#116. Email Marketing Tips to Make 2022 Your Best BFCM Yet | Podcast

Vira: 0:41

Hello. Hello everyone and welcome to Email Einstein podcast by Flowium. I’m your host, Vira Sadlak. I’m an email marketer at an agency called Flowium and I’m very, very passionate about email marketing. And because here we love what we do, we want to share our insights with you. And today I’m joined by a very, very special guest. She’s an email marketing geek, just as all we are here. So please welcome Allie Guertin from Klaviyo. Allie, say hi.

Allie: 1:12

Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I am a huge fan of all of the work you guys are doing over at Flowium and I’ very excited to be here today.

Vira: 1:21

Well, we are very excited to have you here. For those unfamiliar, Klaviyo is an e commerce marketing automation platform. Well, probably you guys listening, you know what Klaviyo is, but still, it’s like an automation platform that empowers creators to own their destiny. I actually copied it from your LinkedIn and I loved it how you put it because you do own your marketing journey when you’re using platforms like Klaviyo, which is amazing.

Allie: 1:47

Yeah, it’s one of those things that can sound a little bit cliche, but it is so true. We want these brands and it is to own their data, own their story and the the future is yours for the taking. Depending on what you do with it.

Vira: 2:02

For sure. Well anyways, Allie is in fact one of the masterminds of Klaviyo. Like for our team. Every time we have like a question or something or like deliverability questions, that’s you are our person that we go to. And in this podcast she will hopefully share some juicy email market marketing details for you who are preparing for the Black Friday Cyber Monday season. But before we go there, Ali, let’s play a little blitz Q A game like this or that kind of game. Just like to. To get to know you better. I’m like really curious to to hear all of your answers. Okay. Texting or talking or calling. Sorry, texting or calling?

Allie: 2:41

100 texting. I am that friend that will just stare at my phone when I see a FaceTime coming in and just let it go until it’s over. Texting.

Vira: 2:51

Yes, A hundred percent. Amazon or Shopify?

Allie: 2:54

Shopify.

Vira: 2:55

That’s a hard one for me because I kind of love both. I kind of use both. But yeah, I’m a Shopify girl myself too.

Allie: 3:01

If my boss and my leadership team is listening, I think I would be in trouble if I said Amazon there for everything we believe in with owned marketing. So I had to say. I had to say Shopify.

Vira: 3:13

Yeah. Favorite TV show right now.

Allie: 3:15

Oh, gosh.

Vira: 3:16

If you have one.

Allie: 3:17

Well, I’ll go with my all time answer. Like if I just need a comfort show Chopped on the Food Network.

Vira: 3:24

Ooh, that’s interesting. Comfort show.

Allie: 3:28

I know. I don’t know what that is.

Vira: 3:29

That’s a pretty. Pretty unique one. Pretty unique.

Allie: 3:32

I think it’s because I have no talent when it comes to cooking. So I will just watch other people have talent with cooking.

Vira: 3:38

But you can still, like, appreciate the beauty of the process and everything. I’m like the same cooking shows all the way. Okay, if you had a theme song playing every time you entered the room, what would it be?

Allie: 3:48

Oh, my gosh. You’re hitting me with the hard questions. Yeah. Okay. I think. I do not know why this song is coming to my head right now, but for some reason, when I walk in a room or before I walk in a meeting, I’m picturing We Will Rock youk going off.

Vira: 4:06

That’s a good one. That’s a really, really good one.

Allie: 4:09

I don’t think I’ve listened to that song in years, but that’s what came to my mind.

Vira: 4:13

Not a bad one at all. Cool. What is your favorite Halloween costume that you’ve ever worn?

Allie: 4:19

I pride myself in some of my Halloween costumes, but one that was just really, really fun was when me and some of my friends dressed up as loofahs, which we made completely from scratch.

Vira: 4:34

I’m like, just like trying to picture how would that look like.

Allie: 4:38

Fluffy scratchy ball.

Vira: 4:41

That’s a good one. That’s exciting. Are you getting ready for Halloween season or you’re already in the Black Friday Cyber Monday mode?

Allie: 4:48

Yeah, that’s a tricky one too. I feel like I mentally am going straight to Black Friday Cyber Monday and all the fun that comes with that. But I do love Halloween, so I need to kind of snap myself back a little bit. And not rush. Not rush. October.

