Announcing The BFCM Prepathon 2022

Find the events’ highlights, summaries, and news on what’s happening during BFCM Prepathon

If there was ever a time to double down on your efforts to maximize sales on your online store, it is now. Without the big budgets, of course.

The International Monetary Fund reckons “the worst is yet to come” and expects global growth to slide to 2.7% in 2023 (against the projected growth of 3.2%) as the world faces high inflation and a possible recession in sight.

However, our sense of festivities and the desire to buy things can’t be messed with because, despite global conditions, this year’s biggest sales season is all set to grow by 12% over last year. And that means only one thing: It’s time to prepare for the holiday season!

This is why we’re dedicating an entire week to the BFCM Prepathon 2022 to help you accomplish your goals in the coming holiday season and set the stage for a successful 2023!

What Is BFCM Prepathon, Though?

For the uninitiated, it’s a week-long free virtual event that features live expert webinars, talks, panel discussions, and a lot more dedicated to one goal: to help you ace the Black Friday & Cyber Monday sales!

BFCM Prepathon was born in 2021 and included a lineup of expert speakers like Dennis Yu, Paul Boag, Emily Hunkler, and many more. The 5-day event armed digital agencies, online store owners, bloggers, and freelancers who joined us with secrets on how to make online magical. Carrying on the tradition of helping you improve your online presence once again, we’ve invited some incredible people to be part of this year’s BFCM!

So get ready to learn how to grow online from industry experts, influencers, and gurus who will talk on topics like website performance, security, UX/CRO, industry trends, customer trust, etc., all without investing in massive budgets!

Have a look at the event roadmap and the planned sessions you can join:

Ready To Join BFCM Prepathon 2022?

This is your chance to learn how to unleash relentless online growth this BFCM & beyond from leading industry experts. Register and get immense value for free!

Become an Attendee!

The BFCM Prepathon Day 5 – Industry Trends

1st session at 11:15 AM ET

Topic: Tackling Recession and Hyper Competition With Growth Strategy for SMBs
Guests: Adam Smith, Callum Sherwood
Host: Robert Jacobi

Recession and tough economic times can scare several SMBs. This session was all about achieving growth even when the external financial environment becomes challenging.

Tackling Recession and Hyper Competition With Growth Strategy for SMBs (Panel Discussion)

Some key points from the session are:

• Things don’t seem as bad as the 2008 recession. The government looks a little more prepared. The honest answer is that no one can tell where things are headed. But one thing is sure there’ll be new opportunities for people to grow and encash. 
• Director-level decision-makers are quick to cut down the marketing budgets when threats of recession loom. However, that’s actually the time when marketing becomes really vital for businesses.
• It’s harder for bigger agencies to score big-budget clients because of their overhead costs. Small agencies and freelancers can cut costs rather easily.
• Try to trim your resources and save money. Avoid going into debt unnecessarily. Covid has changed the work dynamics a lot. Businesses are now moving towards remote operations and avoiding renting fancy offices. The bottom line- see where you can cut costs and do that!
• It can be difficult for agencies to get new clients to pay upfront. But try and get something upon signing the contract so that your customer also has some skin in the game. Also, risk mitigation is important. Never work for free!
• Be strategic about your geographic location and see which locations are operationally feasible for you. 
• The biggest growth obstacle for agencies in recession times can be managing cashflows. Plus, don’t always be selling, as the ABC (always be closing). Build a community and help people for free. You’ll see people flock towards you because of the value you provide, and you’ll surely get good clients.
• More and more people are looking into content marketing and SEO because Google and Meta have exorbitant ad prices.
• Farming vs. Hunting; upselling to existing customers is always a great way to grow your agency. Plus, do the basics fast. For instance, set up the GMB for your clients. That way they’ll instantly start seeing results.

