#69. Black Friday Cyber Monday Campaign Strategy | Podcast

Vira: 0:16

Yay. More Black Friday things. Today we will discussing the calendar, like what to send and on what days and like how many emails send.

Alissa: 0:48

Hello. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Email Einstein by Flowium. Vira and Alissa here. As always, we are two email marketers at an email marketing agency called Flowium. We are super passionate about email marketing and because we love what we do, we want to share our insights with you. Flowium is one of the fastest growing email marketing agencies in the world. We specialize in providing a premium, full service e commerce email marketing experience for all of our clients. Our service is tailored specifically for your business and is designed to help increase your online reach. Retail revenue. We deliver the right message to the right person at the right moment. That’s what we’re all about. Here at Flowium. We are continuing our trend of Black Friday Cyber Monday goodies. So Vira, take us away.

Vira: 1:31

Yay, more Black Friday things. Guys, I hope you’re still with us. It’s like a big season for us. So yes, we do have a lot of goodies prepared about the Black Friday Cyber Monday. And today we have a special guest with us. Well, not really, but we had Alisa’s baby Henry with us at the beginning of the show and like, he was so cute and like you might hear him in the background. So yeah, he knows a thing or two about email marketing. I mean, he’s been on your calls probably from day one, right?

Alissa: 2:01

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Vira: 2:03

If you need like a free consultation, Flowium slash Henry. Well, anyways, let’s talk some Black Friday stuff. I don’t know guys, about the states, but in Canada we do things way early here every year. So stores, some stores are already busting out like giant bows and have some promotions for Black Fridays. No Santas in the malls yet, but it’s just in a matter of like a week or two we’ll have them there. So we’re starting things early and I mean there is this like a faint of chill air that is indicating that holidays are coming. Not for you, Alissa. Probably you’re in Florida so no chill air for you.

Alissa: 2:46

But still, I mean, it’s supposed to be like 79 degrees Fahrenheit, which is your.

Vira: 2:51

79 degrees.

Alissa: 2:53

24, I think 24, 25, 26 Celsius this weekend. And we’re like, ooh, it’s cold, it’s

Vira: 2:58

chill sweater weather, Florida people. Well, anyways, it’s official. The holidays are coming and so are a lot of emails. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. Like last year they found this number. I think it was from HubSpot or something, I’m not sure. So last year retailers sent 55.4 more emails campaigns on Black Friday than the year before that. Can you imagine like literally 50% more emails in 2020 than in 2019, which is crazy. Yeah. And I mean it was a big year for all of us with like Covid and everything. Everyone got more involved with like email marketing and stuff. But yeah, this year will be no exception. So there will be a lot of emails, but that doesn’t mean that you have to stay away from that. You have to be a part of that. Huge. And today we will discussing the calendar, like what to send and on what days and like how many emails sent. This is like a big one too because people are asking us all the time, do I need to bother my customers at all when they are so busy with all the other email campaigns? The short answer is yes. But today we’ll discuss like, what exactly and when to send. Alissa, take us off with day number one of day one.

Alissa: 4:35

Day one, my day ones. All my day ones out there. So day one, early Black Friday deals for your VIPs. So even though things are getting really, really earlier as time goes on year after year, you can still kind of keep some sort of like exclusivity with how early you get with your details. So a long time, very long time ago, it feels like Black Friday was one single day of shopping excess. People would wake up early the day after Thanksgiving. Not me. And would head to malls and fight over deeply discounted sweaters, coffee makers and TVs. I still have this like image of like a viral video of someone like literally like playing tug of war with a TV at like a Walmart or something. And that’s what I used to picture when I would think of Black Friday. It’s a little different now.

Vira: 5:23

Yeah.

Alissa: 5:23

And that’s because Black Friday 2021 is start even earlier. And it’s even earlier than ever. And ever and ever and ever. However, your VIPs should be the first ones to enjoy it.

Vira: 5:35

Yep.

Alissa: 5:36

So what you want to do is offer your VIP customers early access to your promotions with a unique coupon code or other incentives which helps build brand loyalty amongst some of your best customers. So in episode 68 we talked about this, so definitely check that episode out because we did talk about specifically an early bird strategy. The other thing to note is like you don’t have to be offering your VIP discount. Like in October, one of my clients, we offer a VIP discount. So Black Friday is that Friday. We usually do it on the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So it’s not like crazy amounts earlier. It’s just something that’s a little earlier than when the actual Black Friday sale launches. The other thing that you should keep an eye out for is when Amazon Prime Day kicks off. Oh yeah, you can consider that as the unofficial start to the holiday shopping season, especially if it’s within the October, October timeframe. So what you can do is you can pick some of those following weekends to introduce upcoming holiday deals and also think about maybe even launching some early access campaigns around that time frame. And weekends, well, they tend to see a lower sending volume. People tend to. Or companies tend to focus all of their sense throughout the course of the week because people just aren’t as heavy on email. So when you send things out on the weekend or you have your VIP deals going out on the weekend, people actually have time to read emails and do some online shopping. So you can use Saturdays and Sundays throughout the entire sale season to your advantage. And the other thing that we’ve talked a little bit about too is there are some brands that Sunday mornings tend to be like their best campaign sale days. So if you, if that is one of your brands, then use that towards your advantage as well and just think about where your customer is at, meet them, where they’re at in their life and what day you think you’re going to be able to catch them best and then start launching some of those earlier Black Friday promotions for them.

Vira: 7:29

Yeah, that’s actually an interesting point, Alissa, because I’ve noticed with one of my clients that whenever I’m sending the campaign for them on like Saturday, usually we do for this client either Thursday or Saturday. So whenever I send the Saturday campaign, the open rates usually are lower, but the average order value is like much higher. And like I’m talking like 20% higher, which is like weird, right? It’s like why would you spend more money on Saturday than on Thursday? But somehow it works for them this way. And this is like a brand for car enthusiasts. So I don’t know, maybe like people who love cars are willing to spend more on Saturdays. I don’t know. But that’s just like an interesting thing. And thank you for pointing it out that. Yeah, because people, sometimes they try to stay away from weekends not to like bother your customers. And sometimes we do agree with that strategy. Not during the holidays. Holidays is your time to bother your people. I feel like people do expect to receive more emails so they like wouldn’t be too, too angry with you.

Alissa: 8:30

Right?

Vira: 8:31

Yeah. Cool. Day number two. Well this is like the basic strateg. Obviously you don’t have to follow it to the D. But day number two is your Thanksgiving day. And when it comes to Thanksgiving there are three approaches. Approach number one, blasting your list with promos like many brands do. That’s like a valid approach but not the one that we prefer. Spoiler alert. Number two, not bothering your customers with promos at all. So do not send anything. Be like silent. Let them enjoy their turkey and their families. So that’s like approach number two. Approach number three is somewhere in the middle doing a thank you campaign and sending it to your engaged 12 months customers. Yet this thank you campaign shouldn’t include any like promos or anything. This is more like a relationship building campaign. Right. Like on Thanksgiving day you simply want to send like happy Thanksgiving wishes to all of your subscribers. This should be like a genuine email, more like from our family to yours kind of email. Yeah. So this is like a good, really good valid Thanksgiving campaign strategy. It is simply to like express gratitude thanks with your customers and instead of like trying to bombard them with like product landing pages sales, share something that is like warm, that is like heartfelt Thanksgiving message. It will help to build you the brand loyalty which will last longer than your promo. So this is like a good one. And there is this like company that is selling books. I really like them. And they like a few years ago they sent this like really cute email. I can just like read it quickly because it was like so, so warm and nice. Called today we share a table. Maybe yours is messy, filled with familiar faces, belly laughs and happy cries. Maybe it finds you full. Maybe it’s aged with gathering of years before. Or perhaps it’s brand new waiting expectantly for traditions to come. Very few days do we get to make room for gathering. And when we create the space to do just that together we seem stumble upon what we’re looking we witness the joy of connection with every hour spent we find together we belong Yada, yada, yada. I mean, this is a long email. It’s just, it’s just so different. It struck me because it is really sweet. It’s sweet. They thank you for being their customer. They thank you for sharing your table with them. I mean that’s like a way to go. But that’s just like our personal opinion. That’s what we did last year with many of our clients. Again, it depends on the client, depends on the brand, how aggressive you want to be with your promise. But this is like a nice little touch. Optionally, you can also send an sms. If you’re doing sms, you can also send it like later in the day when people are done with their like dinners and when they are eating their dessert. You can send an SMS to drive the start of your Black Friday Cyber Monday offerings, especially to VIPs. So Thursday afternoon SMS messages, they do see like good engagement throughout Cyber Weekend. So this is like a good opportunity for you to kickstart your Thanksgiving. But again, depending on your strategy and how invasive you want to be on Thanksgiving Day. So day number two, send the Thanksgiving email.