Vira: 5:04

Yeah, I mean, I’ve noticed that. I mean, anyways, in Canada, I don’t know if it’s the same in the States probably, but I’ve noticed that Halloween Also served as a getaway to the holidays. You know, as retailers, they start to replace like orange and black with red and green, like right after the Halloween. Is that the same like in the States?

Allie: 5:25

Oh, yeah. It’s a coincidence because I think of the same when I think of email marketing and we’ll get into that, but literally this, the holidays seem to be promoted in retail stores earlier, earlier and earlier every single year. Like, I feel like I was seeing Halloween decorations in June and now you can already find Christmas and hol decorations. Now it just keeps getting earlier and earlier.

Vira: 5:53

What’s your take on that? How do you think? Like, how early should you start marketing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Like from your own experience?

Allie: 6:02

Yeah, Well, I think for a lot of listeners and the Flowium team, we know that 2020 was a really, really interesting year for e commerce. And along with that email and sms and I think what we’re just going to continue to see is because of that, people are starting earlier and earlier. And the reason I think they’re starting earlier is because with that uniqueness of 2020, people weren’t shopping in person. So a lot of these brands that so heavily relied on retail shopping were forced to do e commerce and then saw the success of it. They were like, whoa, email and SMS does matter. We should prioritize this. We should prioritize e commerce. And with that, now there’s just more folks in the space than ever. And I think it’s just that competitive drive. There’s the Amazon sales that happen, what, this year it should be October.

Vira: 7:01

October 11th.

Allie: 7:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So with that, I think people just got really, really educated on the power of email and sms. So whether it is Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or just the holidays in general, I’ve seen more Labor Day sales than ever, more Memorial Day. Every single holiday weekend that people can. They’re doing these sales. So, you know, the earlier the better.

Vira: 7:30

Yeah. And I even like, for. For brands that I work with, we used Labor Day kind of as an opportunity to test different offers, you know, like to see what generates more revenue, what. What works better for the audience. That’s interesting. And I did notice, like a lot more Labor Day weekend sales this year as well. I actually found this number on the Internet, which sounds like very, very impressive. I actually found this number that 83% of online retailers, they plan to start doing their Black Friday Cyber Monday sales earlier this year. So before Black Friday, Cyber Monday and 19% actually were saying that they started as early as in August this year. Can you imagine like, it’s insane to me, but it does work. I mean, this strategy does work, especially with all of the issues that we had with like deliveries and postal services last year. That’s interesting, Ali. And when we talk about the cadence of the email, like how often is too often or how often should I email my segments about Black Friday Cyber Monday.

Allie: 8:41

It is probably the number one question that I get is how do you find that middle ground, that happy medium, to ensure that you’re seeing as much success as possible while not hurting your sending reputation or risking those unsubscribes? And it is tricky. But what I love about Klaviyo not to be biased is our segmentation power. And when I hear that question of how often should I be sending? I try to redirect that to how many different segments do you have? Because when you think of it that way, you can send as much as you like, you can send daily, but what you can’t do is just continue to blast the same audience every single day. So that’s where we get into a lot of the VIPs, the repeat holiday shoppers, all of those amazing opportunities to you send from your brand many, many times. As long as you’re being strategic about who’s on the receiving end of that.

Vira: 9:50

Yeah, yeah. And like, by spreading out like different messages, different emails, you’re able to sort of like, better talk to different audiences. You’re able to tailor your messaging in each email based on, like, who you are sending it to. I mean, that’s what we’ve done from our experience. Something. Yeah, sir, go ahead.

Allie: 10:09

I was just going to say something I’ve compared it to, which really makes it simple to digest, is if you had your best friend in front of you for the past 15 years, you had some of your co workers in front of you that you’re close with, but you’ve only known them for X amount of time. And then you had strangers on the other side and you just kept sending all three of those groups the same exact, same text or you said the same exact thing to them. Your best friend’s probably sitting there going, who is this person? The stranger is saying, what’s going on? You know, everyone’s confused because you’re not speaking to them in the way that they would expect you to speak to them. And I think of segmentation as that same opportunity.