2nd session at 12:15 PM ET

Topic: How To Pivot Your Marketing Strategy During Uncertain Times
Guests: Dennis Yu
Host: Jan Koch

The right marketing pays off big time. However, with uncertain times anticipated ahead of us, it’s crucial to pivot the marketing strategies in the right direction. This session was insightful and had some invaluable information about marketing that businesses can benefit from.

How To Pivot Your Marketing Strategy During Uncertain Times (2nd Session)

Key points from the session:

• People get scared when times are uncertain. Denis YU, however, feels that such times are exciting because everything is on sale. As a business, you can get cheap labour, better deals, and even great investment opportunities.
• When times are uncertain, any win that you have is doubled down, doesn’t matter how big or small it is. So, build things and go big. Also, don’t sleep on exploring new channels.
• You can also make it big by just focusing on one channel. Dennis shared examples where people don’t even have a proper marketing diversification but just having a great product and focusing on one channel made them millions.
• Sometimes you throw out valuable stuff for free so that people can see the value in your work. Eventually, they’ll pay you to get first-hand access to you. 
• Global sourcing has made things really easy. Alibaba, Amazon FBA, etc., are great ecommerce channels.
• People are becoming lazy. Yu believes that online shopping trends are to increase as time goes by.

3rd session at 12:15 PM ET

Topic: Experts Round-table: Winning Actions To Weather the Recession Storm
Guest: Autumn Morgan, Jacek Blaut, Dominica Ogorek, Stefan Mischook
Host: Brent Weaver

Tough times bring with them new opportunities for growth. This was a round-table discussion where experts discussed so winning actions to sift through the tough recessionary winds.

Experts Round-table: Winning Actions To Weather the Recession Storm

Key points from the discussion:

• There might be some signs that indicate that a recession is incoming. It may not progress toward an economic crash, but yeah, the situation is something to be wary of. There are too many variables to give one simple answer about recession. However, times are a little uncertain, and maintaining caution won’t do any harm.
• Recessions are times when businesses are quick to cut down marketing budgets. But that can be a massive opportunity because maintaining your marketing or even growing it will significantly put you ahead of your competitors. 
• Recessions can induce mass layoffs. People with talent may be ready to work at lower prices than when the economy is right. You can use this opportunity to get good people at discounted prices.
• Also, learn new skills and make yourself indispensable to the company. If the company feels that you are a luxury, they’d be quick to let you go.
• Be careful with where you spend your money. That’s especially a necessity in times of a financial crunch. 
• Work big on conversion rate optimization. The goal is to do all and anything that you can do and should do. Plus, retaining customers is also essential. Your goal should be to offer top-quality services so that the clients keep coming back to you. Maximize on what you can get or are getting.
• Invest in content creation; explore different content creation channels. These can be your quick wins! Also, you can read the book “They Ask You Answer”. The book contains great information which can help you perform better with your customers.
• Entertaining your current customer base is likely the best ROI move for many businesses.

4th Session at 02:15 PM ET

Topic: Lead Gen and Conversion Lessons From 500+ Ecommerce Website Redesigns
Guest: Andy Crestodina
Host: Robert Jacobi

Generating leads and converting the most eyeballs into customers is the dream for all businesses. Andy Crestodina is here to share some powerful findings that can help businesses with lead gen and conversions.

Lead Gen and Conversion Lessons From 500+ Ecommerce Website Redesigns (4th Session)

Key takeaways from the session:

• The goal of the marketing is to take a visitor from the source page to the “Thank you page”. 
• People are at different stages of consideration or funnels when they come to you. Walk them through the journey; satisfy their search intent, and they’re likely to convert.
• Add credibility to your material and work on personalizing things for your clients. Show that your pages are credible by displaying expertise.
• Work on your signup boxes. That’s crucial. The 3 Ps for great signup boxes are:
  • Prominence
  • Promise
  • Proof
• Make your headlines easily understandable. Run it through the backyard BBQ test. If someone asks you on the backyard BBQ “what do you do for a living?” and you tell your website’s headline, will they understand your work or not?
• Avoid slideshows. They’re a distraction. Don’t make people struggle to find valuable content on your site.
• Missing information on your website is the biggest bane. If people can’t get their concerns addressed on your site, they’ll not buy from you. Make sure the important information is exposed to the visitors right away!
• Analyse important data and use it to craft your business strategy.
• Don’t have your pages visually noisy!

