Nicola Faulkner — November 6, 2016 
There are lots of stories behind the history of Black Friday, but today it’s evolved into a major shopping event for both retailers and shoppers. This year Black Friday falls on 25th November, the day after Thanksgiving, with Cyber Monday following close behind – another retail event created to re-ignite the Black Friday excitement!
Now is the time to confirm your promotions and start building your email marketing campaigns for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Remember, there will be hundreds of retailers taking the opportunity to shift stock and maximise sales, and many will promotions throughout the entire weekend. So, how are you going to do to stand out in a crowded inbox?
Plan Ahead to Improve Performance
Be proactive and get ready to respond to the challenges presented by shoppers and your competitors. By planning ahead you can take time to evaluate the opportunities and develop a well thought out campaign. Detailed planning will improve performance and give you time to refine your message if needed.
Be Creative with Your Deals
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two of the busiest shopping days of the year, so it’s important to be creative in order to stand out against the competition.
You’ll need to construct a strong email design to support your promotion, which also need to be attractive and relevant to your customers. Below we’ve listed some ideas that you could develop for use in your email marketing campaigns:
- Exclusive deals for subscribers
- Relevant deals (dynamic content)
- Time sensitive deals during event
- Free gift with every purchase
- Donation to charity with every purchase
- Roulette style discount selection
There are lots of things you can do aside from the standard ‘20% off all products’ that consumers will be expecting.
Discuss Ideas Internally
Open up the Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotion up for discussion. You never know, there may be someone in another department with some great ideas!
Do Your Research
Look back on past promotions to see how your customers reacted, highlight your best selling products and categories, and think like a consumer – what would you like to see on promotion this Black Friday? There are also lots of articles on the world wide web talking about Black Friday and the best designs seen so far.
Schedule Your Emails Ahead of Time
Finalise your campaign ahead of time and make full use of the scheduling tools within your email marketing platform. By doing so, you’ll have more control over timing and frequency and can ensure emails are sent as planned.
Consider Timing and Frequency
Your subscribers will be expecting deals to land in their inbox, so will be checking their emails regularly. Don’t follow suit and schedule your first email for 8am on Black Friday, it will quite possibly drown amongst all the others. Instead let your subscribers know about your time-sensitive deals the night before so they can plan ahead.
It also wouldn’t hurt to fire an email during the day or towards the end of the promotion to remind them of your deals. Same goes for Cyber Monday, get ahead of other retailers, create urgency and prompt them to re-look at your offers.
Use Social Media to Your Advantage
No doubt many of your subscribers will follow you on social media, and there will be a percentage of followers who are not subscribed to your emails. Use your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns to re-target subscribers on social media and gain new subscribers by encouraging them to signup to receive deals straight to their inbox.
Whatever you do on email you can back up the activity on social media. If you want to specifically target your subscribers you can do this using their email address, but to maximise sales you should open it up to all followers. Push your ads to their connections using the tools available and include an appropriate call to action.
The week leading up to Black Friday, why not ask people to subscribe to your emails so they can receive deals straight into their inbox. You can also reinforce this message after the event to increase signups ready for your Cyber Monday campaign.
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