Welcome to Your Content Should Sell, a newsletter that gives you practicals about creating content for your brand.

Another Black Friday is in the books.

I hope you survived while still spending time with friends and family.

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So much effort goes into BFCM weekend, but life goes on, and you need to keep moving.

Though you have pushed a lot on your ads and creative to get through BFCM, you still have from now until Christmas to keep selling.

On top of that, you need to start planning for 2023.

In today's newsletter, we will discuss:

• How to debrief from BFCM

• How to win between now and Christmas

• How to start planning for 2023

1. How to debrief from BFCM

This week is the perfect time to review your performance from BFCM while everything is fresh in your memory.

Organization Performance

If you have read enough of my newsletters, you know how important organization and team roles are to content creation and ad performance. That being said, take a look at your organization for BFCM. 

• Was your team overburdened, or did your team have the capacity to meet the demands?

• Did any systems or communications break down during the stress on your organization?

• Were your team and content prepared, or did you find yourself changing a lot at the last minute?

Because this time is usually the busiest for many brands and companies, you start to see if your organization has the capacity for more or if your systems are breaking down. Yes, there needs to be a little more hustle in Q4, but as a leader, how can you be better prepared next year for BFCM?

Ad Performance

BFCM is not a guaranteed win.

I know some brands that underperformed their targets. Slapping BFCM discounts on an ad doesn't equal a good ad. Spend some time in the data to see what you can learn.

• Were there any surprises or outliers (good or bad) when it comes to ad performance?

• If you tested different landing pages, was there one that stood out the most in terms of conversion?

• In terms of media mix, was there a type of ad that performed better, like statics versus videos?

• Did you run evergreen content versus BFCM-specific ads? If so, did you see one or the other perform better?

• Did you find any messaging that performed better than others?

• What were your top three hooks, and why do you think they worked so well?

Many of these findings can help you for next year, but they can also help you adapt your ad account TODAY!

Since you spent a lot of money, you likely have good and bad findings to take back and build a better creative strategy.

Organic Socials Performance

Don't sleep on organic and its importance in activating your existing customers and fans.

• What was your posting schedule and cadence? Was there a difference compared to a typical weekend?

• Did anything jump out to you regarding performance, comments, or customer messages?

• What were common questions about the product that you received?

Organic social is a great place to interact with customers and learn more about their thinking. If you received many similar questions, something is missing in your messaging and content. You can start to learn the psychology of the customer for future content in 2023.

(P.S. You should do this review for all channels, but I am not an expert on channels like email, so I won't speak on it)

2. How to win the rest of the holiday season

As I said, you probably learned A LOT from this past weekend.

Even though you might not be running promotions and discounts, you can still acquire customers at this time. 

The people that didn't buy may not have been fully convinced or did not see your deal. Because of that, you need to focus on educational ads and helping the viewer understand how your product is needed in their life.

You can't rely on a discount to get the click.

You need to focus on messaging.

Lucky for you, by reviewing your ad performance and organic content, you should start to see messaging that performed well and opportunities to answer any common questions/hesitations from viewers.

I suggest whipping up some static ads to get this new messaging tested and dialed in.

Once you get some winners, make a few videos with those winning angles and messaging to close out a strong Q4.

The best resource for ad buying and growth

As my team planned out content for BFCM with clients, I relied heavily on the Foxwell Founder's membership. The group was talking about BFCM back in September, which helped Goodo Studios perform well for clients during BFCM.

Within moments of joining the community, I had access to hundreds of hours of training and immediately got my money's worth within a few hours.

This community consists of 400+ top minds in DTC with channels for media buying, CRO, Google ads, creative, and more.

Use code MATTSCODE for 10% off anything - the membership, the courses, whatever! And enjoy.

3. Preparing for 2023

2022 was hard for many brands, and to be quite honest, I see 2023 being even harder.

I am preparing for a very bad economy.

If I am wrong, great!

If I am right, I'll be prepared, and so should you.

I want to break down the year into three sections, product launches, organic content, and ad creative.

Product Launches

As you go into 2023, you might have product launches prepared, new packaging, or a need for a refresh of photos and videos.

Start planning launch dates and work back a few months to prepare bigger productions like photography and videography.

Brand assets are necessary for websites, ads, social, email, and more, and you don't want to rush the creation.

Start talking to studios (hi, here to help you) on pricing, campaigns, and dates to lock in the work.

Organic Content

I had coffee with Eric Bandholz, Founder of Beardbrand, and we talked about the power of organic content and how they have built their brand on mainly just organic content.

I say this all the time; you need to invest in consistent organic content creation.

It takes time to grow, but the effects are incredible.

As you enter a new year, it is essential to build a strategy and plan to create.

Ad costs are rising, and you need to stand out online. Organic channels where your ideal customer is, you need to be creating.

I will be doing a newsletter on this topic soon, but 2023 is the year brands need organic channels more than ever.

Ad Performance

In the last two years, we have seen brands test a high quantity of ads.

What I expect in 2023 is the number of ads to go down as budgets shrink and ad costs go up. Instead, there will be a push to focus more on quality than quantity.

That being said, every test matters, so if you don't have a creative strategist or a team to help you dial in your testing, let alone the content creation, you will not make it.

December is a great time to shop around to find the right ad creative team that also offers creative strategy.

My goal has been and will always be to help brands grow profitably, establish their creative strategy, and make content that stops people in their tracks.

My team is locked and loaded for 2023. Feel free to reply if you need anything from us - always down to chat.

Keep creating! 

Matthew Gattozzi

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