[UPDATED] Yes! It has been a year already and the holiday sales season is upon us once again. It’s the perfect time for you to craft your Black Friday email campaigns and bag in greater profits this season.
Black Friday will be falling on November 27, 2020. If you wish to increase your profits sharply, you need to take BFCM very seriously and start working on your Black Friday campaign ideas as soon as possible.
To guide you how can you go about this, we have come forward with tips and tricks which will allow you to create nothing but a masterpiece. Let’s take a look!
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Black Friday Email Marketing Strategies and Ideas
Black Friday in 2017 was even bigger than 2016 in terms of number of customers and sales. According to the National Retail Foundation, 154.4 million people shopped online over the Black Friday Weekend in 2017. Altogether, online shoppers spent a whopping $12.8 billion during the Black Friday weekend.
Experts predict that Black Friday 2019 is going to surpass the previous numbers. If you wish to garner massive profits this year, you need to ensure you’re working at your best Black Friday emails. To ensure you’re on the right track, here are some tips for you to come up with creative Black Friday campaign ideas.
#1. Boost Your Email Subscribers’ List
If you do not have an email subscriber list, you should create one right away. It comes in handy, especially during the Holiday Season. Black Friday weekend is the largest shopping weekend of any given year. You should have all the weapons ready in your arsenal to reap massive profits.
There is a strong chance that the people who have already purchased from you earlier will buy again. Hence, having an email subscriber list is essential.
In order to boost your email subscribers’ list, you need to improve your offerings with urgency for your products first. Keep in focus that you need to do this before your Black Friday discounts and offerings go live. In addition, it is a good practice to change the copy of your signup forms. In order to emphasize the Holiday Season offerings, come up with theme-based visuals.
Furthermore, promotional banners at the top of your most popular pages can offer your special discounts only to your email subscribers. Apart from that, you can always create an exclusive landing page to grab emails from visitors. By simply doing so, you can direct your visitors towards the desired actions you want them to take.
Also, if you haven’t already invested in advertising campaigns like Facebook Ads, you should do so this season in order to bag in as much profit as possible. It will empower you and help you stand out, especially if you begin your Black Friday marketing promotions before the weekend.
#2. Begin Sales Before Black Friday Weekend
In order to reach a vast audience, you shouldn’t promote your offerings on Black Friday or even Thanksgiving. Instead, you should begin your promotions before that. Why? Because people are more informed about their holiday purchases before the official season starts.
Adobe’s Digital Insights show that the holiday season begins before Black Friday. Beyond that, by Thanksgiving and Black Friday, the email inboxes of your customers will be full of promotional emails.
The best Black Friday Emails strategy would be to begin early. You certainly don’t want your customers to lose your promotional email in the flood. Convey the message that your sales will go live on the week of Black Friday or even the Friday before the official week.
#3. Test Your Black Friday Email Subject Lines
Increasing email open rates can be a difficult task. It can be a combination of any particular time of day, week, weather, political event and what not. Various things motivate your email subscribers to open your emails.
However, we believe one of the biggest factors that affects email open rates is your email subject lines. Usually, your intuition or experience decides which subject lines result in better open rates. However, you should also consider a few other aspects. For instance, using the word ‘free’ in your emails or is it better to say ‘discount’ or ‘promotion’ or explicitly mention that the discount is ‘20%’.
Keeping the mad rush around Black Friday weekend in focus, you won’t really have much time to test different email subject lines. Thence, you should perform A/B testing of your email subject lines. It will allow you to enter two separate versions and measure which one is performing better.
You can A/B test by sending version A to 25% of your recipients and version B to another 25%. The winner should become the email subject line of the remaining 50%.
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#4. Create Urgency in Your Black Friday Email Campaigns
In economics, we learn that whenever the supply of a product decreases, its demand increases. It is important that you create a sense of urgency in your Black Friday marketing campaigns.
For instance, introduce a timer or scarcity with your products so that your customers understand that the promotion is for a limited time only. It increases the conversion rate significantly.
Do remember, when any customer clicks your promotion, you should continue with the timer or urgency theme. For instance, you can set your Cyber Monday email or page timers to expire at 11:59pm in order to maximize your Cyber Monday email conversions.
When you showcase your product as scarce, you should show what quantity is left. If you have 10 pieces available, display that only 2 are in stock. Also, notifications of others looking at or purchasing that very product will create an impact significantly.
#5. Reward Your Loyal Customers
It’s a good practice to reward your existing customers and subscribers with extra incentives so that they remain loyal to your brand.
You can offer early bird discounts, items on sale, free shipping or a combination of these things to you email subscribers. Also, promote that you reward your subscribers with such incentives in order to encourage your website visitors to turn into your email subscribers. Furthermore, you can reward your loyal long-term customers with exclusive deals, free gifts or ‘buy one get one free’ offers.
Rewarding your email subscribers and loyal customers will allow you to build up your brand exponentially. It will further allow you to extend your customer’s lifetime value.
#6. Extend Your Deals Past Black Friday Weekend
It’s also a good practice to extend your Black Friday marketing deals a little bit past Cyber Monday. But, don’t be too crazy and extend it all the way to Christmas. Just extend it for 48 to 72 hours only.
The marketing of your extension is important. Do ensure that you still maintain the scarcity and exclusivity of your promotions during the extension.
Your Black Friday email campaign – in order to extend sales – should be eye-catching and to the point.
For instance: Black Friday Promotions EXTENDED! 50% Off on Everything!