Vira: 10:55

That’s a good one. And I found this number somewhere that brands that are doing more than $10 million a year, I think they actually had on average over 100 something segments. I mean, this number sounds very crazy to me, but if you think about it, you can segment based on like so many different factors based on like who they are, where they are from, like what is their average order value, like how much money they spent over the year, how much money they spent historically with you. And these are all like, just like you said, different groups of friends who expect you to talk differently to them, which is like, yeah, it’s a bread and butter of email marketing and what amazes me every time, and I honestly don’t understand like the physics of it, but like every time you’re like, our customers are sending this like blasting their entire email list with like this big promotion and then they are sending the segmented campaign. The segmented campaign actually makes more, more money, brings them more revenue. Like, like, how, how does it work? It works every freaking time. Honestly, it’s just like I still, it still amazes me. I’ve been working in email marketing for so long, but it still does amaze me every. Every freaking time.

Allie: 12:14

Totally. And it’s one of those things I wish we could just dissect and have a magnifying glass to really understand why. I want that definite answer too. But what I think it really comes down to is that same experience with, to stay consistent with my, my examples here is that if you have these different groups of people and they’re realizing that you’re not putting any effort in. We’re thinking that about it because we’re email and SMS marketers. But someone that has no background in email and sms, they still have common sense. And if they’re getting an email from you every single day, they’re just looking at that, going, oh, spam. Ugh, I hate email. But if you start to realize that, hey, I’ve done xyz, I’ve given this first party data. Yes, they’re not saying first party data because they’re not email marketers, but they’re identifying the fact that these brands are actually listening. And those things build trust, they build relationships. And yeah, I don’t expect the consumers behind their email thinking of it that way, but subconsciously they are. And that’s what’s resulting in those, those higher performing conversions.

Vira: 13:34

Right? And in the long run, you can really hurt your deliverability if you will be blessed your entire entire list like with the same message.

Allie: 13:42

Deliverability is a huge one during the holidays and it’s something we focus really, really in depth on because we know folks are going to broaden their audience. We know they’re going to Be sen to a higher volume than ever. But there’s a difference between sending to a higher volume batch and blast and sending to a higher volume strategically with segment. And I think that’s what gets lost in the messaging is oh yeah, we can send to everyone. That’s what everyone does. Yeah, a lot of folks do that, but they do it really well. They’re not just tanking deliverability because the last thing you want is to be ending up in spam during Black Friday Cyber Monday nightmare.

Vira: 14:22

That’s a nightmare of every business owner for sure. And let’s talk about the offers, the holiday offers, because I know there are like a lot of, a lot of brands who are blasting their list with like huge offers, but there are some brands who, who don’t want to kind of train their customers to expect the high discounts even around the holidays. So how to determine your Black Friday Cyber Monday offer? And like, what sort of like incentives can brands offer during Black Friday Cyber Monday?

Allie: 14:53

Yeah, really important one. I have two opinions when it comes to what type of offer. The first one, as we talked about a little earlier, is that we’re seeing brands doing more promotional events than ever because of the heightened e commerce growth in 2020. So if you know that you had done X amount off for Labor Day and you did something for Memorial Day, we are trained as consumers to think that Black Friday Cyber Monday is going to be your biggest, shiniest, sexiest sale or offering of the year. So for those of you, whether you’re a listener or some of your clients for Flowium is, let’s be really smart about the offers we’ve given our consumers in the past year because the last thing you’d want to do is have all this excitement. Oh man, this brand did a really great sale for Labor Day. They’re going to crush it for Black Friday only to be let down by something not as significant or personal. So that that’s what I’d say from the comparison of sales. The other side of it is that so often I hear opposite ends of the spectrum for businesses. Either they’re not in a financial place to be risking these promotions, these high discounts right now. And the other end of that spectrum being we are a luxury brand, we’re a high end price point. It doesn’t fit our brand Persona to be offering discounts. And my feedback to that is, well, you’re thinking pretty small about something that could be so creative. And to your initial question, we see tons of those bundle offers. We see people donating to charity, we see Free shipping. We see products being given as free gifts. And what’s ironic about that is a lot of the times it’s products that weren’t selling well. So the brand was trying to get rid of them anyways. But the consumer doesn’t know that. The person behind their computer doesn’t know that they you the fact that they’re getting something for free. So I challenge those that think of Black Friday Cyber Monday, regardless of which end of the spectrum you may be on, is that if you’re not doing some variation of a promotion, not only are you leaving money on the table, but you’re giving that money to your competitors. So as email subscribers, as SMS consented profiles, we are expecting something, anything during Black Friday Cyber Monday. So if it can’t be that 30% discount, if it can’t even be a 10% discount, challenge yourself to think, well, what can it be? What’s realistic for our brand? If it isn’t a dollar value, if it isn’t a free product, what are you doing that’s still going to make those consumers feel valued and appreciated during the holiday season?

