By With the average amount spent per person being a whopping $403.35 on Black Friday alone, it’s clear to see this particular time of year is an almost guaranteed money-maker.
Packed full with discounts and offers, Black Friday has the reputation for being manic in-store with millions determined to grab the best possible deals. Because of this, online shopping on this day has dramatically increased—and the same goes for typical Christmas shopping during this general time period too.
To ensure you take full advantage of the Black Friday & Christmas boom in money spent by shoppers, it’s essential you develop a targeted email marketing campaign specifically designed to entice customers. Email marketing is one of the best sales-generating tools you can use, simply because of its outreach and easy, convenient readability for your audience—especially during the busy holiday season.
Below, you’ll find a comprehensive checklist bursting with tips and techniques you should be using in your Black Friday & Christmas email marketing strategy. And, once they’re all included, you’re certain to reap the benefits and make some serious sales!
Use Powerful Subject Line Phrases
In the lead-up to Black Friday, it’s almost guaranteed your target audience will be inundated with emails promoting some sort of offer. This means, in addition to your emails, potential customers will also be receiving emails from competitors—so it’s essential yours stand out from the crowd.
Subject lines are generally considered the most important part of email marketing. It’s the first thing your list will see and, if they’re not engaging, interesting or powerful, why would they choose to click?
Using sales-driven words and phrases such as ‘free shipping’, ‘limited-time promotion’ and ‘exclusive’ in your subject lines will instantly suggest to the reader that, once they open the email, they’ll receive a benefit.
And, to tie in with the season, holiday-related phrases like ‘Christmas deals’, ‘Season’s Greetings’ and ‘Black Friday special’ will demonstrate to readers exactly what your email is likely to entail—something they can take advantage of to reduce the stress of typical holiday shopping.
Use Emojis
In today’s day and age, emojis are simply inescapable. Able to convey emotion or a particular theme in one simple, tiny image, using emojis within your subject lines in addition to powerful phrases is likely to further increase open rates.
Emojis are both bold and colorful, guaranteed to catch the eye of readers as they scroll through their inbox. Better still, there’s an array of holiday-related emojis you can use to specifically target Black Friday & Christmas shoppers, including a snowman, Christmas tree and snowflake.
But whilst emojis are very useful tools to take advantage of, it’s essential you don’t over-do it. Having a subject line packed full of emojis will look somewhat childish and stupid—one or two is likely to be enough.
Personalization
Statistically, personalized emails generate higher click-through rates, open rates and conversions. So, this holiday season, it’s essential you utilize this technique to ensure you give your emails the best possible chance of being successful.
Personalization is simple yet extremely effective. Instantly able to make the reader feel special, a personalized email may make them feel like all Black Friday & Christmas deals included have been created just for them—increasing the chance they’ll want to buy from you as opposed to your competition.
Personalized subject lines, email openers and images within the main email body are all effective methods of making the most out of this technique. To take the hassle off your hands, the personalization tool by NiftyImages will do all the work for you—giving you more time to focus on developing those deals.
Check out the personalization on the email by Starz:
Send Abandoned Cart Emails
The holiday season is generally very busy, with millions of people frantically trying to purchase gifts whilst still going about their daily life. Due to this, a huge number of carts remain abandoned—simply because people get distracted, don’t have time to check-out, or just forget!
Within the first 12 hours of a cart being abandoned, it’s crucial to send your first ‘reminder’ email. Typically, three emails are generally enough to recover sales. But, if a cart still remains abandoned after this, it’s likely that person has simply decided they don’t want the products anymore or has purchased them elsewhere—and there’s not much you can do about it.
Sending more than three and bombarding people with constant cart abandonment emails is just annoying, and will likely turn customers away instead of enticing them back.
If potential customers haven’t taken action with their cart after email two, try throwing in an offer of free shipping or a discount for their next purchase if they ‘check-out today’. This will provide greater incentive to buy, as they’ll receive a brand-new benefit.
Make Your Deals Obvious
People don’t want to waste their time scouring through an email trying to find its main point—especially during the busy Black Friday & Christmas season.
Ensure your offers and deals are glaringly obvious and instantly recognizable for the reader. Using bold, bright images to showcase your discounts is a great way of doing this, in addition to giving offer information within the subject line.
In the example below, the French lingerie store Recco uses a striking dark background with a contrasting red font to make the Black Friday headline stand out. They also use a countdown timer to good effect.
Use a Mobile-Friendly Format
With shoppers in the US alone spending a colossal $1.2 billion on Black Friday using mobile devices last year, ensuring your promotional emails are mobile-friendly has never been more important.
Images and templates that come across well on a desktop may simply fall flat on mobile devices, and might not even load at all. This will leave your list with literal blank emails, providing no deals or value to them whatsoever—and generating virtually no mobile sales for you.
Testing your finalized emails on mobile devices before you send them is crucial, as it will give you a first-hand look as to what your emails are going to look like to potential paying customers.
Black Friday & Christmas deals are one of the most successful seasonal offers you can provide to your target customers, with email marketing acting as a vital method of communication with your list to promote deals.
The above techniques will ensure every single email you send this holiday season is laser-targeted to drive sales—whilst still providing unparalleled value to your customers!