Alissa: 12:15

Yeah, the email I agree with. The SMS is tough for me because it does feel.

Vira: 12:19

I know, I know how you feel about sms.

Alissa: 12:21

It feels invasive on Thanksgiving. I’m on board with the SMS marketing, but it does feel a little invasive on Thanksgiving. Now just depends on the content, right? Like if you’re sending a sweet message like that, like, hey, thanks for sharing your table with us, like, I think that’s nice. You know, that would be a surprising text to get from a brand that I really liked. So. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Very interesting. So day three, Black Friday, this is the big one. So we actually have an email and then an optional SMS if you’re doing SMS marketing. So on Black Friday at 12:00am, this is what you would send. But before we get into that, let’s talk about some stats. 116.5 million emails are sent on Black Friday, more than any other day of the year.

Vira: 13:09

That is whack. Insane.

Alissa: 13:11

That’s whack. That’s crazy. And over at $90 billion in sales are expected over the four day weekend with email expected to be driving a fifth of these sales. Wow, that’s crazy. Email is real, people. For any of you who think that email is dying, just look at the numbers. So once the actual big day, Black Friday arrives, you definitely should not be shy with your emails.

Vira: 13:35

Yeah.

Alissa: 13:36

And you’ll definite want to send multiple campaigns on that one day. And this is probably the only day of the year that you can actually get away with that sort of thing. You will easily upset a customer if you send like two or three campaigns on any old Tuesday. But when you get to Black Friday, it’s okay to do that because you want to make sure that you’re hitting top of inbox for customers. Your first email, it can go out as early as midnight. So that’s why we said 12am midnight. And yes, there are definitely shoppers who will start their Black Friday shopping on in the first minutes of the day. And I might be one of them. Who knows, maybe I’ll be working and then maybe I’ll be like, let’s see what happens and see who decides to email me. And obviously the goal of your Black Friday email is to get people to take action and purchase from your store without delay. So you don’t want people to wait until. You probably send out that extension email on Tuesday after Cyber Monday. You want people to buy right away because then. And the best thing is, is when people buy right away and then you get a repeat purchase from that same customer within the same weekend.

Vira: 14:37

Yeah.

Alissa: 14:38

And then your other option is SMS. So we have here a recommended send of around 11:15am, so what you would do is you would use this SMS to actually target those who haven’t converted from your earlier emails in the day and encourage a sale. And this is an opportunity to reach subscribers who may not use email as much directly on their phone. The other thing is, is there are still people who take it really traditional and they like to go out for Black Friday shopping. They will still show up and wait in line at 5 o’ clock in the morning to get into their stores and find the best deals. And that’s okay. But those people are likely not on their phone checking their email all the time, but when a text comes through, it’s a little different.

Vira: 15:18

Right. So that’s.

Alissa: 15:20

You can still reach your customers through sms even if they’re out doing the physical Black Friday shopping.

Vira: 15:25

Do you know anyone who’s still like doing that physical Black Friday? Really?