Vira: 18:08

Yeah, yeah, that’s a good approach. I know that one of our clients last year, they basically gave the free custom wrapping paper.

Allie: 18:16

Wow.

Vira: 18:17

With every purchase of like$100 more. That was amazing because.

Allie: 18:22

I feel like wrapping paper is the one thing I always forget last minute I’m scrambling.

Vira: 18:27

And it was also very like funky, very like on brand, very unique. And I mean it, it costs like practically nothing to, to create it, to order it like somewhere from China or something. It’s, it’s not an expensive thing. Especially when their average order value for that client is like 150 bucks or like$200. So it’s, it’s like a little nice little touch. They don’t do discounts yet during that Black Friday Cyber Monday period or like even before that. They talk a lot. They actually in their emails highlight the qualities such as like aesthetic of the products, convenience, accessibility, like all that kind of stuff. And they also create a bit of a fomo which is like another great tactic to use. Like the fear of missing out by running this, like not even promotions but by promoting this product and knowing that this is like a very limited, limited amount of time that this product will be available to the customers. But yeah, I like how you’re thinking like basically what you’re saying is that you don’t need to have this like margin killing discounts, right? As long as you’re like delivering the value, right. As long as you are delivering some sort of, like, incentives during that holiday because customers are trained to expect it. I mean, whatever your strategy is.

Allie: 19:45

And I think the other piece of it too, is, of course, discounts are exciting, and if you’re already loyal to a product, then, yes, a discount’s going to help that conversion happen even sooner. But aside from the. The fact that, yes, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, we’re trained to think of sales where a lot of us are shopping anyways. So if you can build that trust and the exclusivity, the fear of missing out. I’m still shopping for a gift for my family and my friends, regardless if it is on sale or not. So if I can be that moved or persuaded, whether it is the fear of missing out or just because the client’s done such a great job of education on the quality of that product, whatever it may be, I probably am still going to buy something if I’m really loving it, even if there’s no sale.

Vira: 20:42

That’s what happens with me and Lululemon every freaking year.

Allie: 20:45

Oh, my gosh.

Vira: 20:46

They never. They never go on discount. Like, never. That’s, like, their strategy. I mean, they do have, like, some items, but their hero products are never discounted. And I still buy around the holidays, like, every year. That’s, like, what I do because I’m in that, like, shopping mode, you know, like, shopping for myself for gifts, just like you said. That’s interesting.

Allie: 21:34

It’s like, once you start spending a little bit. Yes, all of my rules go out the window. And I’m like, who cares about the sale? I mean, I need this right now.

Vira: 21:43

Yes, yes. Unfortunately, even though, like, I work in marketing and I kind of understand how it all works with this, like, email, you know, that you’re getting on, like, Monday after the holiday, we’ve extended the sale. I’m like, no, you haven’t. Like, no, you haven’t.

Allie: 22:00

That was something that you just reminded me of, is the authenticity of how you’re communicating these promotions, too. Because something that we talk about so often here at Klaviyo is that risk of disappointing your subscribers with that false messaging. In a lot of times, you’ll see a brand saying 30% off. And I have this happen to me all the time. And I know I’ve been trained now to be like, oh, yeah, there’s no way Saks Fifth Avenue is 30% off. There’s. There’s no way that Nordstrom’s 30% off. But I still get excited. I get my hopes. My hopes are up. And then you go on into the email and yep, there it is. 30% off, over$1,000. Not happening today.

