As many of you know I am the founder of Extreme Tan and Smoothies, an indoor tanning concept that has quickly grown to a chain of six tanning and sunless spray tanning salons. Every once in a while I jump on here and post information and announcements in regards to Extreme Tan and Smoothies as a way to offer insight to the small business owners and tanning salon owners that read my blog.
Yesterday marked the coming and going of Black Friday, the ultimate of ultimate of ultimate sales days of the year. Sorry, I had to get all fired up about it, the hype leading up to Black Friday is enough to drive some people mad, and the madness of Black Friday can spark tramplings and brawls or whatever else. Black Friday is the big day!
I know as I waited patiently for our Blackout Tanning event to arrive at 6pm I couldn’t help but wonder what this year would bring in regards to sales, foot traffic and whatever else. There’s no doubt in my mind that I was more anxious this year because we relied solely on social media to market and advertise our Black Friday event, shoe string advertising for small business owners.
Would focusing ONLY on social media and removing TV advertising, our crazy radio commercials and print ads be a costly mistake? Bottom line there wasn’t much I could do about it once Thursday came around, either we were going to have a great event or relying on social media would burn us.
Black Friday Blackout Tanning Event 2010 vs 2009
Leading Up to the Blackout Event
Without really knowing what to expect this year for the Blackout event I wondered if there would be lines in front of any of our locations, last year there were lines at all six locations with the exception of our St. Petersburg tanning salon which was somewhat new at the time. I know I expected big lines at our one “flagship” location, and had high hopes that all of the others would have some kind of line.
At 4:05pm I received a phone call from Kandrabanana, she’s been with Extreme for a while now and she’s worked a few Blackout events so she knows the game. Needless to say she called to let me know that a line had started to form in front of our North Clearwater tanning salon location. That was pretty sweet to hear, a line forming two hours before we open for our Blackout event.
Black Friday Line at Extreme Tan and Smoothies North Clearwater 2010
The good news about early arrivals continued to come in with news that a line had started to form at our Pinellas Park tanning salon and spray tan location, that news came around 4:45pm or so. It was also great news because our Pinellas Park tanning salons is one of our newly built locations in the heart of Pinellas Park, we look to continue growing aggressively in that area which makes this location key for us.
3 Major Black Friday Differences 2009 vs 2010
1. Private Label Tanning Lotion
We cary only our private label tanning lotion line which averages 50% less cost to the customer than the name brand lotions were were carrying last year at this time. We would need double the volume of product to even come close to making as much revenue as last year.
2. Social Media Marketing Only
As I mentioned earlier in this post we relied heavily on radio, print and TV advertising for our Blackout event and marketing campaigns leading up to Black Friday 2009. This year with a limited to ZERO marketing budget we relied solely on social media marketing. Social media marketing outlets included Twitter, Facebook Fan Page and others.
3. Reduced Product Line
Our private label tanning lotion line is still very new and in the development stage, I’ve mentioned in previous posts about private labeling that I would like to see our product reach a line of about 50 tanning lotions. Currently we stock 50% of the variety of tanning lotions that we stocked this time last year and we currently do not offer tanning lotion sample packets.
Extreme Tan and Smoothies Black Friday Results
I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t looking for a 10% increase over 2009 Blackout tanning event sales, especially with news that the lines started to form early. Even with lines forming early I knew that generating the same revenue as last year would be a serious challenge, a lot has changed since the last Black Friday event.
Blackout Event 2010 vs 2009 Sales
Sadly we missed the 10% I like to see in YTD sales growth, but the stores still had an excellent turn out and managed to generate an awesome 8% total sales increase over our 2009 Blackout tanning event.
It’s important to point out that our overall tanning bed tanner count was down by -12% and our new tanning bed customer count was also down by -52%. Please note that neither number represents spray tanning clients. I would attribute the decrease in new tanning bud customers to the lack of radio advertising, as for the amount of tans that we did I really don’t sweat that number as our Blackout event is notorious for our customers purchasing and not tanning that day.
Out the Door
What can I say? I’m humbled that people would stand in front of an Extreme Tan and Smoothies location for 5 minutes waiting for it to open, never mind hours. I am astatic that the stores put up good numbers even with the challenges mentioned above, the power of social media is amazing, but I would be silly not to respect and appreciate the value of mainstream marketing.
