A 5th Saturday Success Story From Dani Edgerton, Owner Of Paws On Main

You may have heard our CEO and founder of Pet Boss Nation, Candace D’Agnolo,  say that she’s “addicted to your success” (it’s even her email list sign-off- scroll to the bottom to get on our list!), and it couldn’t be more true. 

Her mission in starting Pet Boss Nation was to help pet business owners see success faster together, so watching Pet Boss Club members run with our promotion ideas and see amazing results is like watching your border collie win first place in the agility trial!  

Today, we’re featuring Dani Edgerton from Paws On Main in Columbiana, Ohio! Dani is a Pet Boss Club member who has been hosting the famous 5th Saturday Sale promotion, and while she always gets great results, she had one record-breaking 5th Saturday that she just had to share with us– all because of an accident that turned into a benefit with a new marketing medium she’s trying out!

What is a 5th Saturday Sale? 

Saturdays are traditionally the busiest day in retail (although, this promotion can be applied in any type of business, including service providers). An extra Saturday in the month is an opportunity to get an extra boost in revenue, while also bringing in more money to potentially cover that extra week of payroll. 

A 5th Saturday Sale is a bonus promotion that only happens about four times a year! 

Here are a few tips for how to run one: 

• Offer discounts ranging from 15-25%. 
• Offer an exclusive promotion that only happens on 5th Saturday– storewide clearance, buy one get one on certain products or services, a free gift with a purchase of $XX or more, etc. 
• Service providers– you can offer discounts on your services for anyone booking on this day too! Double your loyalty points, offer exclusive add ons… the possibilities are endless. 
• Give your VIP list the VIP treatment. You can still promote to your entire list, but offering even more of a deal or discount to the top 25% of your customer base ensures you are focusing on those most likely to take advantage of your offer. 
• Hand out branded shopping bags and give a discount on anything your customer can fit into the bag (read on for Dani’s experience doing it this way). 

What was Dani’s experience with hosting a 5th Saturday Sale? 

Dani has done the 5th Saturday Sale on numerous occasions. Normally, she offers her VIP customers 15% off anything they can fit in their 5th Saturday Bag (which are branded bags she had made). For this particular 5th Saturday, Dani’s usual plan went a little off track. Here’s the beginning of her story…

“I did my normal prelim marketing. Bags were sent out to the new VIP clients. Postcards & emails (were sent) to all VIPs the week before. At this point, my VIP list is just under 800. (A VIP is a client who has reached a milestone in their loyalty program.) All was well – people were talking about 5th Saturday, and then…”

This is the part of Dani’s story that goes a little off the rails but in a good way! Dani was trying out a new SMS marketing platform (speaking of, are you on the Pet Boss Nation text list? Click here and add us to your contacts or text the word “blog” to 312-847-2404). SMS marketing has been on the rise for a long time, but especially since the start of the pandemic, and there are no signs it’s going to slow down any time soon! Let’s see what Dani’s experience using SMS was like… 

“On Thursday night, I thought I would like to try a texting program as a reminder for the sale. I enrolled in a free program, Simpletexting, and sent 10 texts to be delivered on Friday morning to the first ten people on my list. Friday morning it sent, and I got two texts right back. “Great & Be there!” I thought, ‘this is awesome!’

So I sent the text to the rest of the list -”

“In minutes, 169 people had unsubscribed. I was devastated. My best customers must have been annoyed by my text.

So I went on the computer to see if there were any messages and I discovered my error — I had emailed my entire card file – 3200 contacts!”

This probably felt like a panic moment initially, but Dani didn’t let it put a damper on things. It was that mindset that worked in her favor! She decided to roll with the mix-up and see where it took her. On the morning of the 5th Saturday, she opened a new box of bags and unlocked the doors to see what awaited her. 

“It was far and away our biggest day ever in 5 years. All of our regular customers came in. Everybody commented positively on the text reminder. About 1/3 of the people coming in asked for bags (some were regulars who forgot theirs). This was our 7th fifth Saturday and they have always been good.

This fifth Saturday was:

Our largest NET Sales day ever by 2K.

Our number of sales was up by 35% from average.

Our average sale was up by 24% from average. “

The thing is, Dani has always seen success with this promotion, but this time around, just by tweaking her process a little bit (even if it was accidental), she saw major success. 

Plus, she was able to test out a new marketing medium that she was skeptical about! Do you think she has continued to use SMS marketing since the 5th Saturday sale? Here’s what she says… 

“The texting has so many possibilities. Since then we are using text for our birthday club each month and still working out the flow of that. We are also texting individuals who have (met a certain level on our loyalty program) to tell them they have a discount coming. We have only been working on that for a month and we can see that it makes them come back faster and mention that they have a credit while shopping.”

Use Dani’s success with her 5th Saturday Sale and utilize new marketing techniques to brainstorm something you can try in your own business! If you need promotion ideas and the support to execute them successfully, becoming a Pet Boss Club member is definitely for you, so make sure you join our waitlist! We’d love to have you! Want to hear more about running your own 5th Saturday Sale and other promotions? Check out episode 6 of the Boss Your Business Podcast!

Learn more with us!

• Need 1:1 support to make massive action now? Book a discovery call with us to see if working 1:1 with Candace is the right fit for you.

• Get on the waitlist! You’re passionate about pets. It’s time to have a business that supports the life you want, too! Learn the specific techniques to find new customers, to increase sales and to build a better team for ANY kind of pet business by joining the Pet Boss Club! Get on the waitlist here.