Should you use ‘Black Friday’, as a marketing strategy for your window cleaning business?

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Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of November). Since 1932, it has been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the U.S., and most major retailers open very early (and more recently during overnight hours) and offer promotional sales. As always when America gets the snivels the UK catches the Cold, eventually. Recently, UK companies have jumped onto the Black Friday bandwagon. Sky TV is offering Black Friday deals on their box sets for example.

Historically, almost all stores come out with door busting sales discounts with early bird specials to attract consumers to their stores. People stand in line for hours before the stores are opened, to grab the bargain of the year. Almost every store has something that interests everyone. For bargain hunters, if there is a biggest festival in a year, that would be, no doubt, the Black Friday. In the last few years (starting from 2013 to be precise), Black Friday Sales have started way before Friday-with some stores starting their Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Day & some even starting on Wednesday. It would not be surprising to see Black Friday sale starting from Monday on that week. Therefore, revenue wise this is NOT the best day for stores. Biggest sales day now include Thanksgiving Day, Green Monday and Cyber Monday.

Retail here in the UK, Black Friday was used for stores wanting to get rid of stock with the added benefit of receiving a much needed winter cash injection. Black Friday was given the name as the colour for when the stores ledger moved out from the red into the black.

So then should you use this as a marketing tool in your window cleaning business? Window Cleaning Magazine thinks not.

The problem with these stores offering Black Friday deals, especially the smaller ones that jump onto the bandwagon, is that they will attract the ‘bargain hunter’. Bargain hunting shoppers are an astute bunch and will hold out for these bargains if they smell blood. The result is, a lot of stock sold at a heavily discounted value and poor sales for the rest of the year. Even now some stores are considering spreading their discounts throughout the year.

We believe that you should avoid discounting your business services or products. As a business, discounting will certainly attract the wrong type of customer, the bargain hunter, the customer that wants to save £2 on their window cleaning. This is not the right customer for your business. This is a business model that may slow down your business growth, and have you working double time on top.

So what can you do? If discounting is a form of enticement you feel is right for your business, then it should be structured where the discount brings in value rather than less value.

A firm favorite idea for us, is the concept of adding value to your window cleaning service instead. This could be as simple as saying; “We provide a window cleaning service with the latest window cleaning water fed poles. We clean your frames free of charge at the same time as your windows on every visit”.

Think business smart, because de-valuing your service is not smart business.

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