What we Learned from Prepathon Day 5:

Day 5, the closing day, was all about standing strong in the face of the anticipated recession and beating uncertainty.

It’s true that tough times can make businesses experience financial crunches, but they also offer unmatched opportunities for growth.  If you are also worried about the anticipated recession then make sure to watch all the sessions held on the last day. You’ll definitely find some actionable tips and insights that you can implement to grow your business. Even in the though times ahead!

The BFCM Prepathon Day 4 – Security

1st Session at 11:15 AM ET

Topic: The Science Behind Iron-Clad Secure Websites
Guests: Igor Hrcek, Milana Cap, Robert Abela, Robert Jacobi
Host: Jan Koch

Secure websites are the need of the time. In fact, Google barely ever ranks any unsecured website these days. This panel discussion contained in-depth points regarding securing websites.

The Science Behind Iron-Clad Secure Websites (1st Session)

Websites that lack security are exposed to countless cyber threats. This session was all about website security, its benefits, and what can be done to tighten it.

Down below are some key points from the panel discussion:

• Leave the HTTP and get the HTTPS certificate. That’s the fastest and easiest way to secure websites.
• Even those who think their websites are insignificant must not take security lightly. Cyber actors with malicious intent can use those websites to attack other websites. That can happen even without your knowledge.
• Restricting administrative privileges to only the key personnel is crucial. If you go on giving access to everyone, then you are putting your website in danger. You can use WP CLI to get better administrative access to your website.
• Avoid shared hosting like a plague. One of the perils of shared hosting is that if one site on the server is attacked, your site becomes vulnerable to attacks too. 
• A secure computer is one that has no internet connection to it. But by having the necessary security protocols in place, you can minimize the risks. Use a strong host, have an HTTPS, use strong passwords, and use 2FA; these things will significantly bring down your chances of getting hacked.
• Make use of staging websites to test the security of your site. You can even make it a monthly practice.

2nd Session at 12:15 PM ET

Topic: The Role of Security in a Successful BFCM Campaign!
Guest: Akshat Choudary
Host: Lee Mathew Jackson

Akshat Choudhary covered a sizeable ground on a website’s security and how crucial it is for a successful BFCM campaign.

The Role of Security in a Successful BFCM Campaign! (2nd Session)

Running a successful BFCM campaign requires a secure website. Else, you’d be leaving money on the table.

Listed below are highlights from the session:

• Updates are the most important part of WordPress security. Every software has bugs that can leave unauthorized entities to access your websites. Keeping your site updated regularly is your first defense against hackers and malicious actors. 
• An ecommerce site is a complex mix of software to give users a supreme shopping experience. Therefore keeping an ecommerce website updated is more important. To give your customers a seamless experience on BFCM, go through all the major updates two weeks prior to the event.
• SafeUpdates will automatically update all the plugins and ensure they are working properly. It’ll save time and reduce stress.
• Bots damage sites quietly. Upto 50% of site visits can be bots. And if you run an ecom store, bots are even damaging because all the backend processing and caching are wasted on bots.
• Increase site performance. The faster your site loads, the better your sales will be. 
• Use Cloudflare enterprise with Cloudways to enhance site performance and even keep fake traffic away.
• Have a disaster recovery plan, and don’t panic if the site goes down.
• Some tips for performing better on D-Day:
  • Have your SSL certificates 
  • Have your credibility badges
  • Test your payment processors
  • Take the necessary backups

Wrapping up the Prepathon Day 4:

Day 4 brought with it some exciting insights about website security. Our guests shared their knowledge about how crucial security is for websites. 

