Black Friday is hard

So. Many. Emails…

Black Friday is coming, as it does every year, right on schedule at the end of November 😩.

November has historically been Groundhogg’s best financial month of the year because of Black Friday. But, I’m starting to question if the massive effort to run so many promotions, emails, posts, and listicles is actually worth it.

It will be Groundhogg’s 8th Black Friday this year, and I’m thinking about doing something different than giving up 33% of potential revenue in discounts.

Let’s talk about how…

BLACK FRIDAY IS HARD!

Part 7.

“I’m tired, boss.”

~The Green Mile

An estimated 100s of billions of emails are sent in November about Black Friday deals. SendGrid alone sends ~12B emails on Black Friday in 2024, and another ~12B on Cyber Monday.

That’s a lot of email.

Email is still the primary and preferred method of customer communication between businesses and individuals. The barrier to sending email has never been lower, either. Tools like Groundhogg are easier to use than ever for novice marketers. Larger email marketing services, like MailChimp, spend a lot of time marketing Black Friday ideas to their customers to increase usage and spend. Anyone and everyone can create a Black Friday offer and send it to their customers by email.

What that means is a lot more email in the inbox, which means more email to compete with in the inbox.

Big brands and solopreneurs alike are aggressively competing for inbox space to capture just a portion of consumers’ diminishing Black Friday budgets.

And with so much email to compete with, and so many offers out there, and so much noise, I’m sitting in my office wondering, “Is it actually worth the effort?”

Because it is quite an effort, especially for a small operation like ours.

We…

• Have to come up with a compelling offer, preferably something a bit different than last year, for the sake of uniqueness.
• Have to do a lot of copywriting for leads, new customers, long-term customers, churned customers, who each get a special offer to either sign up, renew, or return.
• Schedule out dozens of broadcasts to the various segments and check to make sure all the segments are correct
• Change the offers in our flows to reflect current Black Friday pricing
• Publish the offer on social media
• Submit our offers to the now dozens of Black Friday listicles that promote WordPress-related Black Friday deals
• Haggle with people who think the offer is not generous enough (as if our regular pricing is not already incredibly generous, bozo)
• Update the pricing page
• Maybe write a few blog updates
• Update the WordPress dashboard notifications

And the list just goes on and on and on.

Why Black Friday…

There are many reasons for creating, promoting, and sustaining a Black Friday that are parroted online and in the B2B community.

» “Black Friday offers attract new customers that may have not considered you before!”

Probably true, given you have the energy and the finances to cut through the noise. On average, since 2020, we get 33% more new customers in November. What’s interesting though, is Black Friday is only responsible for 16% more new leads, with the majority of new customers coming from leads that were acquired earlier in the year (not in November).

» “A Black Friday offer can convert a lead that’s been on the list for a while.”

Also true, as evidenced by our own reports (33% more new customers, mostly from older leads). But if those leads knew that there was no deal to wait for, would they have bought earlier, now, eventually, or never?

Customers don’t buy when you’re ready, they buy when they’re ready. But, if the offer is too good to pass up, maybe they’ll just buy right now even though they would have bought anyway in a couple months at regular price. What you’ve done now is robbed yourself of future potential revenue.

It’s also possible that they’ll pass and go with the company that is offering a deal, but then have a consistent offer for new customers year round.

» “It creates goodwill with customers!”

You know what creates goodwill? Exceptional service! I don’t think that customers’ feelings about product usage are affected by how much they paid. In my experience, customers that pay less are often more critical.

» “It’s a good excuse to email your list!”

Disagree, because you’re only really adding to the noise during November. You can manufacture a good reason to email your list every day of the year with exceptional content.

» “Everyone else is doing it! If you don’t, you’ll be left out!”

If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you? Seriously though, just because everyone does it does not mean it’s the best thing to do. It might be, but it also might not be.

Offers of Black Fridays Past…

I’m no stranger to running Black Friday campaigns. I’ve run campaigns for agency customers, Groundhogg, MailHawk, and HollerBox. I’ve written many articles, delivered many courses, and have sent many, many emails about and with Black Friday offers.