Vira: 22:52

Yeah, yeah. Authenticity is important, especially now. I feel like shoppers are likely to be more careful about where they are spending their money this year since we are dealing with like inflation at the moment with like a bit of an economic crisis. So authenticity is like important. And I even read this number somewhere. I love data. I love, love data. I read this number somewhere that on average brands, brands will be offering not on average, but the brands will be offering the discounts like 2 to 4% less of a discount than they did last year. That was interesting to me because apparently not just customers are the ones who are dealing with like inflation and economic crisis, but the businesses as well. Totally.

Allie: 23:36

So that was, and it is frustrating as a consumer, but because we’re email marketers, I think we’re able to understand exactly what you just said. In our own daily lives, with our own finances, we’re feeling it with the economy, these businesses are the same way. So I will sometimes try to think back historically and I’ll have that moment where I think to myself, I could have sworn the discount last year was so much bigger or, oh, this was a crazier sale last year. Now it seems to only be some products. And then I have that moment of clarity, like, yeah, this is a, an economic financial crisis for businesses, margins getting thinner.

Vira: 24:22

I mean that and I love it when businesses can be like authentic and the emails as well and when they basically put a human face on the brand and sometimes even like if you, if you made a mistake, you own it. If you have some like business changes, you own it. It’s, it’s beautiful thing. And that’s why I love having this like channel so you are able to talk directly.

Allie: 24:45

To something that definitely came out of the pandemic was that vulnerability and honesty and getting more involved than ever before. If you’re, if you’re struggling, speak up the same way. We say to our friends, like, I’m here for you. You know, we want to know what these brands are going through.

Vira: 25:05

Right.

Allie: 25:06

And I think that’s actually a good point is that we’re definitely still seeing some of that with shipping times and fulfillment.

Vira: 25:14

Yes.

Allie: 25:14

So, you know, reminder for brands, like vulnerability works if you know it’s going to take longer for an item to get to the front step. Be honest up front because the last thing you want is the frustration to happen when that person’s sitting behind that tracking page waiting day after day.

Vira: 25:33

Yeah, I remember like few Years ago we always send this like emails few days before Christmas, like three or four days before Christmas saying like, hey, this is your last chance, chance to order something so we deliver it to you in time for the holiday. Well now we do it like almost like 11, 12 days before the holidays. And we are like open with it with like this is it is what it is. If you want to get it in time, order sooner. Because there are like some things that we don’t control.

Allie: 26:00

How much money these businesses have to invest in some of those channels. So maybe there is a business that is fortunate enough to be able to invest more and get that email out three days before. But that doesn’t mean that you need to lie or be false about your own expectations. Because I just want to know the truth when it comes down to it. If it’s going to take 11 days, then so be it. Like, like you said, it is what it is. I just want the truth from these businesses.

Vira: 26:32

Yep. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And when we talk about like different segments of people, what are your recommendations on like VIP segments? Like do you recommend treating them different from the rest of the list? Do you think it’s a good idea to give them like a different offer? What’s your take on that?

Allie: 26:52

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So when I think of VIPs, I do think it’s very unique to each business. But the most common definition is those subscribers that are spending the most and have a increased customer lifetime value. And we have expectations that they’re going to continue to be important to our success as a brand. And if we go back to my never ending example of the different people sitting in front of me in a room. Now let’s think about it. It’s Christmas morning and I got each one of these groups a present. My best friend would probably be a little bit confused if I gave the stranger on the other side of the room a nicer gift or the same gift. Yeah. So I think of it the same way. And this again does come down to what is actually possible for your brand if you are one of those businesses that isn’t in the right place to be discounting. Well, what are you doing for the VIPs that are different than maybe more of a stale, more disengaged audience. So something I thought was really cool was one of our customers sent a password protected landing page to their VIP audience and they created that fear of missing out by saying shop this new product 24 hours earlier by using this password. And I actually tested it because I wanted as an email Marketer to see if it was just another one of those lies that if I went to the page that anyone could just get onto it. But no, I went and it truly was password protected. And I tried different passwords to see if you just needed to put in any text. Nope, you needed that password that was sent to just the VIP segment. And it made for this really exclusive experience for those VIP subscribers. So it really comes down to being creative. If I’m someone that’s investing a lot of money into you, what is this business doing in return to invest into me?

Vira: 29:10

That’s a really good approach. Yeah, yeah.

