Planning for Q4? Don’t Fall Into These BFCM Traps

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Planning Q4 is no easy task.

The last few years were different, unprecedented, and kind of unstable, to say the least.

I'm not talking only about customer acquisition & retention strategies.

I'm talking about things like the socioeconomic context...

Supply chain...

And everything else that happens behind the scenes for the end customer.

I'm writing this section because these mistakes were made by 8-figure brands.

They are well-established...

They have experience...

They know what they're doing...

And still, this happened.

So I just want you to be aware of this, so it doesn't happen to you too.

Let's go through each of them:

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Mistake #1:

This is a fast-fashion brand.

They produce between 100 and 200 products every.single.week. 🤯

Taking into consideration how they did during Q4 in previous years, and their goals for this one, we proposed a plan.

They typically do very well in October and November, and then sales go down in December.

So we planned the budget for the ad spend accordingly.

Q4 started...
October was great ✅
November was way better than they expected ✅

And when they saw that, they wanted more.

Even though we suggested sticking to the plan and scaling down...

...they wanted to keep the same budget, expecting a similar influx of sales.

What happened?

As you can imagine, sales matched our planned expectations (which were significantly lower than in November).

...even though they spent way more than we had planned. 😱

The consequence?

This company had a really hard time recovering from that hit.

It took them almost the entire Q1 to recover.

So, the lesson here is:

👉 PLAN AHEAD
👉 Don't get ambitious if you cannot back it up with data
👉 And if you do get ambitious, measure and scale down ASAP as if you see it's not working

Mistake #2:

This is a company that sells only one product: belts.

They do great, but last Q4 they suffered a lot.

What happened?

They didn't properly plan the inventory for the holiday season...

...and they ran out too early! 🤦‍♂️

As you can imagine, they learned the lesson, and they started to better forecast the inventory.

Mistake #3:

As we all know, on Black Friday:

Some brands have big discounts...

Others do bundles or limited editions of their products...

But some others, like this apparel brand, used it with the ONLY goal of clearing old inventory.

Although there's nothing wrong with promoting products from previous collections...

...it's not the best use of this peak time if you only do that.

Why?

Well, in many cases, it's the first impression they get from your brand.

So, you'd want to promote great deals, with great products.

And if they are already customers, I guess many people would be disappointed by seeing there's no new product included in the deals.

Now you know these 3 mistakes these brands made, make sure to keep them in mind for this Q4.

I hope this helps you avoid the pitfalls that even big brands encounter. Plan ahead, execute smartly, and make this Q4 your best one yet!