Getting Black Friday Ready with Email Marketing

Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions are a significant source of e-commerce revenue worldwide, with businesses recognising the potential profits to be gained during the Black Friday season. According to Forbes, Black Friday online sales were up 2.3% compared to 2021, with $9.12 billion spent online.

While major online stores offer Black Friday deals, this shopping event has expanded to include a wider range of companies, including small businesses. As Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping holidays worldwide, it presents a significant opportunity for business owners to boost their marketing efforts and drive massive sales. However, waiting until the last minute to plan for Black Friday could leave businesses unprepared to fully capitalise on the sales events.

 

 

Importance of email marketing

Does your business use email marketing? Even though email marketing may not receive as much attention as newer marketing channels, it remains an excellent method for generating leads and converting prospects to customers for your business. Developing a thriving long-term email marketing strategy that effectively promotes your business demands a purposeful approach and a strict adherence to email marketing best practices. While it may be effortless to send a few emails, creating a successful campaign requires careful consideration and planning. Setting this all up in time for Black Friday can help you to take advantage of an engaged customer base.

 

 

Email marketing best practices

 

Send a welcome email

When a customer opts-in to receive your emails, it's a good practice to send them a welcome message to establish an early connection and set expectations. Welcome emails have an average open rate of over 64%, making them a valuable tool for your email marketing strategy. Most email marketing services, including Shopify's built-in marketing automations, allow you to send an automated welcome email as soon as a new subscriber joins your mailing list.

Here are a few different ways to create a compelling first email to a subscriber:

  1. Introduce yourself and your business: A welcome email is an opportunity to build brand affinity for your company and create an emotional connection with a subscriber. Share a little bit about yourself and why you started the business, providing readers with a glimpse behind the scenes of the journey from idea to launch.
  2. Send a curated list of your best content: If your email marketing strategy involves sharing useful information and tips, new subscribers might miss out on some of your previous content. In this case, use your first email to a new reader to curate a handful of your most popular articles or send outs.
  3. Provide a promotional offer: Often, businesses encourage website visitors to sign up for their email mailing list by offering a promotional discount, such as 10% off their first order.

 

Personalise your emails

To establish a connection with subscribers and provide them with maximum value, it's crucial to personalise your emails. To do this, choose an email marketing platform, such as Mailchimp or Klaviyo with advanced automation capabilities to create an email experience that feels customised.

Here are a few different ways to personalise your emails: 

  1. Abandoned cart emails: Automated abandoned cart emails can remind customers about the items left in their cart and encourage them to complete their purchase.
  2. Birthday offer emails: Collect subscribers' birthdays to send them personalised offer codes on their special day.
  3. Product purchase education emails: Send emails to customers who make specific purchases, providing tips and suggestions on how to make the most of their new products.

 

Use email marketing segmentation

Finally, email marketing provides the advantage of sending tailored emails through audience segmentation, allowing for more targeted and effective campaigns. By capturing subscriber details at sign-up or segmenting based on email and website activity, you can send relevant updates to specific segments of your mailing list instead of sending broad emails to your entire list.

Mailchimp conducted a small email study, which included 2,000 users who sent segmented campaigns, and found that segmented campaigns were more effective than non-segmented ones. Specifically, the study found that segmented campaigns had 14.31% higher open rates, 100.95% higher click-through rates, and 9.37% lower unsubscribe rates than non-segmented campaigns.

Here are some ways to segment your email list:

  1. Based on demographic information like gender, age, or location: This can be useful for businesses that offer products or services for different groups.
  2. Based on content interests: This is particularly relevant for businesses with a range of products or services that cater to different needs.
  3. Based on purchase history: This allows for follow-ups and specific product-focused content.

While segmentation can be simple and automated, creating targeted content requires time and effort. As your business grows, you can refine your email campaigns to become more granular and targeted.

 

Final thoughts

Preparing well in advance for Black Friday is crucial for successful execution of your marketing strategy. Starting early can seem overwhelming, but it's always a good idea.

 Enhance your emails by implementing these practices to increase the likelihood of subscribers reading to the end or clicking through to your website. With intentional email marketing, every email has the potential to convert an inbox into genuine interest in your business.

If you have any questions about how email marketing can help you increase your Black Friday sales as well as drive long term customer loyalty and retention, don’t hesitate to reach out to Declan Kelly (declan.kelly@bdodigital.ie) from our Digital Consulting team at BDO.