Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year with more than 55 percent of consumers planning to shop in stores and online between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Email drives a large proportion of the sales that take place during these dates (20% according to with our latest Black Friday report!) so it’s crucial to take advantage of the opportunity to grab your audience’s attention at the right time. Early holiday promotions can help continue to grow online and in-store shopping so you’ll want to head into the holiday season armed with some great plans for how to ramp up your marketing game. Here are some hopefully creative Black Friday ideas for 2021 to boost your email marketing:
The only Black Friday FAQ you’ll need for eCommerce
How do you promote Black Friday?
The best approach is to build an omnichannel Black Friday marketing strategy, taking advantage of multiple channels in order to maximize conversions and sales. So, starting preparing for Black Friday early is crucial as well as having the right marketing tools.
How successful was Black Friday?
In the US, Black Friday 2018 surpassed $6 billion online sales in 2018 while in the EU there is no official data yet. The average online spending during Black Friday in the US was $485, while in the UK it was $397 and given the fact that more and more countries participate year after year, then the potential is really promising as the market grows.
Why is Black Friday so important?
The Black Friday trend is accelerating its adoption year after year all over the world (+117% vs 2017), so the market gets bigger and bigger all the time. Since there are European, Asian & African countries with 4-digit growth in Black Friday interest and mobile penetration get bigger year after year, the odds for every retailer are very promising.
The 9 Black Friday Ideas to nail your Email Marketing & Sales:
Black Friday Idea #1: Announce a Black Friday 2021 Sale
Sometimes, the simplest campaigns are the best. Using email to announce a store-wide sale in which everything is 30 or 40 percent off is quick, easy to understand and widely appealing. Customers won’t have to dig through items in your store or on your site to find sale prices – they can automatically calculate the amount they will be saving. Use a clear subject line that announces the discount and get your website landing page ready for the announcement.
Black Friday Idea #2: Make a Gift Guide
Black Friday gift ideas (like eg. guides) are a great way to highlight your offerings during the holiday season. Gift guides in emails see a 48 percent higher transaction rate than pure promotional emails, too. You can break down your products into categories like price point, type of product, gender, etc. to make sure you are targeting a unique group with each offering. You can highlight 15 product on sale for $15 each, for example, or you can bring your data into the mix and create subscriber-specific gift guides.
Black Friday Idea #3: Free Gifts
Who doesn’t like a gift!? Offering a free gift with a purchase of a certain amount is another fantastic way to draw customers in. You don’t have to give away your whole inventory – make the gift small but memorable. It can be a special version of a product that you don’t regularly offer for sale or a holiday-themed gift that they can use or re-gift, like an ornament or candle. This works well for both online traffic and also for subscribers who can print a “free gift email” and bring it in to the store in order to claim it.
Black Friday Idea #4: Loyalty Gifts
If you’re doing marketing segmentation right, you have a list of your repeat customers that you already treat like VIP. You can definitely send out emails to all of your subscribers for Black Friday 2019 deals, but it’s also a nice time to offer your loyal customers something special. Check out your contact list and offer these folks something extra special – they deserve it!
Black Friday Idea #5: Hourly Deals
One of the many things that Amazon does brilliantly is to create hourly online deals. Not only does this increase your traffic considerably because people are constantly checking back to see new deals, but it also helps give your customers something to be excited about. A few days before Black Friday, send an email that details each and every deal and then set emails up to go out when the new deals go live. Be transparent about how often the emails will be sent and offer them the chance to opt-out if they aren’t interested.
Black Friday Idea #6: Combine with Social Media
Offer a look into what your Black Friday 2019 deals are going to be on your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or other social media accounts. Don’t reveal all the details but tell them enough to get them interested. Then follow it up with an email. They can opt into your list through your social media platforms and then they’ll await the email with instructions on how to take advantage of the deal.
Extra Tip: In order to warm up Facebook’s algorithm you could write down some Black Friday giveaway ideas. Pick the most compelling and run it so as to create some buzz! Here you can learn how to set up a proper giveaway deal.
Black Friday Idea #7: Free Shipping
One of the best Black Friday ideas for eCommerce. People simply don’t like paying money for shipping. In fact, sometimes it can be a deal-breaker when it comes to moving forward with a purchase or not. To keep your customers from abandoning items in their cart, send them an email letting them know that Black Friday is going to have free shipping on all or your most popular items. This is one of the best ways to convert customers who were previously on the fence. You can even limit free shipping to a certain number of hours on Black Friday in order to pack the most sales into a small sales window. Remember: Black Friday coupon code ideas always work since it’s the oldest Black Friday marketing trick 😉
Black Friday Idea #8: Extend Your Limits
Black Friday is the Friday before Thanksgiving, but more and more companies are extending their sales through the entire weekend and into Cyber Monday. You can create a deal that begins on Black Friday and lasts through the whole weekend – send out emails to let your customers know that the sale has been extended and they’ll be more likely to visit your site again and purchase something they’ve been considering.
Black Friday Idea #9: Testimonial Emails
Testimonial emails are a great way to tout your products and also give real life accounts of customers who have been happy with them. It’s a powerful way to promote your company, and people love hearing real-life stories about products before making the decision to buy.
Try implementing some of these Black Friday promotion ideas into your Black Friday 2019 marketing strategy in order to get the most out of the holiday shopping frenzy!
Other useful Black Friday resources for eCommerce
- Black Friday report 2018
- 9 Black Friday Ecommerce Hacks to Skyrocket Your Sales
- 7 Creative Black Friday Strategies for retailers
- Top 5 Black Friday Marketing Automation Scenarios for Holiday Success
- The Black Friday Wiki for eCommerce
- How to Prepare for Black Friday: A Retailer’s Guide
- 150+ (awesome) Black Friday Email Subject Lines for eCommerce
- The 30 best Black Friday campaigns of all time
- Cyber Monday Statistics: 70 Stats Every Retail Executive Should Know
- Black Friday statistics: The 80 most important stats for retailers
Turn the best Black Friday Marketing Ideas into action.
There is no time to lose. You’ve hopefully now had lots of inspiration for your Black Friday email marketing with the previous Black Friday retail ideas. The next step is to start preparing your marketing plan and your content. You probably have run in the past some of the above mentioned Black Friday email marketing ideas but don’t forget that in business it’s 100% better to run the same promotion for a second time than not running a promotion at all. Happy Black Friday sales!