In the last session, we also saw the importance of security for businesses that want to perform great in the upcoming BFCM.

The BFCM Prepathon Day 3 – Performance

1st Session at 11:15 AM ET

Topic: Speed Up Your Store for Holiday Sales – Live WooCommerce Website Optimization!
Guest: Zach Stepek
Host: Jan Koch

A fantastic session between Jan Koch and Zack Stepek, the guest, where he optimizes a Woocommerce store live for the audience. Truly a session that can help you supercharge your Woocommerce stores. 

Go watch the recording right now if you missed the live session!

Speed Up Your Store for Holiday Sales – Live WooCommerce Website Optimization! (1st Session)

Some prominent points from the session were:

• Zack drew a speed comparison between the staging site and the live site. The project that he worked on was blossom.baby. It was built on AWS on the Cloudways platform.
• Zack mentioned the importance of speedy sites. Every 100ms increase in the speed is a 1% reduction in sales.
• Zack used newrelic.com to track speed and other stats for the website. The platform also shows room for improvement and where you can optimize and enhance speeds.
• Elasticpress is a plugin that shows great results for the speed optimization of any website.
• Breeze by Cloudways is a super plugin that can help optimize your website.
• Don’t use third-party fonts. Even if you use Google fonts, copy them locally. That’ll keep your site lighter and help it load faster.
• Breeze configures varnish, which is page caching. You can do object caching with Object Cache Pro via the Cloudways account, which will cache the query from the database. On top of that, the Cloudflare enterprise integration will enable for you the Cloudflare cache, which will further speed up your website.

2nd Session at 12:15 PM ET

Topic: Scoring 100% In PageSpeed Insights to Tackle the BFCM Storm
Guests: Tom Dupuis
Host: Mohammed Moeez and James Lee

Moeez and James took a plunge into Tom’s decade-long experience to extract the best information for our users.

Scoring 100% In PageSpeed Insights to Tackle the BFCM Storm

In this session, the hosts and the guest discussed how to speed up the online platforms for businesses. Here are some key highlights from the session:

• Speed is a significant ranking factor for Google.
• There are three main parts to core vitals that you need to cater to when speeding up your websites. These are:
  • LCP: Largest Contentful Paint (0-2.5 seconds is the ideal range)
  • FID: First Input Delay (0-100ms is the ideal range)
  • CLS: Cumulative Layout Shift (0-0.1 is the ideal range)
• Don’t complicate things. Speeding up the website often starts with looking at the basics. Some basic elements to look at are DNS, Hosting, CDN, Theme, Cache plugin, Plugins, CSS, and JS.

3rd Session at 01:15 PM ET (Panel Discussion)

Topic: Panel Discussion – Top Practices for Blazing Fast Websites
Guests: Bjorn Allpas, Shay Toder, Sabrina Zeidan, Hugh Gibson
Host: Robert Jacobi

An exciting panel discussion that covered all about speeding up the websites. Hosted by Robert Jacobi, each panel member brought top-quality information to the table. You’re really losing out if you missed this session!

Panel Discussion – Top Practices for Blazing Fast Websites (Panel Discussion)

Blazing-fast websites are loved by Google and the site visitors. This panel discussion was all about website speed and how it can make or break online businesses.