I’ve run Black Friday promotions for Groundhogg specifically in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Coming up with compelling Black Friday offers for software is, well, boring. Software is boring, and there’s only so much you can do to make it more attractive to a potential customer.

You’re really limited to…

• Discounting it (lame)
• Bundling it (with other software)
• Long-term contracts (discounting it with extra steps)

Bundling software (buying Groundhogg, MailHawk, and HollerBox all in one package) is an administrative and technical headache, and honestly, it didn’t move the needle enough to justify the expense of advertising the offer, so I’m avoiding that for the foreseeable future. It’s much easier to simply advertise their unique offers separately.

Discounting is what everyone does. I’ve seen some plugin houses offer as much as 75% off. We’ve gone as high as 30% ourselves in years past. Discounting is an effective tool year-round, and sometimes it’s what’s needed to get someone to make that purchasing decision.

Long-term contracts are a tool I like. They provide long-term revenue upfront without the liability of a lifetime license and potential future business. Our 3-year deal (3-year license for the cost of 2 years upfront) has been a winner for us.

There’s no doubt that discounting licenses and offering long-term contracts work. People have bought both offers many times, every year, like clockwork.

I guess the question I’m asking is not if Black Friday offers work (they do, duh) the question is if they’re actually necessary for a software business like ours?

Is more email more better?

I’m sure it depends greatly. The market I know best is B2B Software, and at least in that industry, my gut (and some data) says that the answer is no* (notice the asterix).

When I ran the numbers, my highest revenue November was 2020 (🥲) and my next highest was 2023. What’s funny is that 2020 had the highest number of emails sent to both leads and customers, while 2023 had the lowest number of emails sent. In fact, we only sent about a third of the volume of emails in 2023 that we did in 2020.

So is more email more better? Not according to our numbers. I, of course, cannot speak for other businesses and industries, so results may vary.

If you are running an offer, you should at least send an email; otherwise, how would anyone know about it?

Back in black?

So Black Friday is our best month of the year, the numbers show that. The question is then, why is it the best month?

I have a theory, which I’m going to test this year for science!

What if Black Friday is our best year of the month at the expense of other months?

I’ll explain…

Over the course of many years, I’ve trained our customers and leads that Groundhogg is cheapest around Black Friday. So if you’re looking to maximize your value, you’ll hold off on purchasing or renewal until Black Friday.

I’ve also historically offered excellent renewal discounts to customers who renew early rather than on their regular renewal dates, further decreasing future revenue.

So I’ve centralized earnings in November by training and encouraging customers to purchase and renew in November, essentially robbing the rest of the calendar of expected revenue.

Black Friday was originally a way for retailers to clear out old inventory before the end of the year, in preparation for the holidays. As a B2B software company, we don’t have inventory. Our product is code and service. We don’t have to get rid of it. Code doesn’t depreciate (in the way physical products might), so there’s no incentive for us to discount Groundhogg beyond getting someone to commit to a purchase.

Now, my hypothesis is that without a Black Friday sale this year, November will still be our best month of the year (since we have so many expected renewals already from previous years), but earnings will be less than all previous years (on account of us not encouraging early renewals from customers). However, next year’s earnings across the rest of the calendar will increase, and year-end earnings will be the same or better.

Without a Black Friday sale, a lead that might have purchased in November at 25% OFF will purchase in February at full fare.

Customers don’t buy when you’re ready, they buy when they’re ready! I’m inclined to start being more patient and letting customers buy at full price when they’re business is ready for a CRM.

To be continued…

I have more thoughts on this, but in the interest of getting this sent before Black Friday, I’m sending as is.

I’ll follow up after Black Friday with…

• The financial impact of not having a sale.
• Lead gen, renewal stats, etc…
• Anything else that revealed itself as interesting

We’ll see!

Adrian Tobey
Founder, Groundhogg Inc.