Back in my earliest days of agency life, I worked with a huge alcohol sales company – a company that owned multiple wineries across the west coast along with liquor brands from all over the world. Every month, each brand we worked with not only had a revenue target, we had weekly calls to ensure we were firing on all cylinders and tracking well towards those goals. 

That’s the first time I was introduced to the Gap Closer.

My dear colleague Sheila also would refer to them as the “Back Pocket Offer.”

Today I want to teach you this concept and encourage you to plan for the best and prepare for the worst with your monthly email strategy. This is so important, especially heading into OND when the stakes are high.

1. Do you have a monthly revenue target?

If you don’t, you’re flying blind. Use last year, same period as a benchmark and decide how much you want to increase based on this year’s activities and expenses. Use last month if you don’t have last year info. And if you don’t have any of that and are just getting started, you can simply use a percentage of your desired monthly revenue as a starting point. 

2. Plan activities that will help you hit the target.

If your revenue goal for October is $10K, you need to have emails, paid social media campaigns, and other activities planned that can realistically help you hit that goal. If you typically generate $4000 per email campaign, you’ll need at least 2 emails in October (and maybe a super targeted third email to a smaller group of your audience) to hit the number.

3. Have something in your “back pocket.”

You need something to help you close the gap if you aren’t tracking towards the goal at roughly ⅔ in. 

Here are some elements to consider for your Gap Closer.

– It needs to be something you can turn around quickly.

A beautiful image, a headline of the offer, and a call to action (also known as the “Postcard” email) is a great gap closer because it doesn’t require a ton of design or testing to churn out something lovely.

– It needs to be something that is proven to work well.

If your customers go bananas for free shipping, do a one-weekend-only free shipping offer to your top 25% customers. If you have some inventory you can afford to blow out for one or two days only, have them set aside on a private landing page ready to go in case of emergency. If a sitewide BOGO (buy one get one) is the ticket, BOGO that bad boy. And no, it doesn’t have to be a discount. You could be ready with a pre-sale of an in-demand product, or open up access to a limited edition product to your top customers. 

Check out this video to get a more in depth explanation (and watch my excited self 🙂

SUMMIN’ IT UP

This is the most important thing to recognize when looking to create your gap closer strategy for the holidays:

Plan for the best. (That’s your planned editorial calendar.)

Prepare for the worst. (That’s your gap closer.)

Monitor results throughout the month so nothing comes together hurriedly or frantically.

Here’s this week’s challenge:

Take some time today to come up with a handful of gap closer ideas that might work for your business. It could be offers that have done gang busters in the past, ideas you’ve always wanted to try, products that you never offer online, or even a special service-based offering you know your customers will go nuts for.