discount?”

Try asking:

“How can I make this offer so good that buying it feels like the obvious choice?”

There are three ways I like to think about it.

Welcome to my 3-DOOR FORMULA!

THE DEAL | THE UPGRADE | THE GATEWAY

Door #1: The Deal

Let’s start with the obvious one.

Give people a genuinely good deal.

Maybe you normally charge $500 and, for Black Friday, the offer is $400. Maybe a product is 25% off. Maybe you create special pricing that is only available for a few days.

There is nothing inherently wrong with discounting.

In fact, Black Friday is one of the times of year when customers are actively expecting and looking for deals. If your margins support it and discounting makes sense for your business, this might be the simplest door to walk through.

The important part is that the numbers still need to make sense.

You shouldn’t create an incredible sales weekend only to discover that you made very little money from it.

Look at your margins. Look at the cost of delivering the product or service. Look at the time involved. Then decide what kind of deal you can offer that feels exciting to the customer and still makes sense for the business.

Door #2: The Upgrade

Maybe you don’t want to lower your price at all. Great. Make the offer better instead. Keep the price and add something valuable. You could bundle products or services that are normally purchased separately. Add a bonus session. Include an upgrade. Give additional access. Pair your main offer with something complementary.

The idea is simple: instead of asking the customer to pay less, give them more reason to buy now.

This can be particularly useful for service businesses, consultants, coaches, creators and personal brands where aggressive discounting might not make sense, but there is a little warning label attached to this door too. Your bonus still costs something, even when the customer isn’t paying for it separately. Sometimes that cost is money. Sometimes it is inventory. And sometimes wasting more time than we're willing to admit

So make the offer better, but make sure the economics still work.

Door #3: The Gateway

This might be my favorite door for personal brands. Instead of discounting your main offer or adding more to it, create a new way in. Think about the person who has been following you for months. They read your emails. They watch your videos. They like your posts. They know who you are. They might even regularly think, “I would love to work with her someday, ” but they haven’t bought anything yet.

Black Friday can give you an opportunity to create a much easier first step.

That might be a workshop, mini-session, audit, consultation, starter package, digital product or limited experience.

Your main offer doesn’t have to change at all.

You’re simply creating a new front door.

And that first purchase can matter.

Someone goes from being a follower to being a customer. They get to experience what it is actually like to learn from you, work with you or buy from your business. If the experience is good, that smaller purchase can become the beginning of a much longer customer relationship.

You Only Need One Door

This is important.

You do not need to do all three.

You do not need a discount AND a bundle AND a brand-new entry offer AND seventeen bonuses AND three upsells AND a Black Friday funnel that requires NASA to operate.

Pick a door.

Which one makes the most sense for your business?

Which one would your audience actually want?

Which one can you deliver well?

Which one makes financial sense?

A simple, compelling offer communicated clearly will usually serve you better than something complicated you built because Black Friday made you panic.

Urgency Is Not the Same Thing as Desperation

Black Friday is still almost eight weeks away, which means you have time to make this decision thoughtfully. Pick the door that makes sense for your business, your audience, your margins and the kind of relationship you want to build with your customers, and then give yourself enough time to market it well.

And if you’re not quite sure which door to choose, or you want some help turning your idea into a strategy, book a BLACK FRIDAY CONSULT with me. We can look at your offer, audience and goals together and figure out what makes the most sense for your business this Black Friday. You don’t need to have the entire campaign figured out today. You just need to choose your door wisely and deliberately, and start building from there.