It’s that time of year again — time to start putting together your Black Friday marketing strategy! This year don’t forget to incorporate email marketing into your plan.
Email is an influential and cost-effective lead-gen tool for B2B and B2C, and email marketing cuts across demographics. 49% of businesses use some form of email automation, and it’s helping them build relationships with their customers, move prospects along your marketing funnel, and ultimately drive more sales.
Black Friday is a great time for an email marketing campaign because your customers are already primed to buy. Black Friday unofficially kicks off the holiday season, and according to a National Retail Federation survey, more than 164 million consumers plan to shop over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend.
5. SEGMENT YOUR BLACK FRIDAY EMAIL LIST
When your emails feel more personal, you get better results. That’s why you have to segment your audience before sending out your Black Friday email.
Segmentation takes your entire database of email addresses and breaks it down into several smaller lists, allowing you to personalize your email marketing and create highly targeted promotions.
There are thousands of ways to slice and dice your list, but you have to figure out what’s the best way to segment your list.
Here are a few ideas for your Black Friday email marketing list segmentation:
Put simply, where do your subscribers live? You could segment your email list based on their country, time zone, state, or some other location-based criteria. Location is extremely important for determining when you should send your email. Since you’re probably going to send your Black Friday emails early in the morning, segmenting your list based on time zones — when are these people going to wake up and check their phones? — can help you up your open rates and boost your click throughs.
You can use your Black Friday email to reward some of your most valuable customers! Segment your list to create a list of contacts based on how often they shop with you or how much they spend. This way, you can find out who your most loyal fans are and give them special promotional codes reserved for your superfans.
Consider segmenting your email list based on how close your contacts are to buying something from you. In other words, where are your contacts in your funnel? This is especially important for more expensive purchases with longer buying cycles. For some of your contacts, a Black Friday email with a special promotional code might be enough to persuade them to buy, but that same email could turn off some of your contacts who are still getting to know your brand.
How do your contacts typically read your emails? On their smartphones or on their laptops? Their device preference is important because it changes the way you approach writing and designing the email. For example, a “Buy Now” button might be more effective on a smartphone than on a laptop. On the other hand, if you want to include more content in your Black Friday email, it makes sense to send it to your contacts who typically open your emails on their laptops.
- Location
- Purchase History
- Stage in the Funnel
- Mobile vs. Desktop
4. PERSONALIZE YOUR BLACK FRIDAY EMAIL SUBJECT LINE
Nobody likes getting a cold email that doesn’t feel personal — add a few touches to make it more friendly and inviting!
What if you could increase the likelihood of your Black Friday email being opened by 26%? You’d do it, right? According to Experian, emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened! So add in your recipient’s name in the subject line and remember to sprinkle it throughout the body of the email.
To make your email feel even more personal, you can send your email from a sales representative — as opposed to a generic no-reply sales and marketing email address — and include your sales representative’s picture and personal email signature to show people that your Black Friday email isn’t just a cold, one-way communication.
3. SEND YOUR BLACK FRIDAY EMAIL ON THE RIGHT DAY(S)
Black Friday isn’t just a single day anymore — it can encompass the entire week of Thanksgiving. If you want to get out ahead of your competition, consider sending your Black Friday email earlier in the week. Give your contacts a special incentive to shop before the Black Friday rush.
If you have multiple emails in your Black Friday stream, you could stagger them throughout the week to stay top-of-mind for the people on your list.
2. GIVE — RATHER THAN ASK FOR — SOMETHING VALUABLE
The holiday season is the best time to remember that your relationship with your customer is special, and businesses that constantly ask for things put that relationship at risk.
Think about it: Your customer’s email inbox is going to be full of Black Friday promotional emails, and you stand a much better chance of standing out if you’re offering something valuable. What will your customers find valuable? It might be a subscriber-specific promotional code, or you could send a holiday gift guide that helps them save time over the holidays.
When you become truly helpful to your subscribers, they look forward to getting an email from you. That kind of goodwill turns contacts into customers and customers into fans.
1. START EARLY
There’s more that goes into a Black Friday email marketing campaign than typing up an email before you leave for Thanksgiving and scheduling it for Friday morning. At the end of the day, the real key to a successful Black Friday email marketing campaign is simple: Get started early.
Every year, the holiday shopping season begins earlier and earlier, and you have to give yourself time to clean your list, segment appropriately, think through your Black Friday marketing strategy, write and design your content, test your email, build your automation, and schedule your sends.
The best emails are always part of a bigger marketing strategy, so make sure you’re supporting your Black Friday email marketing strategy with posts on your social media platforms. Get started early so you’ll have plenty of time to coordinate all your Black Friday marketing efforts.