The Art of Naming a Sale – And Getting Higher Sales

What do you want to bet that every Thanksgiving celebration
in America had some kind of conversation around “are you shopping Black Friday
sales?”  A simple little question that
could kick off a flurry of opinions.

Robert Passilkov commented recently in his Wall Street
Journal article that sales over the holiday weekend were strong not just only
on the dreaded and adored Black Friday, but through the rest of the weekend.
And that didn’t factor in the presumed $1+ billion spent on Cyber
Monday. 

His tongue-in-cheek argument is that with earlier and
earlier advertising and store openings, along with our increased comfort with
on-line shopping, we might as well name this season’s shopping phenomena
something with wider descriptive power. 
His idea is “Super Cyber Brick-and-Mortar Lowest Prices Shopping Month”
though he welcomes others.

Passilkov’s point is well taken.  Black Friday has come to mean something
bigger than just the sales offered on the day after Thanksgiving.  But they do mean savings. And that’s what
your sale name should do as well.

We’ve had the occasion to name sales that didn’t have much
behind them.  “Spring Spectacular” has
come to symbolize a nothing event in our offices.  And while seasonally named events usually
drives numbers, there are typically lower than the ones we like to help
generate for our clients.

We know that the customers need a reason to shop. They need
to believe that you’re doing your event for a reason.  Clearances are good, but they have to be a
clearance.  What we see working are
expansions, contractions, manufacturers’ close-outs, overstocks and the
like.  But you can’t tell the customer
something that isn’t true.

The challenge is to make it real. Keep your advertising and
marketing people working to drive an event that resounds with common sense.
Find a way to drive customers in with a message that pushes them off the fence
about purchasing. And then deliver something exciting when they walk in the
door.

Tough? Yes. Doing it 52 weeks a year? Even tougher. But it's worth the extra effort to give your sale a name that means something to customers and gives them a reason to shop now. 

Michael Morin, Playing the Name Game

 

 

 

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