Dolly:
Welcome back to another episode of the Systems and Workflow Magic podcast. This is the final episode of the Black Friday series I am co-hosting with my two friends, Mara and Bekah. And just in case you are jumping into the Systems and Workflow Magic world this week, I want to encourage you to listen to this episode, but maybe for context purposes, listen to the last two episodes because we are diving into some Black Friday strategies to consider, especially if you want to run a Black Friday sale this year in 2024. And the last two episodes have been very juicy. So I hope you will give it a re-listen, and I hope you will also consider joining our free masterclass. And I know when this episode airs, the masterclass has already passed (because it’s October 8th today), but now it’s made sure to record it, and you can watch it whenever you want, but it will be available now. So, I will be sure to link it in the show notes. But if you are new to meeting Mara and Bekah! Mara and Bekah, do you mind re-introducing yourselves to the listeners?
Mara: Yeah. Hi everyone. My name is Mara Kucirek, and I’m an online course designer and launch strategist. When someone wants to set up a digital product or an online course, such as a course, a workshop, an ebook, or anything like that, I help them actually get it set up, give them the accountability to set it up, and then figure out how to sell it to their audience.
Bekah: Yes. And I am a website designer. I design on ShowIt & Squarespace. I primarily do websites in a day because I have one and two-year-olds. That is what works best with my schedule. And I also have a couple of courses. One teaches people how to DIY a Squarespace website. I also have an SEO course as well.
Dolly: Awesome. Well, thank you both so much for coming back. I’m excited to be part of today’s topic because, Bekah, this is where you will share your expertise on a design that converts, especially as we’re discussing Black Friday. You will discuss how to design your Black Friday sales page or landing page and elevate your Black Friday offer with strategic copy and branding. So, I’m excited to dive into this topic.
Bekah: Yeah. So, I’ll dive into the first thing: even though I’m a web designer, I love website design. I honestly think copywriting is one of the most important things. So, before designing the sales page, figure out your copy. Let’s say you have already created your offer. If you listened to the last episode, we discussed how many offers you should make for Black Friday and whether it should be a new offer. Hint: it should not be a new offer. So, let’s say you already have your sales page done. That’s great. Email your list quickly and say, if you want to hop on a call with me, it’ll be 10 minutes. I’ll send you a $5 Starbucks gift card. I want to ask a few questions. I think it’s essential to hone in on that copy and their vocabulary, especially if you haven’t seen the sales page for a year, the journey, the buyer journey, 2024 like people are feeling differently. So get on a quick call, get some of their words, and see their pain points and what would push them over the edge to buy. Just see if there are ways you can maybe tweak some of that copy, specifically the copy above the fold. So when people first land on the sales page, the first thing they see is usually the name of the offer or the main thing the offer does. The name of the offer probably won’t change, won’t; maybe what it does, maybe there’s a w that, or you might have a subheading text under or above that addresses a pain point, and perhaps you want to tweak that. So that’s the thing: Is there a way you can play into the emotion of your buyer in 2024 or whatever year it is, and how can you put that emotion above the fold?
Dolly: I love that. Do you have anything to add to that, Mara, especially since you have experience designing landing pages for your clients?
Mara: Yeah, for Black Friday, a lot of the time, you’re reusing assets that you already have, which, if you make a new sales page, that’s incredible, and I’m proud you have the time to do that, but most of us must reuse an existing sales page. So, it’s good to consider what you need to update for Black Friday. So, do you need to add a timer? I bet we’ll talk more about it because timers are usually pretty big, but I’m talking about the countdown at the top of the page. Do you need to change what the price is? Do you need to cross out the price and then say it’s a different thing? Make the Black Friday offer very clear. Sometimes, I see people talking about their Black Friday offer in the email, and then they link to their regular sales page, which says nothing about Black Friday. It says the thing is still $2,000, and maybe if people click to buy, it is discounted, but people don’t know. They don’t over, and they’re like, she was having a sale, but this looks like the same effect sales page, and there’s nothing there sack Friday. So ensure you add a few elements and don’t have to do your whole sales page. You do want to be mindful that you will have to undo all of this in the future. So make it easy for yourself. If you’re using something ShowIt, create a canvas you can duplicate, turn it off, and turn it on. So the day after your sale ends, you can clean everything up, and you’re not the one who, like on Christmas, still has their Black Friday language up on their sales page.
Dolly: Yes, I’ve seen things I have that, and it’s turned me off wanting to buy from that person because I’m like, do they move it together? I don’t know.
Mara: Are they still in business? To me, this happens all the time. I see someone’s page, and they’re like, “I’m in business because their sales page says they have one kid, and now I know they have four, or it says they have a different company, or links are broken.” So, do some housekeeping and make sure everything works. It still looks tidy.
