Are you a smaller brand stressed about Black Friday?
If your answer is YES, we’ve got you covered.
In this episode, we’ll talk about 12 low-cost ideas to help you make the most out of this holiday sale season using the power of email marketing.
🎁 We've also prepared a sample email schedule for your next Black Friday campaign. Find it at the end of this blog post, along with more inspiring examples.
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
Are you a smaller brand stressed about Black Friday?
If your answer is YES, we’ve got you covered.
In this episode, we’ll talk about 12 low-cost ideas to help you make the most out of this holiday sale season using the power of email marketing.
🎁 We've also prepared a sample email schedule for your next Black Friday campaign. Find it at the end of this blog post, along with more inspiring examples.
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
Hi,
you’re listening to Getsitecontrol Insider – a monthly podcast for ecommerce brands looking for marketing advice.
Are you a smaller brand stressed about Black Friday? If your answer is YES, we’ve got you covered.
In this episode, we’ll talk about 12 low-cost ideas to help you make the most out of this holiday sale season using the power of email marketing.
Let’s dive right in.
***
If you own an ecommerce brand, Black Friday can be stressful.
Every year it seems like big brands offer increasingly ludicrous deals, which makes it tough for smaller businesses to keep up.
On top of that, ad costs on search and social media go up an average of 16 to 28%. Most large brands can afford it. But smaller brands — especially those with thinner margins — can’t always compete without hurting their revenue.
That’s why it’s so crucial to have an effective email marketing strategy for Black Friday.
First of all, with an email list of loyal subscribers and customers, you can get on their radar earlier than everyone else — before the noise really starts gearing up.
Second, unlike ads, email marketing is virtually free. While growing your list can cost you some ad spend or time, sending emails costs nothing.
Finally, emails have a higher engagement rate than social media. For example, Instagram engagement rate was less than 1% per post in 2021, and it continues declining. Meanwhile, email open rates for ecommerce were almost 16% with 2% click-through rates.
With that in mind, let talk about what you should include in your Black Friday email strategy, even if you’re smaller brand with a modest budget.
First. Double down on email list building at least one month ahead
Even if you’re already building your email list, it’s time to double down on your efforts — at LEAST one month before Black Friday. The earlier you can ramp up your efforts, the better.
For example, you can revamp your opt-in forms with community-driven offers, like a VIP-only promo code or access to a secret sale.
If you’re running ads to acquire new customers or grow your email list, consider increasing your budget during this period, too. You’re better off spending twice as much before Black Friday and turning off your ads during the peak of these events.
If you aren’t running ads, use your social media platforms to get people hyped up for what you’ve got planned during the holiday season. Give them hints on what’s to come so they have more reasons to join your email list.
Second step. Re-engage past customers
Do you have people on your list who made a purchase in the past, but who haven’t engaged with your emails in a while?
If so, it’s time to write and send a win-back email sequence.
Win-back emails are exactly what they sound like — their purpose is to win back existing customers and get them to purchase new products.
Your past customers are some of your biggest assets. It’s fully worth the time and effort to reach out to them and try to win them back.
In addition to telling them about new products or promos, you can let them know you’re preparing a special VIP-only event for Black Friday — and that they’re the first ones to know about it.
Third. Consider building a VIP group
If you want to take advantage of the Black Friday event, but you’re not ready to provide massive discounts for everyone to access, consider running a closed sale. Think of it as a secret event for your VIP subscribers.
To build a closed group, you can reach out to your list of subscribers and invite them to sign up for the event. Let them know that only people on the waitlist will get access to the biggest discounts.
You can also create a special opt-in form on certain pages of your website. Most people love exclusivity, and they’ll be happy to join a VIP group that gets unique deals.
Now, growing your list is important – but it’s equally important to build relationship with your subscribers. Here is how you can do that in anticipation of Black Friday.
Start sending nurture emails with valuable content
Before your big sale goes live, you need to warm up your subscribers and get them ready to buy. So, instead of sending promotional newsletters every time, add some nurture emails into the mix.
