For some of you, Black Friday has become more strategic than a classic sales period. And understandably so, with email campaigns hitting record ROI figures!
Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns initially cover a period of only 4 days, and therefore concentrate very high volumes of mailings (across all sectors) over a very short period. 2 major issues are at stake:
1 - Preserve the deliverability of your current and future campaigns.
2 - Capture the attention of your prospects, who can find themselves drowning in commercial offers with lots of emails!
Like Rose and Jack in Titanic, your main objective will be to stay afloat... Aim: get to Inbox and seduce your prospects!
(Well, we agree, it worked out better for Rose than for Jack...).
1. Preserve deliverability
Gone are the days when you could send millions of emails in a short space of time without the risk of them going to spam or being blocked. ISPs are becoming increasingly drastic about their filtering systems. And during periods of intense commercial pressure such as Black Friday, all their warning lights are on alert.
So how can you continue to take advantage of this operation, whose ROI potential no longer needs to be proven?
- Prioritize upstream collection: a good way to get around the restrictions imposed by ISPs. You'll collect warm, qualified addresses to readdress via your PRM campaigns for Black Friday.
- Extend the dates: by offering "Black Week", for example, or why not even "Black November"? This smoothes out shipments over a longer period and reduces the pressure.
- Multiply the number of templates: the aim is to evenly distribute volumes per email kit and minimize the risk of spam flagging (ideally 3 templates).
- Use the term "Black Friday" sparingly: emails are scrutinized! Don't use it in the subject line, and limit its presence to text format in the email kit. To bypass the filters, you can integrate it into images.
2. The subject of your emails!
It's the first contact with the Internet user. It's crucial! This is the time to appeal to prospects who behave differently from your customers. Here are 3 tips to boost your open rate:
- THE OFFER. Now's the time to highlight it, because it's going to do 50% of the job, especially if it's aggressive! During this period when buyers are eager for promotions, it's time to satisfy their thirst for bargains! It's time to get excited, but avoid swear words and spammy content .
- PRODUCTS and SERVICES : to stand out and be immediately understood, push your products or services in the subject line, especially if you're not an internationally renowned advertiser. Ex: "50% off your LED TV" / "Up to 50% off dresses".
- EMOTION: We're back to Rose and Jack... now you're getting teary-eyed... Okay, it's not necessarily about making people cry on keyboards. But now that you've got a good product and an exceptional offer, the best way to stand out during Black Friday will be to arouse certain strong feelings in your prospects: urgency, envy, curiosity/mystery, etc. This is the fatal weapon of your marketing strategy. This is the lethal weapon for your email subject lines: "In 24 hours it will be too late", "Last hours to take advantage of our exceptional offers", "Open this email or I won't answer any more questions", etc.
The use of emoji can also help you to better capture the attention of web users and boost the open rate of your email. Be sure to check that the emojis you choose don't change from one webmail to another - you could be in for some funny surprises!
Offers, product, emotion... Be careful, you'll only have a few words to reach your target. This is all the more true because this is a period of very high commercial pressure. Internet users are increasingly solicited, making conversion more difficult.
Finally, as already mentioned, we don't recommend using "Black Friday" or "Cyber Monday". Finally, don't exceed 70 characters to avoid being truncated in inbox.
3. Aggressive offers and engaging content for your Black Friday emails!
We've already mentioned this for the object, but during Black Friday, there are no surprises. Internet users are looking for the best deal, the best offer. This plays a vital role in boosting your email campaign KPIs. But unless you organize a little Black Friday in mid-August, you won't be alone at the end of November... So opt for an aggressive offer to boost your conversions and stand up to the competition.
When it comes to content, choose a streamlined approach that gets straight to the point. Too much blah kills the KPI!
Highlight your claim, your offer and a main CTA. No long texts whatsoever, which are not even read under normal circumstances (reading time is estimated at 6 seconds and click-through time at 2 to 4... short!).
4. Design: stand out from the crowd!
Want clicks? Make the main CTA stand out. Put yourself in the buyer's eye during this period, a sort of Time Square in your mailbox! Once again, get straight to the point by announcing your claim, your offer and an effective CTA in the1st third of the page!
Black Friday is a party! So put on your costume of light and adopt a tone adapted to this big party of international trade! Think outside the box and adopt a special Black Friday style. You'll help your prospects immediately understand the context and generate interest more quickly.
Differentiate yourself from your competitors, and take a different approach to what you're used to. Bring out the garlands... to be visible, capture attention and boost responsiveness, use animated formats such as gif or video.
We can't say it enough. It's a special time of year. And when you're talking to prospects who know little or nothing about your products and services, don't hesitate to illustrate your emails with clear visuals, highlighting your products/collections, seasonal bestsellers, etc. to boost your KPI's and conversions!
Because we also like to illustrate what we say, here are a few examples of Black Friday creatives from our advertisers who saw very good KPI's during the previous edition:
