The holidays are a brilliant opportunity to increase your sales. Using online marketing tools around this time to let people know about your offers and ways to avail them can do wonders for your business.
The future of the retail industry relies heavily upon online marketing, particularly email. Email offers an opportunity for you to reach your customers directly. It is more likely to be seen by your customers, and it’s more likely to be effective.
Around Black Friday, there are so many email marketing strategies to try out. A successful campaign is creative, on theme, and offers customers something unique. Something that sets you apart from your competitors.
Let’s take a look at some of the most effective ways to run a successful email marketing campaign for Black Friday.
1. Create eye-catching email content
If you send out a boring email, chances are that your customers will skim through it and click off no matter how good your offer is. This is because you haven’t made an effort to sell your offer. You haven’t made it eye-catching enough.
An effective email needs to grab your customers’ attention straight off the bat. Whether it’s through striking colors, bold imagery, or exciting graphics, your email should highlight two main things:
- What your can’t-miss offer is
- How the offer will benefit your customer
Essentially, you want your customers to know what they gain by clicking on the email.
Creating the perfect, colorful email may seem like a daunting task but it doesn’t have to be. Sites like PosterMyWall have a huge number of Black Friday poster templates that you can choose from to create your ideal email body.
2. Apply lessons from previous holiday campaigns
People are always telling others to learn from their mistakes. And for good reason. Analyzing your past marketing campaigns from the holiday season is a great opportunity for you to figure out where you went wrong. And what you can do to make it right.
Here are some questions to think about when analyzing past holiday campaigns:
- Did you pick the right target audience?
- Were you reaching out to enough people?
- Were you reaching out to too many people?
- Did you get your message across effectively?
- Which strategy in particular drew in the most sales?
Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll have a better idea of how to make your email campaign this time more successful. These are some things to consider based on your answers:
- Who are you going to be sending your emails to this year?
- What information should be most prominent in your email content?
- Is there a supplementary strategy that you can employ along with your email strategies?
3. Offer exclusive Black Friday deals
One of the reasons email campaigns are generally more effective is because of the sense of exclusivity they offer. Readers feel like they’re scoring special deals available only to them.
Hence, the deals and discounts you mention in your emails should be exclusively available to your email recipients. You can ensure this through a special, personalized promo code. Ask your recipients to enter the promo code during checkout to avail their exclusive Black Friday discount.
4. Start your campaign as early as possible
It’s never too early to start marketing your deals and offers. In fact, the earlier you start, the more likely it will be for people to remember that you have an offer going on and avail it.
For best results, start your email campaign at least a month before Black Friday. You don’t have to spam your customers. One or two emails a week can be enough to grab your audience’s attention. Make sure the earlier emails don’t give too much away. Let people know that you have exciting deals for your customers for Black Friday.
About three weeks before Black Friday, get more specific – offer promo codes, tell people exactly what products are on sale, and be clear about shipping costs and delivery time.
5. Segment your email list
An email campaign is most effective when it reaches the people most likely to be interested in the content. After all, an email about a sale on makeup would be worthless if it’s sent to a 50-year-old man.
Therefore, curate a properly segmented email list so you can send relevant promotional emails to the relevant people. Here’s how to go about it:
- Start by getting your customers’ email addresses – put a sign up sheet at your store, ask people to sign up to shop on your website, or ask them to subscribe to your newsletter
- Ask people what their preferences are – when people are signing up, ask them to check specific boxes to get an idea about their likes and interests
- Categorize all people according to their preferences
- Create separate email content for each group of people
- Send emails accordingly
Final thoughts
An email marketing campaign can be a gamechanger, especially around Black Friday when people are actively looking for sales. If you play your cards right and follow the strategies in this article, you’ll be able to successfully leverage email to bring more customers through the door.