For example:
● New ways to use your products
● Behind the scenes of the product creation process
● The story behind a product launch
● Or even a cause that’s important to your brand and your audience
At the end of each nurture email, you can remind people that you’re about to launch a sale, and they don’t want to miss it.
Another thing you can do to engage with your audience is host a live sale event
Live sales are ideal to nurture a sense of community with your customers and subscribers.
Remember the VIP list you built previously? Now it’s time to execute on your promise and surprise them with a fun event they can attend live.
It’s up to you whether you want to make your live sale event your main Black Friday happening or not. For example, you can host this promotion as a bonus to reward your loyal VIP customers. This will prove that it does mean something to be part of your VIP group and your emails are worth opening.
Next idea. Consider launching a promotional email campaign earlier
If you don’t want to compete against everyone else during Black Friday, then don’t.
Launch your own Black Friday event before the actual Friday.
The earlier you launch your campaign, the easier it’ll be to stand out — but too early may also not gather as much interest. After all, many people use Black Friday to do holiday shopping — and there’s no urgency to shop for the holidays in the middle of August.
Another option is to host a sale just a few days early. If you’re using this strategy, make sure to start working on your VIP list well in advance, because you’ll need it.
Tip number 7. Add upsells and cross-sells
If you want to maximize the revenue, especially with extensive discounts, you need to think of ways to increase average order value.
One proven tactic is to add upsells and cross-sells to your most popular items.
For example, you can offer bundles and purchase upgrades to your customers right in the shopping cart during checkout.
Number 8. Show a range of price slashes
As a small business, you might not be able to afford to discount everything in your store at 70% off, like other brands do. But if you have a few items with a larger discount, consider announcing a range of discounts instead of a single number.
For instance, your promo line can feature “30-70% off everything” in your store, where the higher discounts are applied to clearance items or products with higher margins.
Tip number 9. Sprinkle elements of urgency
Every time you promote a sales event to your subscribers, remind them how many days are left to the end of the promo. If you want to go the extra mile, you can even add a countdown timer to your emails.
Countdown timers are extremely effective, but keep in mind that they work better with short-lived sales, because – let’s face it – there’s not much urgency to a timer that’s set to expire 7 days from now.
Another step you want to take before Black Friday season starts, is set up abandoned cart emails
As soon as the third week of November starts approaching, your customers will have a ton of distractions fighting for their attention.
So it’s highly likely they’ll get distracted while shopping on your website.
To win back those sales, prepare a sequence of emails that will remind these customers to complete their purchase.
Just make sure your cart abandonment emails are fun and memorable. People will get bombarded with emails during this time of the year, so it’s crucial to stand out in the inbox.
Tip number 11. Launch a Small Business Saturday promo
Have you heard about Small Business Saturday?
Lodged right in between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday is a sales event specifically meant for small businesses.
If you have small business supporters in your email list, you have an advantage with them compared to larger brands. As a matter of fact, you can even run a promo for Small Business Saturday instead of Black Friday.
To switch things up, try offering something different than a discount. For instance, you can offer additional points on your loyalty program for all purchases made during the event – or double the referral bonus.
Last tip: Get personal with video in your emails
One of the benefits of having a smaller email list is the ability to get more personal with everyone.
So here is our last tactic advice. Consider making a custom video for your subscribers, or for those who haven’t purchased yet.
You can customize the video based on the previous purchase history and pair it with a tailored promotion. For example, you can offer an additional 15% on fall boots to customers who purchased footwear from you last year.
***
Black Friday is a cutthroat competition between brands of all sizes. But if you double down on community-building and leverage your email list – no matter how small it is – you can still come out of the holiday season in the black.
And that’s not all. We’ve also prepared a sample email schedule for your next Black Friday marketing campaign. You’ll find the link in the description.
That’s it for today.
Thank you for listening,
Until next time!