Here are some points from the session worth mentioning:

• If a website’s load time exceeds more than 2 seconds, you’ll lose business. 40% of people expect websites to load in under 2 seconds. According to a study by Amazon, if their load time gets slower by just 1 second, they’ll lose $1.6 billion over the course of a year.
• Performance tests for websites should be conducted whenever it requires attention. Continue to lab-test your sites and run them through several analytics tools. If you see anomalies, address them ASAP. You may also run automated scripts to test your or the clients’ site performances.
• The most important tool for testing a site’s performance is Google Search Console because it let’s you manage the Core Vitals. PageSpeed Insights and GT Metrix are some other tools that you can use to test the site.
• Some best recommendations for improving the page speeds are:
  • Reduce the number and size of requests.
  • Use Object Cache Pro and Varnish to speed up the sites.
  • Handle the image sizes, fonts, CSS, third-party scripts, and Javascripts for faster websites. 
  • As a developer, you must always ask yourself- Do I need this thing on the website? Removing unnecessary stuff from the website can pump up its speed.
  • Have a fast hosting provider. All your speeding efforts will go to waste if you use shared hosting.
  • Avoid using page builders and fancy widgets.
• For most websites, shared hosting is not the ideal solution. Ecommerce stores with high traffic can lose sales fast. 
• Check your server sizes and reconsider your hosting services at times when you are expecting high traffic on your websites, for instance, during the holiday season.

What we Learned from Prepathon Day 3:

Day 3 was all about speeding up your websites. We got to know the importance of speedy websites and how slow websites can cost you your precious dollars. 

Also, we got to know about the importance of hosting services. A lot of our guests were of the view that shared hosting isn’t a viable solution for most websites. It can slow down the website, and the chances of crashes are high.

The BFCM Prepathon Day 2 – Revenue and Growth

1st Session at 11:15 AM ET

Topic: Increasing Revenue With “Jobs to be Done” Framework Brand Strategy
Guest: Vassilena Valchanova
Host: Jan Koch

An interesting dialogue between Jan and our guest, Vassilena Valchanova. The session thoroughly covered the “Jobs To Be Done” concept and how it can help businesses increase their revenues.

Increasing Revenue With “Jobs to be Done” Framework Brand Strategy (1st session)

“Jobs To Be Done” is an interesting brand strategy that can help businesses grow and increase their cashflows. Some key takeaways from this session were:

• There are two different perspectives on this framework: 1)Jobs-as-activities and 2)Jobs-as-progress.
• Think from the customer’s perspective- they want the result but don’t want to go through arduous struggles. That’s where you step in to make things easy for them.
• “First thought” is the first step where users need a solution to their problem. They’ll look at options and draw comparisons of the choices they have. They’ll have many triggers in the way, which will eventually get them to buy a product.
• Customer interviews are necessary for the success of any business.
• You should have a thorough research process. Knowing your audience is crucial for your business’s success. Have an elaborate research process by targeting specific customer segments and then interviewing them.
• Churn your data and analyse the problems people have and the outcomes they want. 
• Understand the frustration of your audience and pitch in how you can help.

2nd Session at 12:15 PM ET

Topic: Maximize Your Earnings As a Blogger in 2023 & Beyond
Guest: Ricky Kesler
Host: Robert Jacobi

Blogging, if done right, can be a powerful income stream. This session was an in-depth discussion between Robert and our guest Ricky Kesler on blogging. From newbies to advanced players, there was something for everyone to learn in this session.

Maximize Your Earnings As a Blogger in 2023 & Beyond (2nd session)

Ricky Kesler was a high-energy guest who really touched upon the depths of content marketing. You can find the key highlights from the session down below:

• Marketing is all about identifying a segment of the overall marketplace that’s a good fit for your product and then how you can target that segment in the most cost-effective product.
• To maximize earnings, think about diversifying your income streams and optimizing them. But focus on doing one thing at a time. Distractions can make success difficult for you.
• Don’t try to balance too many things at one time. Multitasking can often decrease your productivity and increase your chances of making mistakes.
• Produce content for the readers. Many blogs post ads on the top, even before the article starts. That can turn off your audience fast.
• Have your own customer lists. Also, try and bring your customers outside of any platform. Social media platforms and even YT have their algorithms updated repeatedly. If you simply rely on them for business, you may fall victim to changing algorithms.
• Having your own customers will minimize risks for you.
• Customer value is greater than returns on investments (ROI).