Allie: 29:12

We have to take a step back and think, okay, what is our Black Friday Cyber Monday offer? Because that of course, like, we need to know that first. Right. And then build on that from the VIP experience. So the probably the most common is of course, like getting that sale out in front of them a few days earlier. But it would be a pretty poor experience to feel like I got a subject line that said, because you’re a vip, you got this only to turn to my colleague next to me who’s not a vip, and they got the same exact experience.

Vira: 29:47

That’s interesting because I know that there’s like another sort of like group of marketers who are thinking the other way around. They say that what’s the point of giving them like a higher discount if they are intent of purchase is already high? I mean, they will buy from you with or without discount, with 20% or with 10% off. So like, why giving them higher discounts and like lowering your margins if you can and sort of like give them lower discount and they would still purchase. But I think what you’re saying is more like ethical and it’s more like genuine, this approach.

Allie: 30:22

Well, what we’re talking about. Well, what’s important too is that there’s different breakdowns of VIPs, because then if you start to think about it, what if I’m a shopper, that I’ve shopped a lot, but I’m only shopping when prices are discounted, or I’ve shopped a lot, but it’s only during Black Friday Cyber Monday, if you start to think of it that way. I just created two different VIP segments right there. And one only shops during sales and one only shops during the holidays. So they may be fitting your standard definition of vip. But if we take them the microscope and look even further, yeah, they’re VIPs, but they need a sale in order to continue.

Vira: 31:04

Yeah, that’s a great approach. And I really liked how you sort of put the holiday shoppers aside. Because very often, often these people, they don’t fit into that like an engaged segment, you know, and this is like the segment that we probably email to the most. They are not your engaged customers yet. They are still on your list and they still want to hear from you. Maybe they’re just like coming back to your store once a year and that’s okay too. I mean, your goal as a marketer, obviously to provide enough value so they come back more often. But even if they don’t, like, don’t neglect those customers.

Allie: 31:40

Right. And I think that’s a really good point about the sending cadence in terms of who these people are. Because yes, we have the VIPs that you mentioned that probably don’t need a big, big discount in order to continue being loyal. And we don’t need to send to them as often in that case because they’re already purchasing. But what about that audience that they haven’t been super engaged in the last one 20 days, but they’ve spent a lot of money. How are we talking to them differently to get that conversion for this holiday season too?

Vira: 32:14

That’s an interesting point. And like, what role does say SMS play in this, in this picture? Because, like, more and more brands are starting to add channels that basically like, complement each other. So how to plan this, like entire Black Friday, Cyber Monday strategy that these channels, they like, complement each other?

Allie: 32:34

Totally well one, if you’re not doing sms, you should be. And two, they complement each other so well. And again, a little bit biased, but having it all under one roof is going to allow you to talk to these subscribers the way they want to be communicated with. Because we can build out these segments and understand not only where are people engaging more, but what are they converting from. And SMS is just a really easy way to get in touch with those VIPs because if they’re offering their phone number, which I’ve talked with my grandparents and they think SMS is too personal and no one should be texting their phone, well, we know it works, it is more intimate. But majority of consumers are shopping on their phone today. So if I’m already on safari going through J. Crew’s latest sale and then I get a text from J. Crew, well, perfect. You hit me when it mattered. And that’s how I think of the BFCM experience with SMS and email is if we can get that intimate relationship with SMS consented phone numbers to our VIPs. And the reason why I say VIPs is because we know this is going to be a smaller audience. And the truth of the matter is SMS is a more expensive channel than email. So yes, we want to expand our volume on email because it is less expensive, but we shouldn’t be using that same concept for sms. Segmentation still really, really matters with SMS because not only is it a higher regulated compliance channel, but it’s more expensive and we don’t want to risk those unsubscribes. So we should definitely utilize vip. And then how easy is that to create a signup form on your site that says provide your phone number and you’ll hear about our Black Friday Cyber Monday discounts earlier. And then you just have to send one SMS campaign maybe per week compared to your daily emails to your VIP segment and the money will just continue to flow in.

Vira: 34:45

That’s a great way to grow your SMS list around the holidays. Now when I think about it, just like adding that additional step to your pop up form as a step two. So basically you’re still getting their email but on top of that you’re having the SMS as well. That’s a great way to approach that. And if like to summarize everything, what would you say are the top three dawns of Black Friday Cyber Monday email marketing or like two or two to three rookie mistakes that email marketers make around the holiday?