Alissa: 15:30

Yeah, a lot of people. There are a lot of people who just like to be. I mean, it’s usually older people, right? No offense. No offense to the older generations who are listening out there, but it’s usually older people and they just don’t trust the Internet. So they’re like, you know what, I’m gonna go to Walmart and actually make the purchase versus just making the purchase online. But on the flip side, you do have a lot of older people who are a little apprehensive about going out.

Vira: 15:56

Yeah.

Alissa: 15:56

You have no choice but to learn how to trust the Internet.

Vira: 15:59

Yeah.

Alissa: 16:01

So, yeah, you see two sides to it. But the SMS side of things is really great because it gives you an opportunity to catch people who may or may not be doing their Black Friday shopping out and about. So it’s definitely, definitely worthwhile. And then we have two other emails that you would send on Black Friday. So if your first is going out at midnight, then your second is going to go out at 11:30am, this email would act as a follow up to your first early morning message in order to catch the eye of anyone who may have missed it. And what you want to do is you just want to keep your sales and call to action above the fold to ensure they are visible. This email, like these emails that you’re sending on Black Friday do not need to be long, they don’t need to be filled with copy. If anything, they should be short, to the point and just kind of design fun so that they really catch your customer’s eye and that’s really what you’re working with. And it should be a glance where they just see discount buy here, done. And then you’re moving on. And then you’re sending a third email at 8pm as your final follow up on actual Black Friday. So now that the bulk of Black Friday has passed, people are home having Thanksgiving leftovers. You want to make sure that you’re creating a sense of urgency to encourage the later day sales. So you would send this message to a majority of your Black Friday Cyber Monday segments just to kind of capture everyone and again, add some urgency to the fact that the day is ending and it kind of comes across as if the sale is only lasting that morning one day. So definitely make sure that you make the most of Black Friday and send as many emails as you feel comfortable or you feel like your audience would feel comfortable with.

Vira: 17:33

That’s a good one. That’s a good one. Yeah. And I mean it, it sounds like it’s a lot of emails, but chances are if you send more emails, one of your email at least will be opened. Right. Because on Black Friday Cyber Monday people do get a ton of emails. So don’t be shy. This is like literally one day of the year when we recommend to bombard your customers with email to like a smart extent. So yeah, obviously use your segmentation to the rest. So yeah, day four Saturday after Black Friday. So start off Saturday with an early campaign, like a reminder campaign. If you’re doing like not, not a one day sale, but if you’re doing the entire Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend, which we certainly do recommend to do, start off Saturday with an early campaign encouraging who still haven’t made their purchase to take advantage of your existing promise. Right. So segments to send to are probably like all your old subscribers. So you can like literally send to your master list. You can send it to your engaged customers of the year, but also for the last year, Black Friday Cyber Monday buyers. These are your window shoppers. So like include them into that campaign as well. Optionally you can send another email around like 22 to 3pm by this time you’ve likely sent like a lot of emails already and most of your customers potentially bought something from you. Sometimes depending on what you’re selling and like how many products you have, maybe it’s not a good strategy to like send as many emails. Right. And maybe your potential, maybe your customers could potentially need a break from your messages. So keep this message focused mostly on like your window shoppers. So people who are almost buyers. Right? Right. Do not exhaust your entire list with this message. Optionally, on Saturday you can also send an sms as always, just like to sum up what you have and to target those people who are not in their emails on Saturday. Right. Especially like non openers and non buyers. So yeah. So here you have your Saturday after Black Friday day. And if your sale ends in like Sunday, remind them about the, the ending time of the sal sale because the sense of urgency is important, especially around the holidays.