3rd Session at 01:15 PM ET

Topic: 5-Step Process For Closing Bigger Agency Retainers
Guest: Jason Swenk
Host: Brent Weaver

An amazing and engaging discussion between Brent and Jason Swenk. Jason covered his slides pretty quickly and got to the Q&A session, where Brent asked some exciting questions. 

There surely was some unconventional information in the session that can help agencies close big retainer clients.

5-Step Process For Closing Bigger Agency Retainers (3rd Session)

Another exciting session for the day revolved around growing the agencies. Jason Swenk gave some really simple yet powerful tips that agency owners can implement and grow their businesses. Here are some prominent snippets of the session for you:

• Get the attention of your audience. Don’t just start selling like a sleazy salesman from the first moment. Grab attention by building trust and genuinely educating the audience about something that matters to them.
• Ask the right questions so that they see you as “THE OPTION” rather than just another option.
• Don’t sell, prescribe!
  Show your audience the benefits they’ll get by booking monthly retainers for your services. 
• Take inputs from your audience. Help them build a plan and make them feel that they built it up. That way, they feel they are in control and will love the work.
• Work with someone who doesn’t know how to do something or doesn’t have the time to do it. If your prospect is looking for someone who’ll simply take orders- RUN!
• Don’t work with clients who don’t have a budget. Also, bring up the budget early on so you don’t get stuck with bad prospects or clients. 
• Find out who’s the decision maker and get them in the picture as early as possible.

4th Session at 02:15 PM ET

Topic: Agency Sales Framework — Sales Don’t Just Happen. You Create Them
Guest: Clifford Almeida
Host: Brent Weaver

This session was all about how agencies can scale up. Clifford Almeida, the guest, is an agency owner and has helped several agencies grow their businesses. In the conversation between him and Brent, he sifted through over a decade’s experience and shared some solid, implementable insights that can deliver excellent results.

Agency Sales Framework — Sales Don’t Just Happen. You Create Them (4th Session)

This conversation between Brent and Clifford had some solid techniques for online businesses, including agencies and ecommerce stores, to make great sales.

Prominent points out of the session:

• Have a pre-sales qualification process. Not every lead is a good fit for your business. Ask your leads the right questions to see if they are the right fit. If not, see if you can do anything to make them a good fit. And if that’s not a possibility, point them in the right direction.
• Prepare for the sales call. Having a plan increases your chances of closing the sales. If you go unprepared, you’re likely to lose sales. 
• Follow the V4 Framework- Visibility, Value, Vision, Validation. (Do go through the recorded session to understand this concept thoroughly).
•  Communicate your process with the clients. That’ll help them see the value in your work, and that way, you can justify your prices. 
• A No isn’t always a no with clients. Sometimes, the clients don’t want a service because of their negative past experiences. Probe a little and see if you can truly show them the difference between you and other services.
• You get to control your sales process and the trajectory of your business. 
• Set up annual strategy calls with your existing clients.

Learnings from Prepathon Day 2:

Prepathon Day 2 was all about revenues and growth. 

Our esteemed guests managed to pack their years’ worth of experience in four hour-long sessions. Several growth models were shared in the sessions. Go through them and see what growth and revenue advice sits best with your business.

If we were to pack today’s sessions into just 5 points it’d be:

• Identify the perfect audience fit for your product and then search for the cheapest way to address them.
• Ask the right questions so that they see you as “THE OPTION” rather than just another option.
• Have a pre-sales qualification process. Not every lead is a good fit for your business. Ask your leads the right questions to see if they are the right fit.
• Managing too many things at once can be detrimental to your business.
• Prepare and attack!

The BFCM Prepathon Day 1 – Marketing

1st Session at 9:30 AM ET

Topic: How CVO is Fixing Ecommerce Stores
Guest: Valentine Radu
Host: Jan Koch

This was a high-energy session between Valentine Radu and Jan Koch, where they talked about How CVO is Fixing Ecommerce Stores. Both these personalities have a broad experience in the ecommerce niche and shared some powerful insights in the session to grow your ecommerce store.