Allie: 35:19

One, do not make your sale approach confusing. And what I mean by that is I have literally worked with customers who mid 20% off are realizing, oh we’re crushing it, we should, we should bump this up to 30. And yes, those things can happen, but they’re sending to the same people. And I’m a consumer that just bought with 20% off and an hour later I received an email saying oh yay, now it’s 30% off. Nah, now you’re pissing off your most loyal consumers by just changing things mid holiday season. So come up with your plan early and stay true to it. Don’t just start changing everything once it’s already happening.

Vira: 36:07

Yeah, that’s a good one. That’s a good one. I, I, I hate when they are like waving that like discounted item in your face like same you bought like an hour ago. I’m like, really? It’s like the easiest thing you can do. Just like make it a standard practice to exclude like recent purchasers from your campaigns and they don’t want to hear back from you either. I mean for the next few days anyways, unless you have some additional value that you want to deliver to them.

Allie: 36:33

Exactly. And I Think that kind of leads me to the second one as well, is that my second mistake would be you’re not segmenting. I’m not asking anyone to make 100 segments here. But you are going to cause so much more frustration by not segmenting. Even if you are keeping your offer consistent, why even risk those unsubscribes by not removing people that did xyz. So if you’re not segmenting segment, it’s not that hard. We shouldn’t be talking to everyone the same. And I’m not asking you to build crazy different creative. Maybe you’re just changing the subject line in some cases, maybe you’re changing the category of the products in your email. But we as consumers are getting smarter and smarter and realizing how brands are communicating with us differently. And if you’re a brand not doing that well again, you’re risking that business going to a competitor.

Vira: 37:33

That’s a good one.

Allie: 37:33

And then I think my last one is probably a little bit cliche, but start earlier. Start earlier. You are leaving money on the table. If you’re just focusing on Black Friday, the day itself, and Cyber Monday, the day itself. If you don’t have the bandwidth to start November 1st, that’s okay. But we’ve come so far from those days of waiting in line at Walmart at midnight. You know, on Black Friday, like, people are just expecting these emails to come to their inbox. And I know as a consumer, the earlier I can get my holiday shopping done, the better. I love that these sales are starting earlier.

Vira: 38:17

Yeah, as a consumer, I’m like, all for it. And I mean, there’s like, one more thing that I found on your, like, on Klaviyo blog. By the way, guys, we will link all of the resources we mentioned in this podcast. We will link it in the description box. But I found this, like, tweet on your, on your blog that was saying, like, good morning to everyone except brands, trying to convince me they spontaneously decided to extend their sale today. I was, like, laughing so hard. I loved it. And I mean, that’s like, that’s amazing. That’s like the marketers are guilty of that, like, all the time. But that, like, fake unauthentic marketing, it’s a big no, no in like 2022 for me anyways, as a marketer, as a consumers.

Allie: 38:59

Well, we’re not all email marketers, but we do have common sense.

Vira: 39:04

That’s a good one. That’s a good one. Ali. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. Honestly, it was so much fun having you on this, on this podcast.

Allie: 39:14

So much fun. I’m gonna just like sneak into every session from this point forward.

Vira: 39:19

Please do. Please do. And guys, as always, I mean we believe in like earth early preparation. And from now on until the Black Friday Cyber Monday, pretty much every podcast will be talking about the holiday because this is the biggest time of the year for us in E commerce. But if you have any questions, if you have any topics you specifically want us to mention, just like send me an email vira@flowium.com and we’ll make sure to feature your questions here. And of course, don’t forget to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends and subscribe. And if you are looking for some like additional Black Friday Cyber Monday Wisdom, go to flowium.comholiday we have created basically the book about all of the best email marketing strategies to try this holiday. Right now it’s free, so go ahead and get it for yourself. It’s a good one. Definitely all of the wisdom we had over the years we poured into this little book. So yeah, let’s get ready. It’s going to be a fun one. Ali, thank you again so much fun having you here.

Allie: 40:27

Thank you. So love working with you and the Flowium team and just plus one to everything you said. I know I’m going to be using that book as much as possible. And good luck to all the listeners with their success for Black Friday Cyber Monday.

Vira: 40:42

Thank you for listening you guys. See you next week.