Last week, our Slack got inspired by a tweet from Jesse Pujji: “What’s BFCM? Wrong answers only.”

So we wish you a happy…

• Best Fried Chicken Meal,
• Blankets For Cold Men or
• Big Foot Comforts Me!

+ we’re taking next week off for a belated Thanksgiving — see you in December 👋

This loaf of Raisin Bread is brought to you by… Hopin.

Planning an event for Q1?

Look, running an event, in person or online, is no easy feat –– especially one that you AND your guests actually enjoy. 

Hopin has helped hundreds of companies produce world-class events again and again and again. 

So much so that they have a secret playbook to make it work –– and you can get it, for free. 

It’s fully-customizable for any virtual, hybrid, or in-person experience, and it will help you and your team get some much needed peace this holiday season. 

EXPERT Q&A

The BFCM forecast looks... sunny?!

Phillip Akhzar’s 2021 BFCM is already over. 

He’s the founder of Arka, which makes custom, sustainable packaging for e-comm clients — and as a B2B provider, he’s upstream from the biggest shopping day of the year. 

He could fill orders for Black Friday packaging last month, but November stragglers will get unbranded packaging, if anything. 

“They came too late,” Akhzar said.

So, how was Arka’s Black Friday rush — and what does that mean for B2C Black Friday this weekend? Here’s Akhzar’s take.

It's slated to set e-comm revenue records. 

This year’s online Black Friday sales will clear $200B, Adobe forecasts — and beat 2020’s record-setting BFCM e-comm revenues by about 10%.

Even when you factor in the 6.2% inflation the U.S. saw from October 2020 to October 2021, that’s YoY growth!

Tangled supply chains mean higher prices. 

Akhzar felt it in his dealings with paper suppliers this year; Arka had to switch mid-year when their supplier fell behind.

Arka’s entire supply chain is in the States — but clogged ports mean domestic suppliers see surging demand, and raise prices [checks notes] 16X more often than usual?!

“There’s been four prices in the last year, which is tremendous,” Akhzar said. “We typically see one increase in four years.”

But Black Friday sales are still standard. 

We’ve heard rumblings that they might not make sense this year, but Akhzar’s clients are all running BFCM sales.

Arka is even running one, starting Thanksgiving night. “It’s like 101 to be running a sale,” he said. 

This year, a BFCM sale could kickstart holiday demand that you can’t capitalize on, due to supply chain or shipping snafus — but Akhzar still sees it as worthwhile.

Long-term, “it’s a cost of customer acquisition,” he said. 

As long as you communicate clearly and proactively about any holiday season logistical issues, “LTV will make up for it.”

Our takeaway? 

Marketers in e-comm can win big this BFCM following a pretty traditional playbook — as long as they plan ahead and communicate well.

Akhzar estimates that 75% of e-comm teams are ready to do just this. To the unbothered minority flying by the seat of their pants: Good luck this weekend! 😬

TWEET TREAT

Ocean Spray's laid-back Thanksgiving strategy

Every Thanksgiving week since 2004, “Ocean Spray” (and “cranberry sauce”) have seen a surge in organic search interest. 

This year, it kicked off early, with an earned Twitter mention on the 9th that got 6K+ RTs.

The cranberry brand (crand?) is playing it cool, though, as far as we can tell.

3 things Ocean Spray isn’t doing this holiday season 

• Retweeting this tweet. Ocean Spray’s Twitter never RTs, and QTs sporadically. The tweet above didn’t make the cut… though the Boston Bruins’ JetBlue spon did. 🤔

• Boosting organic social posts (noticeably). Ocean Spray’s Twitter hasn’t broken 10 RTs since September, and its TikTok hasn’t broken 50K views since August. 

• Working with Nathan Apodaca. In 2020, @420doggface208 made Ocean Spray a viral TikTok sensation — but they don’t seem to have collaborated with him since this year's Super Bowl. 

Our takeaway?

When your brand is basically synonymous with Thanksgiving, you can afford to sit back and relax as BFCM approaches — unlike everyone else. 

But we want to see Apodaca eat a slice of cranberry sauce on his skateboard! Maybe on Thursday. 

SMALL BITES

Scannable fridges, shoppable TikToks and ugly sweaters…

Can social commerce take off on ad-averse TikTok?

Scan whatever’s in your fridge with Snapchat, and get recipe recs.

On Insta, you can now delete one carousel photo without deleting the post. 

Keith Rabois’ OpenStore buys Shopify brands in bulk (and optimizes ad spend).

Want your employer brand to resonate with Gen Z? Pay them well. 

Out of home ads … now in 3-D!

SEO news: Google broke out a PageSpeed Insights section for Core Web Vitals. 

Instagram’s marketing to young people is under investigation. 🧐

Colonel Sanders may not be long for KFC’s signage. 

If you want an American Horror Story holiday sweater, Hulu’s got you.

FROM OUR BLOG

How to pick your startup’s marketing channels, according to Maven’s CEO

Gagan Biyani knows a thing or two about startups. To date, he’s co-founded:

• Udemy, a $3B online education platform
• Sprig, a food delivery platform
• Maven, his second edtech venture — which just raised $20M

One error he’s learned to avoid: picking marketing channels just because they’re trendy. (Clubhouse, anyone?) 

Instead, he uses a three-step “bottoms-up” process to pick the right channels for his audience.

1. Reach out to customers. 

Not just people in the funnel — people who actually bought from his company, ideally more than once. 

2. Ask the right questions. 

He asks questions about their shopping process and customer journey, like… 

• Where do you get information about my company’s product category? 
• How did you previously manage the problem my product solves? 
• How did you first hear about my product?

3. Look for trends. 

The most common ways customers learn about his product category, and his product specifically — those are his future marketing channels. 

Even if they’re not new or buzzy.

For more of Biyani’s field-tested startup marketing insights, check our blog. 

DATA SNACK

Why 2017 was a turning point for QR codes

According to a survey by The Drum and YouGov, the majority of US consumers expect QR codes to be a permanent part of using their phones.

How did we get here?

It wasn’t just the pandemic’s QR code menus. Back in 2017, Snapchat and Apple launched key integrations that paved the way for today’s QR code renaissance. 

Snapchat introduced “Snapcodes.”

In January 2017, Snapchat launched Snapcodes — Snapchat-branded QR codes users could post online or print out, that linked to customizable URLs. 

They were a potent marketing tool: Starbucks tested the feature in stores, and 27% of visitors downloaded the Starbucks app through Snapchat. 

Apple made the camera app into a QR code reader.

In June 2017, Apple updated its camera app in the iOS 11 beta to scan QR codes. Forbes wrote that the update “changes the rules of marketing.” 

It made QR codes accessible to the 700M global iPhone users, without a third-party app — and that feature is still around. 

Our takeaway?

These days, QR codes are essential to digital marketing (and digital life) — and we have Snapcodes and iPhone cameras to thank.

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