How CVO is Fixing Ecommerce Stores (1st Session)

Here’s a summary of how the first session went between our guest, Valentine Radu, and our host, Jan Koch. The conversation carried powerful insights about customer value optimization and how it can help ecommerce businesses.

Learnings From the First Session:

• You don’t just sell the product. You also sell the experience that’s wrapped around the product.
• Store owners shouldn’t think that their work is done after the sale is made. After-sales experiences are crucial for customer optimization value.
• Go big on customer research. You should know who you are selling to. Else, you are just taking a shot in the dark with your store.
• Segmentation is important to grow the business. Everyone is not your customer!
• Retarget customers based on the last purchase they made. Also, try selling them complimentary products.
• Don’t miss out on the analytics. Use Google Analytics and other tools to track customers’ behaviours and plan relevant strategies to target them.
• Track pre-delivery and post-delivery NPS churn.

Some bits of advice from Valentine Radu to get great results:

• Find out what’s broken and fix it.
• Do something transformational for your customers.
• The three dots to better customer acquisition, retention, and NPS are:
  • 1st party data
  • RFM segmentation and insights generation
  • Generating actions and automation to improve customer lifetime value (CLV)
• Leverage price elasticity to your favour. There’s a strategy called the gate-launch. Here you make your members exclusive and engage with them. You can do so by creating a members-only campaign, for instance, where you offer discounts.
• Don’t miss out on package inserts. It’s a cheap way to do personalized marketing, increase CLV, and do relevant cross-sells.
• Do have enriched customer profiles. It’s important.
• Allow people to make wishlists prior to the event. This will be an implementation of the Zeigarnik Effect, which says that people remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed ones.

2nd Session at 12:15 PM ET

Topic: How Women Are Impacting the Digital World
Guests: Reese Spykerman, Pia Silva, Raluca Radu, Milada Vukovic
Host: Oksana Danshyna, Milada Vukovic

Our guests for this session were some of the most accomplished females in the digital marketing world. The session was hosted by Oksana Danshyna, where she dived deep into the experiences of the guests and tried to get peculiar details about the role of women in the digital space.

How Women Are Impacting the Digital World (2nd Session)

Our female guests and the hosts, Oksana Danshyna and Milada Vukovic, had a light-hearted and insightful discussion about how women are impacting the digital world.

Highlights from this session were:

• The guests shared their stories behind their entrance into the digital world. Most got in to become independent digital workers and avoid the 9-5 routines. These ladies feel a sense of freedom in working for themselves rather than for someone else.
• The digital world has evolved a lot. A few years back, people in the digital world or ecommerce store owners were considered ‘renegades’. But now, everyone seems to have caught up with the scene.
• Search engines have evolved as well. Ranking on Google or standing out digitally wasn’t a tricky feat previously. But now, it’s a mountainous task to handle.
• Be agile and ready to try new things. The digital landscape is fast. What works today may not work in 6 months. The key is to keep adapting to the changes in the digital landscape if you don’t want to be left behind.
• If you want to get results, you have to understand people. Marketing isn’t just a number game. Until you understand your customers, you are far away from success.
• Social media has reduced the distance between customers and brands. Businesses can now get testimonials from customers and resolve their queries hands-on.
• The google market finder tool can help you find new markets for operating businesses. You need to use tools to get data and then analyse it to get results.
• Personal branding is important. It can also empower other women to enter into digital marketing and pursue it as a career.
• Anyone can put up a fancy website and have a face social media presence. But to differentiate yourself, you need to have a unique approach or philosophy. Plus, use client testimonials in your favour and build the trust of potential clients.
• Your testimonials will also help you find clients.

What successful strategies did the guests develop and implement to find clients?

