With Black Friday – and Cyber Monday – coming up later this month, now is the time start preparing for the first big shopping event of the holiday season. From optimizing your content, to figuring out the right time to fire off these marketed messages, there’s a lot to consider as you kick this preparation into high gear. To help you out on this front, here’s five crucial tips and suggestions that are sure to make this Black Friday your best yet.
Send out Your Emails on the Monday Before Black Friday
In her look at making the most out of Black Friday via inbox operations, Amy Gesenhues of Marketing Land notes that waiting until Thursday or Friday of this week to send out of your content is simply not the right call. While most brands actually subscribe to the end of the week approach, Gesenhues points out that the highest open rates actually occur on Monday. Tuesday comes in at a close second in terms of open rate potential, further supporting the notion that getting your content out early is a good idea.The main reason for this “early bird” advantage is that consumers like to plan ahead before committing to a purchase. Giving them a few days to mull over your offering or discount is a powerful way to tap into this preference, all while gaining a decided advantage over competitors who are still sending out marketed messages later in the week.
Keep Things Consistent and Straightforward Across Every Channel
If you’re planning on supporting your email marketing operations via social media and other channels, it’s vital that you keep your message – and your specific offers and discounts – consistent across each platform. Otherwise, Web Pro News’ Chris Crum explains that you run the risk of serious backlash from your target audience.Consumers are constantly checking in on brands via the inbox, Twitter, Facebook, branded blog posts, and other channels throughout the Black Friday sales cycle, so providing one deal to a certain portion of your audience and then following it up with a lesser offer to other shoppers can generate plenty of ill-will. An easy way to avoid this problem is by incorporating social share buttons as a way for your inbox audience to spread this content within their networks, thereby promoting consistency – and awareness – for your Black Friday promotions.
Make Your Message Mobile Friendly
Yes, the suggestion to make your emails mobile friendly is probably a tip that you’re tired of hearing if you regularly read up on inbox marketing via blogs and other industry sources. However, as Kim Speier of Business 2 Community notes, over twice as many emails are opened on mobile devices as desktops during the Black Friday season, so this is a message that is well worth repeating.The patience of your audience is exceptionally low during the deluge of special promotions and discounts that flood their inbox, so keep things simple with straightforward text and easily clickable buttons. It might be a hard pill to swallow at first, but fast load times and simple navigational tools trump flashy graphics and visuals any day of the week when it comes to winning on Black Friday.
Have a Little Fun with Humor in Your Message
Aside from keeping things short and simple, it’s okay to show that your brand has a sense of humor this holiday season. Poking fun at the standard tropes and stereotypes of the season – staying up all night shopping, fighting through stampeding crowds, etc. – not only shows that your brand can be conversational and engaging in the inbox, it also service as the perfect avenue to promote online deals and discounts. After all, there’s no better way to sell the digital experience than by pointing out how hectic Black Friday can be in-store on the big night.
Plan to Keep the Good Deals Flowing to the New Year
Finally – and perhaps most importantly – is committing to the concept that Black Friday isn’t the culmination of your email marketing sales push, but rather the beginning. From now until the New Year, there are several major shopping events, so it’s vital to the sustained success of your brand to make sure that Black Friday serves as a springboard for even more success and conversions.By taking note of consumer feedback, open and click-through rates, and any other metrics that tell the story of your audience response on Black Friday, you can continue to refine and optimize your content for the coming holidays and promotions. When paired with the rest of what you’ve learned here, it’s safe to say that you now have everything you need to keep the good times rolling from Black Friday all the way through Boxing Day.