The Creative Black Friday Promotion Idea that boosted my sales, email list & audience delight

Behind the scenes of my smarter alternative to a stock-standard Black Friday promotion

NOTE: Some of the tools and resources I mention in this article are affiliate links. That means when you click the link to create an account, start a free trial or make a purchase, it won’t cost you any more but I may receive a commission for introducing you to this game-changer. One thing I want to stress is that I would never recommend anything I haven’t successfully used myself or trust unconditionally.

My creative Black Friday Promotion Idea (or the smarter approach to one!) came about middle of 2023.

I felt fatigued by the same-same approach to not only Black Friday promotions, but online promotions in general. And I wanted to sit out Black Friday to surprise and delight my audience with something truly spectacular.

Something they hadn’t seen done before.

Something that would offer a quick win for everyone.

Something that didn’t need complex tech tools to pull off.

What was my clever alternative to a stock-standard Black Friday Promotion?

As I saw everyone else’s promo emails touch down in my inbox, I went back to the drawing board and considered all my options.

Run an audio summit? Too much effort. Create and advent calendar? Too techy. Go with 12 days of Christmas? Not exciting enough.

What I settled on was a stroke of genius, and had everything to do with my happy childhood memories of outdoor Easter Egg Hunts.

And shortly after, an online version of Easter Egg Hunt, and ‘Nadine elf’ were born.

It was going to be the on-brand & FUNNER way to make sales, grow my list and excite my audience.

These sneaky ‘Nadine Christmas Elves’ would play hide and seek with my audience on my website and reveal…

…exclusive deals 🎁

…sneaky freebies 🤑

…VIP opportunities 🤩

All they had to do to reveal the Hidden Gem was click on the elf and they’d be taken to a special offer detail page.

What I loved about this approach was that it seemed technically doable. It also seemed like something that would give me joy executing and planning, and my audience would absolutely LOVE.

So here are the promotion ins and outs:

• Promotion Dates: 1-24 December 2023 (once the Black Friday craziness had settled!)
• Campaign theme: I elfed myself!
• Expenses: only my time
• Tech tools: Existing tech tools I was already using in my business:
  • Showit for website hosting
  • Thrivecart as my checkout tool
  • Drip for email marketing
  • Convertbox as a convenient promotion booster

What were my goals for this creative alternative to a standard Black Friday promotion?

I was hoping for a few things, but particularly:

👉🏽 Sales
Of course, I wanted to boost my bottom line along the way.

👉🏽 Audience Growth
I knew not everyone was going to be ready to buy, so I wanted to use this event to add people to my email list so I could nurture them and turn them into paying customers over time.

👉🏽 Engagement
I was hoping this fun exercise would invite email replies and DMs on Instagram, because everyone loves a good dopamine hit, right?

What were the ACTUAL results?

The Immediate Wins:

• 567 New Subscribers
• 68 Digital product sales (a mix of free low-ticket courses and paid higher-ticket courses)

The Flow-on Effects:

• 1 x 1:1 client project
• 1 new Copy Confidence Collective Member
• ? x Digital product sales after the promotion (I am unable to quantify these because I didn’t set up the right tracking, but absoulutely should have!)
• 3 x Summit Speaker invites

The Nice Side Effects:

• Increased brand awareness
• More website sessions & longer sessions
• Increased offer awareness
• Unavoidable exposure to social proof
• A nice dopamine hit for browsers
• I stood out for the RIGHT reasons

The AMAZING Audience Response:

Will I run this style of promotion again?

Absolutely!

I have countless ideas around how I am going to repurpose this scavenger hunt-style of promotion in my business throughtout the year, and not just around Black Friday.

What does it take to run your own?

1. Pick your promo theme, the offers you’re going to lead with and your promo dates.
2. Line up your tech tools, affiliates and promo graphics.
3. Announce it to the world and watch the AMAZING impact!

What if you had 10 FREE ideas to see how this creative Black Friday promotion idea could work in your business?

(even when it’s not that time of year)

Grab them now 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