Get your queueing shoes on and clicking fingers ready, it’s that time of year again! When it comes to finding the best and most affordable holiday gifts, more and more consumers are choosing to shop online! So, it's time for some Cyber Monday and Black Friday email marketing tips! Are you ready?
There’s never been a more perfect time to get your own sales to spike with some pretty darn effective Black Friday email marketing that will dazzle your customers and lead them right to your (virtual) doorstep.
So, let's get you all prepped up for your upcoming festive campaigns, shall we? I mean, that's why you’re here, right?
Cyber Monday and Black Friday email marketing tips
- Email Deliverability - Make sure you keep it in check, this is the busiest time of the year in email volume.
- Strategy - think about the campaign holistically, by looking at the bigger picture of the 3-6 campaigns you're doing throughout the end of November and beginning of December.
- List Curation - Suppress any contacts that you're unsure of, otherwise, your deliverability will be impacted.
- Segmentation - Send appropriate content to the right audience groups, you don't want to send baby clothes to a single dad.
- Sending behavior Tip #1 - Don't tire your subscribers out before they get to the good stuff. We see people doing '1 month of sales' too frequently recently. It might be more detrimental than good if you send too many emails. Less is more.
- Sending behavior Tip #2 - Unless you have good enough reason, refrain from emailing contacts for at least 3-4 days prior to the sale.
- Test your email - It's something you should always do, but especially now. Test your emails thoroughly across multiple email clients and make sure it looks great. Test dark mode too!
- Test your payment gateway - You should do this at least every so often, but place an order on your own website with real money. You can cancel and refund it later. Go through the paces. Is the process smooth enough?
- Abandoned Cart Flow - I hope you already have one setup, but even if you do go through the paces of abandoning a product and receiving the emails to ensure that they still perform as desired.
- Hosting provider - More of a no-brainer, but please check on your host and ensure it's in good shape for a potential influx of traffic.
6 Sale Strategy Tips You Need To Know
- Every brand out there and their sister is going to have a sale, so unless you make it really special and have it be the best sale of the year, you're doing it wrong.
- Package things up! It will help provide good discounts while keeping cogs relatively down and profits high.
- Do discounts people actually understand. A study we were privy to showed that people prefer seeing 50% than 70% because it's the one they can calculate the fastest.
- Do a Sneak Peak email the week of Black Friday and create some stir. Don't give too much away, just enough to make it exciting.
- Tell folks when to expect the email if you can. You'd be surprised how engaging that can be.
- Have a landing page ready especially for the Black Friday promotions. It's always leaps and bounds more engaging than sending people to the same-old-same-old website. Make it feel special!
How to maximize sales with your email marketing strategy
It's no secret that holiday campaigns are literally a must to drive traffic to your online store. In 2021, over 116.5 million emails were sent on Black Friday. That's not all, research has shown that customers who buy products through email are likely to spend 138% more than the folks who don't receive email offers. That's just some bulletproof logic right there, isn't it?
With Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas right around the corner, now is the time to step up your holiday email marketing strategy and bring in some more $$$.
So, one thing is clear - the holiday season is critical to your overall success and level of income. But how the heck can you really maximize sales with your email marketing strategy? Glad you asked, 'cause we're about to enlighten you!
Firstly, there are some super-simple, quick things that will lead to better open rates in your emails. Number one: Personalize the subject line – your customers are far more likely to open an email with their name on it.
The second thing is the words in your subject line. Make them seasonal and festive but add a sense of urgency. Things like ‘stock is limited’ ‘only 12 hours left’ can be very effective.
And lastly, you might want to consider adding a gift guide to your holiday email campaign. This won’t only help upsell consumers; it will make them aware of products they didn’t know you had.
Why Is The Holiday Season Important To Retailers?
First off, did you know that holiday sales alone were expected to reach a record high between $843.4 billion and $859 billion in sales in 2021? That's a huge increase of 8.5% to 10.5% from the previous year’s sales.
This shouldn’t be a surprise though. This is the time when most shoppers will drop a good amount of Dollars to surprise and spoil their loved ones. That's why they’re constantly on the lookout for the best special offers, deals, and discounts.
If you can attract their attention and get them to your online store, then you might succeed in converting them and winning their loyalty. But if you need a little help, I know some email marketing experts that are perfect for the job.
Sure, I don’t doubt that your brand has many ways to impress your customers but seriously nothing and I mean nothing beats a stunning holiday email marketing campaign.
Thanksgiving is right around the corner - What you should do?
It’s the ultimate family holiday where we all give thanks, feast and...shop? You betcha!
In 2021, online holiday spending surpassed the $207 billion mark during November and December. And as unfestive as it may be, we know that between selfies, Facetime calls, and social media videos, we’ll all be using our phones at the Thanksgiving dinner table and on the couch afterward (scrolling while we finish our second or third slices of apple pie). That’s why it's the ideal time to swoop into your customer's inboxes. Thank them for their support with a super sweet referral deal. We’re talking about Thanksgiving here but the same goes for Halloween, Christmas and any other holiday you can think of.
And sure, you might be tempted to tell your customers a nice long story, but for your holiday emails, simpler is better (see more about this in the next section). Make sure your content simply spells out your offer. That should be the main focus.
Although holiday sales last for quite a long time, some of your customers will probably still have trouble finding something special for themselves and their loved ones. That's exactly why you should send multiple reminders and last-minute emails aiming to convert those folks before everyone goes offline for a bit to spend some quality time with their families.
How to make your email marketing campaign stand out.
What if there was some way to make your email marketing campaign catch more eyes than all the other brands out there during the holiday season? Well, apparently there is. Here’s how:
Make sure every single element of your messaging re-emphasizes what you're actually trying to say. Sure, great design and email code can usually help and deliver the message way quicker than words ever could, but that doesn't mean you should forget about great copy at all!
If you're anything like me, you probably always run behind the Christmas schedule and do some last-minute gift shopping. I get it, the struggle is real. It's usually because you either haven't found the perfect gift for your loved ones, right? I know, you probably haven't realized that December's passed right in front of your eyes. That said, ideally, your holiday campaign should be running for at least one week before the festivities begin. Naturally, the closer the holiday is, the more intensive your email marketing efforts should be. Make sure your customers don't have to deal with that last-minute rush. How? By getting them to convert as soon as possible!
So what are you waiting for? Get busy and start mapping out your next email marketing campaign strategy now that you're inspired to take action. Not sure about your design skills? Don't worry. These email marketing experts never get tired of crafting incredible emails that convert. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check out our email marketing portfolio.