Special thanks to everyone that came out for our sixth Blackout tanning event and a very BIG HUGE MASSIVE thanks to everyone that helped get the stores ready for the event and those of you that worked the event. Kick ass job, thank you!
Yesterday marked the coming and going of Black Friday, the ultimate of ultimate of ultimate sales days of the year. Sorry, I had to get all fired up about it, the hype leading up to Black Friday is enough to drive some people mad, and the madness of Black Friday can spark tramplings and brawls or whatever else. Black Friday is the big day!
I know as I waited patiently for our Blackout Tanning event to arrive at 6pm I couldn’t help but wonder what this year would bring in regards to sales, foot traffic and whatever else. There’s no doubt in my mind that I was more anxious this year because we relied solely on social media to market and advertise our Black Friday event, shoe string advertising for small business owners.
Would focusing ONLY on social media and removing TV advertising, our crazy radio commercials and print ads be a costly mistake? Bottom line there wasn’t much I could do about it once Thursday came around, either we were going to have a great event or relying on social media would burn us.
Black Friday Blackout Tanning Event 2010 vs 2009
Leading Up to the Blackout Event
Without really knowing what to expect this year for the Blackout event I wondered if there would be lines in front of any of our locations, last year there were lines at all six locations with the exception of our St. Petersburg tanning salon which was somewhat new at the time. I know I expected big lines at our one “flagship” location, and had high hopes that all of the others would have some kind of line.
At 4:05pm I received a phone call from Kandrabanana, she’s been with Extreme for a while now and she’s worked a few Blackout events so she knows the game. Needless to say she called to let me know that a line had started to form in front of our North Clearwater tanning salon location. That was pretty sweet to hear, a line forming two hours before we open for our Blackout event.
Black Friday Line at Extreme Tan and Smoothies North Clearwater 2010
The good news about early arrivals continued to come in with news that a line had started to form at our Pinellas Park tanning salon and spray tan location, that news came around 4:45pm or so. It was also great news because our Pinellas Park tanning salons is one of our newly built locations in the heart of Pinellas Park, we look to continue growing aggressively in that area which makes this location key for us.
3 Major Black Friday Differences 2009 vs 2010
1. Private Label Tanning Lotion
We cary only our private label tanning lotion line which averages 50% less cost to the customer than the name brand lotions were were carrying last year at this time. We would need double the volume of product to even come close to making as much revenue as last year.
2. Social Media Marketing Only
As I mentioned earlier in this post we relied heavily on radio, print and TV advertising for our Blackout event and marketing campaigns leading up to Black Friday 2009. This year with a limited to ZERO marketing budget we relied solely on social media marketing. Social media marketing outlets included Twitter, Facebook Fan Page and others.
3. Reduced Product Line
Our private label tanning lotion line is still very new and in the development stage, I’ve mentioned in previous posts about private labeling that I would like to see our product reach a line of about 50 tanning lotions. Currently we stock 50% of the variety of tanning lotions that we stocked this time last year and we currently do not offer tanning lotion sample packets.
Extreme Tan and Smoothies Black Friday Results
I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t looking for a 10% increase over 2009 Blackout tanning event sales, especially with news that the lines started to form early. Even with lines forming early I knew that generating the same revenue as last year would be a serious challenge, a lot has changed since the last Black Friday event.
Blackout Event 2010 vs 2009 Sales
Sadly we missed the 10% I like to see in YTD sales growth, but the stores still had an excellent turn out and managed to generate an awesome 8% total sales increase over our 2009 Blackout tanning event.
It’s important to point out that our overall tanning bed tanner count was down by -12% and our new tanning bed customer count was also down by -52%. Please note that neither number represents spray tanning clients. I would attribute the decrease in new tanning bud customers to the lack of radio advertising, as for the amount of tans that we did I really don’t sweat that number as our Blackout event is notorious for our customers purchasing and not tanning that day.
Out the Door
What can I say? I’m humbled that people would stand in front of an Extreme Tan and Smoothies location for 5 minutes waiting for it to open, never mind hours. I am astatic that the stores put up good numbers even with the challenges mentioned above, the power of social media is amazing, but I would be silly not to respect and appreciate the value of mainstream marketing.
Special thanks to everyone that came out for our sixth Blackout tanning event and a very BIG HUGE MASSIVE thanks to everyone that helped get the stores ready for the event and those of you that worked the event. Kick ass job, thank you!
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