In this way, the customers who did not get a chance to avail your Black Friday promotions can still purchase from you at discounted prices.
By now, customers noticing your emails would be fairly easier. Most of the emails have already been pushed. After Black Friday, there are strong chances that the email inboxes of your potential customers would be quieter. Hence, the more chances for you to outshine.
#7. Designing Your Black Friday Email
It is always better to stick to a simple structure. It’s even better if you add columns as it makes your emails more responsive. Also, try to maintain a 60/40 ratio of your HD images and text in the email. Make sure you align your fonts and size of your text. Lastly, decide which CTA buttons to use and make sure they are clearly visible in a contrasting color. All in all, be pretty but don’t shut up! And for more valuable insights and strategies on optimizing your email campaigns, make sure to attend BFCM Prepathon. It’s an opportunity you wouldn’t want to miss!
#8 Don’t Forget Your Signature
Have a dedicated voice for your emails. It will allow you to stand out and easily be identified in the inbox. It’s crucial during a noisy period like Black Friday. Your competitor will be using more or less the same set of words with percentages of discounts.
There’s no single recipe to craft the perfect Black Friday email. The main idea here is to ensure that your customers recognize you when they receive your email. If they open and read it in the crowd of other promotional emails, you have done your part well. We strongly recommend that your brand’s identity (logo, style, voice, subject lines, images) is clearly visible in your promotional emails. It will increase your chances of grabbing your reader’s attention.
Black Friday Email Examples
Email marketing plays a vital role in boosting the Black Friday conversions/sales. There are many promotional campaigns you can run via email throughout the holiday season. The following are a few Black Friday email examples you can use.
1. Black Friday Promotions Are Live!
One of the best Black Friday email examples is to start your email marketing campaign for the holiday season by announcing that your deals and discounts are now live. Your email campaign must contain multiple promotional emails for the whole season – Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas or New Year separately.
2. Sneak Peeks
Another great Black Friday email example is Sneak Peek emails as they allow you to gather online traffic even before the holiday season starts. An ideal example for a sneak peek Black Friday email is to create an email newsletter with a GIF or a video of products that will be available on sale during the Black Friday extravaganza. You can even incorporate a countdown to Black Friday or Cyber Monday email campaign.
It will help build anticipation of your Black Friday promotions. Excite people about your various Black Friday deals and discounts, and they might even share your discount offers with their friends and family.
3. “A Deal an Hour” or Flash Sales
Flash sales can prove to be the master stroke for the of Black Friday sales. Brands come up with different flash deals that generate higher profits by increasing the web traffic on your online store.
For instance, a deal an hour is one of the best promotions that you can come up with during the holiday season. Online shoppers are more inclined towards purchasing from you when you promote different flash deals with their favorite or trending products. It not only brings in high traffic but also ensures better conversions by creating a sense of urgency.
4. An Email Gift Guide
One of the most effective Black Friday email examples is making the lives of online shoppers simple by with your gift guide. Gift guides allow customers to find you during the holiday season. For instance, an email newsletter with guides such as “Gifts for Him” or “Gifts for Her” are excellent examples.
5. An Email With Promo Codes
If you’ve developed your customer base, you can send them a promotional email with discounts or promo codes. Consider it as a holiday greeting card where you provide value to your prospects. It can either be a personal note thanking them for their purchases during the year or an exclusive Black Friday discount code. Such emails are one of the best Black Friday email examples that can get you to increase your conversions with ease.
Black Friday Email Templates
Now that you have a good idea of Black Friday email campaigns, it’s time for you to learn more about Black Friday email templates. Templates promote convenience. They save time and energy that you can invest productively in more important matters than creating different emails.
There are many things to consider while creating a holiday-related email campaign. Check out the following email templates that can work wonders for your email marketing campaigns during the holiday season 2020. But first, a few rules you must follow to avoid a design disaster:
- Opt for a simple structure with columns (makes your email more responsive).
- Your email must contain a fair mix of images or GIF and text.
- Align the size of images and font of your messages appropriately.
- Decide your CTA (Call-To-Action) buttons and ensure they’re displayed in a contrasting color at the right place.
Here is the list of top Black Friday email templates 2020.
1. Mailjet’s Black Friday Email Template
Simple, efficient, and well-designed, Mailjet’s Black Friday email template is easy on the eyes, and allows you to easily divert attention from the reader on various deals.
2. Golden Age Black Friday Email Template by Stripo
The Golden Age Black Friday email template is perfect for people who want all of the reader’s attention focused on their biggest deal offering. At the bottom, you can add more subcategories.
3. Black Friday Email Template by Sumo
Simple, straightforward, and well-designed, this email template allows you to clearly highlight your best deal in the front, and then focus attention on others.
In a Nutshell
If you’re willing to increase your Black Friday sales, it goes without saying that you need to double your email marketing efforts. If you don’t have a Black Friday email strategy yet, you’re running out of time. Look at these ecommerce email marketing tips to up your Black Friday marketing game further.
In order to stand out in the inbox of your customers and ensure that they pay attention to your offers, you need to go all in. Give your creative Black Friday campaigns an innovative touch. Feel free to play with the aforementioned ideas and create an unforgettable email marketing campaign. Master the art of creating an effective Black Friday email and boost your profits during the Holiday Season with ease.
Najam Ahmed
I work as a digital content producer at Cloudways. Besides that, I love to read, and i love to play the guitar. Fan of all things Arsenal and the Patriots. Occasional gamer. I like to fly drones too. Jack of all trades.