Dolly: I like that. I’m sure you’ll mention it, but I thought of it too. Make sure your mobile is optimized as well because I saw this; I remember this very distinctly; this was about two or three years ago. And for those of you who are OG listeners, you know that there are two sides to my business. I’m a photographer and a systems and workflow educator. I was looking at a sales page for a photography workshop in Montana, my home state. And of course, I was like, I have to go to this. I want to go to this. I love Montana. But then, when I clicked over to the mobile side because I wanted to view it easily from my iPhone, nothing, everything was overlaid. Like, all the text was overlaid. It was like they forgot that people have a smartphone they need to view it on. And so that turned me off. And I was like, I won’t attend this because it’s disorganized. It’s a mess.
BekaIt’seah. And even if you think about Black Friday, I guess. What are you doing on the actual day of Black Friday? Most likely, you’re figuring you’re to buy. We all feel that little increase in anxiety because they were like, whoa, urgency? So you’re looking at you and Amazon and these potential business purchases. Where are you doing that? There’s a good chThere’su’re doing it on your phone. So, make sure it’s mobile optimized, especially if you add different canvases and other sections; Squarespace will automatically adjust it for mobile, but not perfectly. So ensure you check and show it does not change it for mobile. So, check with both of those.
Another thing I thought of, Mara, when you were talking about little things to tweak quickly to make it stand out for Black Friday, both Showit and Squarespace, is that you can put a shape in just a circle. And you can use one of those, you know, those stars with lots of points and do a quick shape that says like on sale, put some text that says on sale, like super easy, but it makes it obvious, and consumers usually know, when we see that it’s a sale type situation. So that’s another way to make it stand out for Black Friday.
Dolly: I love it. Now, how can we help? Okay, listeners, I have to let you know this. We recorded this episode, and it was so juicy, and this is still going to be a juicy episode, but my power went out, and we lost the entire episode. So, I want to ensure that Bekah talks about the importance of “marrying” copy with your “reading because you had some excellent points about copy.
Bekah: Yeah. So, like I said in the beginning, I think copywriting needs to dictate the design. And so I would say, again, that if you already have your sales page, that’s good. Ask some people and see if there are ways to tweak it. I will assume you have branding-like color palettes and fonts so I won’t go into that.
Another thing to consider is that branding is so broad, right? It’s copied; it’s pet’s, it’s its colors, it’s who you are. It’s easy to convey who you are through good photos. And if you’re like, BBekayou’ rodeos do not have the funds to hire a branding photographer right now. Go ahead and grab your cell phone and have a partner take a picture of you looking at the camera. So you’re building your trust factor right off the bat. Smile big and put that photo within one to two scrolls of the top. Suppose you have branding photos; unique.
Use those obviously throughout your sales page. That’s going to be the level of the design. Good copy, that’s going to that sale. Good photos are going to level the design and build that no-trust factor. And so I know we can dive more into pictures if you want, but if you don’t have pictures, there are free platforms like Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels, P-E-X-E-L-S. And you can type in precise information about your industry, I would say. If you are a planner and an integrator, we will use DDollyyou’reexample; maybe you type in a girl working on a planner, like a paper and a pen planner. So, you can use photos that cater to your industry until you have time and money to pay for a brand designer.
Dolly: I love it. Thank you. These are the points I wanted you to discuss and bring up again from our conversation. All right, Bekah. You have spoken about copying and branding and incorporating your branding kit, which is essential because it’s part of your business. But what is it highlighting Black Friday? This is an urgent sale. So, how can you incorporate this into your design?
Bekah: Yeah, so, like we talked, Mara mentioned a countdown timer. Put that in. IIt’ssuper easy. It usually involves a bit of code, but it’s copied and pasted like anybody else. So, the countdown time timer is at the top—that’s a straightforward thing to do. That’s when I already talked about a little icon you could do that says a sale or something like that. Another thing is to communicate the unique value of this being a Black Friday offer. So, I already said, you’re already communicating the excellent value of your product or service or whatever it is, but explain the exclusivity part of it or limited time availability; put that pretty high up on the sales page to motivate your customer to act quickly.
Dolly: I love it. And now, listeners, I know that we had mentioned, Hey, like this is a series that we are doing, and we have a free masterclass about the five trends of 2024 to keep in mind for your next Black Friday sale. But that has, when this episode airs, it is past October 2nd. So we have that masterclass on; you can watch it immediately. I will be sure to link it in the show notes. But I will also say that Mara, Bekah, and I have this simplified Black Friday planning toolkit that we have created, and it is also available for purchase. So, Mara and Bekah, would you mind sharing a little bit about this Black Friday simplified toolkit?