• For Pia Silva, the best thing that she did was write a book. She wrote it five years back and still gets clients based on her work. Her book serves as the foundational work for all her other works.
• For Raluca, it’s producing evergreen content that pays off in the long run.
• For Reese, a targeted landing page is what works well for her. She believes it works for ecommerce and service-based businesses as well.

Some words of encouragement for women who aspire to be future leaders in the digital space:

• Supporting positive talks on empowering women in the digital space is important.
• Several mothers are in top positions, and negative talks regarding having a family side by side with a career can discourage them. We should be really supportive, and men should play active roles in looking after their families.
• There shouldn’t be a perfect image for women that portrays them as Wonderwomen.
• Have a balance in your life. Carve your own path. It is possible to have a balanced career and a great life.
• Women must also support each other and break the stereotypes of the perfect image.
• Being honest and transparent is important so that women can feel like they can be leaders without following the grand facade of you being a superwoman.

3rd Session at 2:15 PM ET

Topic: Marketing Strategies That Maximize BFCM Revenue
Guest: Racula Radu
Host: Brent Weaver

In this session, Brent Weaver, the host, had a dialogue with Racula Radu and tried to scoop out some profitable and implementable ecommerce strategies for this holiday season.

Marketing Strategies That Maximize BFCM Revenue (3rd Session)

Here’s the summary of our third session, which was an information-packed dialogue between our host Brent Weaver and the guest speaker Racula Radu:

• Knowing your ideal buyer’s persona is crucial if you actually want to make progress and cut down the guesswork.
• Analysing your historical data can help you figure out your strengths and weaknesses. You can then proceed based on your analysis.
• Analyse your direct competitors and see what they do.
• Proceed with a strategy revolving around your BFCM campaign. Do you want to acquire new customers? Do you want to target repeat customers?
• Knowing your buyer’s persona should sit at the base of all your BFCM strategies.
• Highlight your USPs. Don’t just try to sell the products by accentuating discounts. You must also tell people the benefits they’ll get by purchasing a product from you.
• BFCM is all about discounts, so your discounts won’t be a point of attraction for the customers.
• Define your branding goals:
  • Do you want to draw attention?
  • Do you want to convince the user for something?
  • Do you want to stand out from the crowd?

Some actionable points for you to take away from the session:

• Go in with a strategy but be open to making changes on the way to get better results.
• There’s no one size fits all policy with BFCM marketing.
• Trends show that people are preparing for the BFCM beforehand. Because of the recent economic downturn, people are planning to buy necessities, and we might see less emotional buying this time. Brands and businesses should craft their marketing strategies accordingly.
• People buy with emotion and rationalize it later.
• One Ninja move for success that our guest mentioned- don’t rely simply on past successes. Be open to exploring new recipes for success. What worked before may not work today because audiences evolve. Your task is to go where they are active and receptive to your message.

Learnings from Prepathon Day 1:

The first Prepathon Day was all about establishing successful marketing campaigns for BFCM. All 3 sessions were packed with great marketing insights. Some were points of direct action and strictly pertinent to the BFCM, while others long-term strategies for success. Looking forward to the upcoming year, BFCM Prepathon promises to deliver even more invaluable strategies and tactics to elevate your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns. Stay tuned for this event that’s sure to be packed with exclusive offers and expert advice. Don’t miss out on BFCM Prepathon!

Special thanks to our hosts for asking questions that demanded valuable outputs. If we were to sum up everything in just 5 points, it’d be:

• Know your audience. Don’t go selling things to people without defining your ideal buyer’s persona.
• Don’t just focus on the numbers; focus on people. That’s how you build successful brands.
• Don’t end the buyer’s journey simply after the purchase is made. Make sure they have a great experience even after that.
• Trends are your friends. Follow the trends to approach your audiences better and provide them with what they want.
• Don’t simply sell at a discount. Show people what’s in it for them.