Alissa: 19:59

Yeah. And you need like a finite time of like it’s ending this time. So then that way you’re not just keeping it vague and open and people don’t really understand if there’s legitimate urgency or not. Okay, so day five, this is the Sunday after Black Friday, so this is optional. However, I would recommend for sure sending an email. So your email, it would just be one and your campaign would go out at around 10.15am Again these are just recommended times, so see what works best for your brand. But you would use this email to remind your subscribers that your Black Friday promos are running out by the end of the day and encourage them to take action before it’s too late. Because Sunday is technically the last day of Black Friday because obviously the following day is Cyber Monday. And your reminders can be fun. So you can put in a gift guide, you can show your CEOs favorites, you can show your tribe’s favorites. However it is that you want to kind of frame it, just make it fun. Again. These campaigns should be pretty short, sweet, to the point you don’t need to write mountains and mountains of copy in the email. So just make sure the design is fun, it’s interactive, the customer will get engaged. So then that way they’re taking advantage of the last day of your Black Friday sales.

Vira: 21:02

Specifically. Yeah, yeah, that’s a good one. And day six is your. Is it day six? Yeah, day six is your Cyber Monday. This is the big holiday in the industry. Back in the day it was Black Friday of E commerce industry. Now we have have Black Friday and, and Cyber Monday. So we have like them both. So it’s like your call. Basically there are like two big approaches. Approach number one is to be sending Cyber Monday emails only to people who haven’t purchased within that like Black Friday weekend time frame. Right. So you can have two separate sales. You can have a Black Friday sale and Cyber Monday that will only go to people who are sort of like non purchasers. Or you can blast your entire list with Cyber Monday promotions as well. Usually Cyber Monday promotions are slightly better than Black Friday. So my preference is more is probably the first approach. Just so we don’t like, don’t make people who already purchased from you angry with like a higher discount. Because like yesterday we were promising you that 20% off will be our best ever deal. And today we’re like, you know what, here’s 25, like 30. So I mean it’s, it’s your call again. You do you. But yeah, that’s something that I will be doing with my clients this year with majority of them anyways. So you can send like a quick email introducing the sale in the morning a.m. email. But then around 3 or 4pm you can send an optional SMS. You can use this to inform your SMS subscribers that Cyber Monday Monday sales will be ending soon and to like entice them to make the purchase before it’s actually over. And email number, I don’t know what number it is but whatever the last email of the day is, email that you will send around 9pm that will be basically reminding your customer that time is running out. This is email to alert your subscribers that Cyber Monday deals will end today. If you are ending them on Monday obviously and there are only a few hours left to do shop for the sale. Countdown timers would be nice to have here and I think we talked about them before but there are like ton of ways to do your countdown Timer. So this is like a perfect campaign to have it. So, yeah, six days of Black Friday. It’s almost like 12 days of Christmas.

Alissa: 23:28

I know, I was just thinking that,

Vira: 23:32

yeah, this is like a very basic strategy. Obviously you can go more, more so you can be more sophisticated with segmentation and you can do different offers for customers, but that’s like a whole different story for now. This is like an excellent beginning. Let us know if you guys have any other sort of like tricks in your sleeve that you can share with us. Yeah, we’re always on a hunt.

Alissa: 23:56

We’re always on the hunt for fresh Black Friday strategies.

Vira: 23:59

Yeah.

Alissa: 24:00

So guys, thank you so much as always for coming in, listening, touching base with us. Don’t forget to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. And as always, if you leave us a review or if you like what we do, leave us a review. You’ll get some free socks. If you do leave a review, what you should do is visit flowium.com/socks it’ll lead you to a Typeform survey. You’ll basically just plug in your name, your address so we can send you the socks and then a place where you can put in your screenshot. So then that way our team will make sure that you get your socks sent over to you. And as always, if you do want to get involved in a community of like minded email marketing nerds, join us@flowium.com/community. We all touch base in there and chat and any questions that you have, we will try to answer to the best of our knowledge.

Vira: 24:44

Yay. And come back next week. We will keep talking about Black Friday Cyber Monday, but next week we will be talking about the bounce back strategies. So don’t miss it.

Alissa: 24:54

I love it, love it, love it. Thank you guys for listening.

Vira: 24:57

Thank you so much. Talk to you next week.