Mara: Yeah, because I’m so excited about this. This is something I wish I had five years ago, you guys. So, I’ll talk about some of the elements I included, but email templates are for your entire Black Friday sale. And Bekah talked a lot about copy. Copy is annoying, right? How many have put something off because starting from a blank Google Doc is terrifying? So we created email templates for the entire sale, the pre-sale where you tell people what you’re selling, and then the actual one you can copy-paste and adjust it so it sounds like you zhush it up so that it talks about your offer. It doesn’t look the same as everyone else’s. Amazing! Is it unique to have all your emails done for you? They’re in a Google Doc, so you can have Google Docs, have everything, and then schedule them.
Dolly: I’m excited about that part. And then, I added the planner portion to this kit, of course. So, if you want a plan for integrating your content into your Black Friday as you’re priming your audience for Instyou, I’ve created a launch plan. I’ve also made a mini-launch plan if you are two weeks out, one week out, and then the week off. And that is where my bread and butter came in, and I’m excited. Of course, I’m on the Tronello board for it. And then there’s also a Google Doc version. Bekah, do you mind sharing what you created for this kit?
Bekah: Yeah, so I did all the design things. So I think one of the things I’m most proud of is the sales page. I didn’t just want to design a pretty landing page but create a sales page that would convert. So, I have places for you to put the countdown timer. I have places that say to put your testimonials here because that’s a massive part of ensuring the sales page converts. I made the call-to-action buttons very clear. Another way to make sure that your sales page converts. So that was my thing. And then I also created Canva templates because I wanted this to be easy for you guys. And so Canva Instagram story templates, Instagram like a carousel. So you can plug and play your colors, and it’ll cater to your branding. And they’ll put in your offer and stuff.
Dolly: And we wanted to help you, the listener, assemble your Black Friday sale in under two hours, honestly. Hopefully, you have the digital product and the service you want to sell that you’ve already created. You’ve already made it. And now, instead of putting it together the night before Black Friday, why not sit down one night this week and a month before when this episode airs? It’s like a month before November. So, it will be a stress-free and more simplified Black Friday. So, I’m excited about this kit. The idea was born because of our DM conversations on Instagram.
Mara: I want people to spend more time eating pie this year and not planning their Black Friday sale. So we tried to make something that is just like copy-paste truly. I keep calling, but it is nearly done for you. Yes, you need to add your name. I need to personalize a few things. But we did about 95 % of the work for you, so you can rest, relax, and eat some pumpkin pie.
Dolly: TThat’strue. And you all, if you’re well, will you? Yes. I’m using this kit on two of my items. I”mo, there you go. To wrap up this episode, I want to know, since we are talking about pies, what your favorite dessert for TThanwhat’sng Mara is? Start with you.
Mara: My gosh, we make pumpkin pie. I had pumpkin pie last night. My husband went to the grocery store, and I had a stressful day. I have two clients launching this week. It’s been great. They’re making money launching. They always have stressful elements, right? So he surprised me with this mini bit of mini-sized pumpkin pie. It was the first one of the season. It was so good—my gosh. And I’m going to eat tons more on TThanksgI’mng.
Dolly: I love it. What about you, Bekah?
Bekah: Ice cream fuels my life. I don’t like fruit, so why don’t I like pumpkin pie? Pumpkin pie also makes for a great breakfast the following day.
Dolly: It does.
Bekah: As you scroll through all the Black Friday sales,
Dolly: Yes, it does. I will also jump on the pumpkin pie train and say pumpkin pie, but not toot my own horn. I make this excellent homemade from scratch. I only make apple pie on Thanksgiving. I do know why I don’t do it year-round, and every time I make it, I like, wow, I’m good at baking, and I do know why I don’t do this more! But I’m done looking forward to the apple pie. So that was just random. I was wondering, and then to wrap up, how listeners can find you, connect with you, work with you, and just like everything: I am at Rebekah Read Creative on all things, primarily Instagram and my website. I have a lot of blog content about SEO, Squarespace, and ShowIt; it is just my entrepreneurial journey. I am also posting very similar stuff on YouTube.
Mara: Yeah, the same. I am at Mara Kucirek on Instagram. And then the same thing for my website. If you type in the URL, you publish behind-the-scenes content. I also do a lot of income reports about what’s working in my business and what’s not working at all. And that’s a lot of content around digital products, courses, what software to use, and all of those questions you wish you could ask someone, which I try to answer.
Dolly: and I love those income reports so much. It’s so natural and makes you rreIt’sble, which I love. So, everyone, thank you so much for listening in. And as a reminder, if you are just now tuning in to episode three, go back and listen to this series all about how to plan a more simplified Black Friday because you should just be enjoying your Thanksgiving weekend with your loved ones and your family. And so, I hope listening in has kept it a little bit more streamlined and simplified for you. Next week, there will be new systems and workflow-related episodes, and I’m excited about the guests I’m interviewing! She will be talking about how to sell and how to create a selling system. So stay tuned until next week. Until then, stay streamlined and magical. You amazing Muggle, You! I will talk to you later. Bye.
