On September 9 when every e-commerce store was offering huge discounts, 20%, 50%, or more, we were doing the opposite — charging customers more.
In fact, we are against offering big discounts for the following reasons:
• It hurts our brand to be cutting prices.
• We want people to be coming to us for the right reasons (not cheap food).
• As Grain values nutritious and high-quality ingredients, costs are naturally higher and we cannot offer crazy discounts like most can.
In short, there’s little gain in following what they do. With that, I decided to give ourselves zero discount budget while still doing something on the big day.
We did a markup sale
All the useless (when taken out of context) things we could find in the office, we sold them at $99. Things like keys that open nothing, stickers that indicate you’re COVID-19 free, handwritten note with signature, etc.
To spice things up, we sent out a teaser, gave each product a proper name and story, and allowed people to buy them. And people actually bought them (oh, we love our customers).
With a $0 budget, this campaign led to a 225% increase in users.
We later extended the lifetime value of these customers and thanked them by offering them $99 worth of vouchers. Overall, this campaign got us good traction and improved engagement. It also gave us an opportunity to showcase our personality — without any extra budget.
Telling a story through sales events
Sales events like this are not only good for boosting revenue but a great tool to build the brand and increase engagement. And if you do it right, it can still bring in good revenue! Two brands who’ve nailed this are Patagonia and Cards Against Humanity.
Patagonia, an outdoor clothing brand, is a steward of the environment. Instead of offering discounts on Black Friday, the brand ran a “Don’t buy this jacket” campaign in 2011 telling consumers to buy responsibly and only replace when needed. This builds on the fact that their products are built to last.
They even went further to donate all sales on Black Friday to environmental causes. This campaign and their overall marketing strategy built a strong community around the brand and led to a 30% increase in revenue in 2012.
Cards Against Humanity is my all-time favourite troll brand. They sell adult party games — that are sometimes offensive — and they’re (in?)famous for their creative Black Friday campaigns like raising money to dig a hole during their pointless Holiday Hole campaign—it raised over $100k and they set up a live stream of the digging on YouTube.
Not every brand can pull this off, CAH can do this because it is in line with their brand values and their target audience are people who can take these jokes, and in fact, welcome them.
Successful campaigns don’t need big budgets. Think creative! If you’ve any feedback, do share it with me at sushi.growth@gmail.com.
