What if your limited edition drop was an offer and not a product?

Sendero ran an offer drop that turned into a consolation discount that flowed into Black Friday. Let's take a look.

First, priming the drop pump. (This email was forwarded by a friend, virality!)

Subject Line: 300 FREE HATS, It’s Coming.

What I like about this email:

• Movement! The gif is eye-catching, highlights product, and slowly reveals the message. So much dopamine.
• Personality! This is true with everything Sendero puts out, they know their voice and they speak in it (and personality is part of building a cult brand).
• FOMO! Date, time (timezone math warning included), and code. Everything you need to put it on your calendar (free reminder marketing) and get hyped.
• Attachment! The CTA "Scope Your Hat Now" encourages you to start shopping, which means picturing yourself wearing the hat of your choice, which means getting attached to the idea of getting it. (Am I saying this from personal experience? Yes, yes I am.)

Everything is about getting you queued up to try to snag yo' hat, but in a way that feels like a friendly reminder vs. a pushy sales team trying to hit quota. (Can you have a quota when the thing is free?)

But did you get a free hat?

No!

I put my code in at 9:00 am eastern (8 central (I tried before but it wouldn't work)) and by the time I got to payment all 300 hats were claimed (thanks, in part, to forgetting I wasn't signed in to my first payment method attempt and having to go back).

I messaged my friend that I missed out at 9:01. Not even Taylor Swift sold out that fast.

BUT!

They had a consolation prize ready to go. There was a message (don't remember exactly where, I was too dejected to think to screenshot it too) that said the 300 free hats were gone, but you could use code 20HATS to get $20 hats (a 37.5% discount (and yes, I got myself a $20 hat—one I had saved thanks to an Instagram ad weeks before)).

AND!

If you were a new addition to the mailing list thanks to this offer drop, you got a 15% discount email too.

Then a reminder (if you hadn't used it) that it was expiring soon.

And then Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

SO!

Without needing to run a product drop (though there were new releases around this time (and pre-orders)), Sendero was able to use an offer to:

• Flood the site at one specific time
• Giveaway 300 free hats in a minute
• Turn the losers (a.k.a. me) into potential paying customers with a consolation code
• Probably get a bunch of new email subscribers that would be enticed to shop more with another discount code
• That would probably expire just in time for their Black Friday sale (up to 60% off) to start

Sendero captured attention for nearly the entire month of November.

With one promo code offer drop.

Speaking of that Black Friday sale...

Notice what the fine print says?

It's the one time of year we do sales... don't miss out!

I talked about this with Sephora on the linkblog. They only do 2 sales a year, and they are highly anticipated events with brand fans (one is conveniently timed before the holiday shopping season really pops off too).

Some brands (JCPenney) are always running sales, and this can devalue brand perception. Why would someone buy when a sale isn't running if they expect you'll have one in a matter of days?