As you know everyones beloved Black Friday is right around the corner. Like always it’s gonna be huge, but this year it’s actually predicted to be much bigger than ever before. Not despite the pandemic, but because of it. Adobe released a report that predicts that U.S. online holiday sales will total $189 billion, shattering all previous records with a 33% YoY increase, equal to two years’ growth in one season. Mainly due to the COVID 19 situation, many more people are staying at home and buying online.
So for sure you really don’t want to miss it this year. And since most of the store owners think the same, it’s crucial to have a well planned strategy so you would stand out.
Obviously you should target your marketing throughout all the channels but today I will tell you more about the best Email Marketing strategy for Black Friday.
So let’s go straight into the key points that you should pay attention to while making Email Marketing Strategy for this Sales Season:
- Re-engage your list
During big holidays you want to make sure that you are targeting the maximum amount of profiles possible. Inexperienced way would be to blast your whole list during Black Friday. But that would destroy deliverability very quickly so it’s not recommended. A better strategy would be to run re-engagement and win-back campaigns at least 1-2 months before the actual holiday, so during it you would already have an engaged, increased and warmed up segment.
2. Activate Early-Birds opt-in popups
Launch campaigns offering your customers to join a list of early-birds who will be the first ones to get better BF deals. Firstly, this way you will increase the engagement of your customers that something great is coming for BF. And secondly you will collect a list of really engaged customers who will almost certainly buy if you offer them something exceptional.
3. Begin your promotions early
This year Black Friday is expected to be so big that many stores are planning to begin their BF sales even from the beginning of November. Beginning your sale before the actual holiday can really bring you 2-3x higher revenue than simply doing a promo during an actual holiday.
4. Take risks and get creative with your email templates
As said before every store is looking forward to BF. It means that customers will be overwhelmed by the offers coming their way from all sides. So if you want to see some exceptional results make sure to prepare outstanding copy angles and offers. Something that would really be worth the attention rather than just another promo. This is really the exact time when you want to invest more resources and come up with the highest quality content and marketing ideas. Here’s some clutter-breaking Black Friday email design hacks from our in-house designer.
Besides these main things to do, here are some Email marketing ideas for holidays that can help you increase your profitability:
5. Add Trust Builders to your email and your website
This year there are many new customers shopping online. Also experienced internet users are looking for new brands. Therefore it’s worth adding trust builders (safety/satisfaction guarantees, money back guarantees, customer reviews) in your emails.
6. Add Automatic Discounts to checkouts
The number of older population coming online and adapting to the new ways has grown. We noticed that activating automatic discounts or discounting your products straight on the website performs better than giving a promo code as some users find it too technologically difficult to apply it (might sound funny but you would be surprised how many people do not know how to do that.
7. Keep an eye on the open rates
During the holiday season open rates tend to become quite unstable. And it’s really not worth risking with low open rates as you might end up ruining your deliverability at the beginning of the shopping spree. So make sure to follow your open rates (ideally keep them between 16-20%) and segment responsibly.
8. Extend your campaign offers beyond Cyber Monday
Do not finish your campaigns right when the Cyber Monday ends. Make one or two offer extensions. Many stores still don’t do that so you will have way less competition than during the actual holiday. For some brands this trick brings up to +20-30% of the whole holiday revenue.
All in all, planning everything in prior and having content ready and polished before the madness begins is crucial. I hope these tips will help to sky-rocket your sales during the biggest Black Friday ever! And as always, we’re here to help. Maybe a good enough reason to hire us to do the job for you.
