Business Day Thursday: How To Make $12,000 Over A Weekend!

Good Afternoon Everybody,

Tomorrow at this time we hope to be in sunny, warm Florida.  I hear the weather is supposed to be good for our southern visit. Today we are playing catch-up on lots a small things – that pile has gotten quite large over the last week so our easy week just got busy. That said, why don’t we get on with today’s post.

How To Make $12,000 Over A Weekend!

OK, I knew the title would grab you. But, it is true – that’s exactly what happened with friends of ours, Mark Garber and Jennifer Gilman Garber when they ran their Black Friday promotion after the Thanksgiving. Their promotion netted them $12,000 in new sales – not bad.

Here is the back story. Mark and Jennifer, owners of Mark Garber Photography [link], a very successful studio operating in Springfield, Ohio, decided they wanted to do more than just have the same old holiday sale.  They wanted to see if they could kick it up a notch, get their clients to notice, but more importantly – get their clients to buy!

These days clients are not motivated by a small 15%-20% discount.  They want “big bucks” savings.  This has never been so conclusively proven than with the explosion of Groupon members [link] – over 9,000,000 strong in over two years!  Big discounts lead to big results.

Hey, it was just the beginning of the holiday season so they thought, “Why not give the Black Friday/Cyber Monday” thing a try. It worked beyond their wildest expectations!

Hit the “Read More…” link below for the rest of the story.

Mark outlined their plan to me as follows:

1. They wanted to take part in that frenetic spending spree lovingly known as Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

2.  It had to be one “kick butt” deal that would make folks jump at the offer.

3. It was only going to last from Black Friday to Cyber Monday at midnight – 11/26 to 11/29 – one 4 day window to pick up the super deals.

4. They didn’t want to give the “store” away, just part of the store.

5. The discount had to turn heads – how about 50% OFF!!!

And now the PLAN:

They contacted the image hosting company and requested that all 2010 jobs – portraits, weddings, high school seniors, etc. be made “live” on line for that 4 day stretch.

Next they reduced by half the pricing on their 8x10s, 5x7s, and 4x6 prints across the board.

The next part was easy, they collected the email addresses of everyone that previously placed any kind of order from the 2010 jobs. They were readily accessible in their hosting company’s database.

The final part of the plan was to create an email promo that notified all their 2010 customers and pitched the Black Friday/Cyber Monday offer of 50% OFF all prints 8x10 and smaller.

You can check out the wording of their special offer at their blog right here.  While you’re there, check out all their great images too – very beautiful.

I just spoke to Mark and he said the promo created a “feeding frenzy” among his customers.  When the dust settled on midnight Monday, they had netted just shy of $12,000 in sales!!!

Does anyone other than Mark and me think that his would be a great kick off promotion for the start of the New Year when times are slow?  It’s a great idea with tremendous possibilities – just go out and work the plan.

Mark and Jennifer did a great program at Imaging USA earlier this year and are scheduled for 6 programs around the country this year.  You won’t want to miss them if they comes to a city near you.

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today.  I haven’t moved from this computer since 7 a.m. and still need to pack the gear for our trip tomorrow so I’m out of here.

Everybody have a great rest of the day and I’ll see you tomorrow with my New Years wishes.

See ya’ then,  David