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Anticipating 2024 Black Friday traits
What vacation e mail advertising campaigns and Black Friday traits are anticipated to hit the inboxes this BFCM season? Litmus’ Angie Weyman took a glance into her crystal e mail geek ball for 3 themes:
- Sustainability. 🌿 Count on extra manufacturers to highlight sustainable merchandise, eco-friendly packaging, and even “Inexperienced Friday” offers. Search for emails with minimalist designs that cut back the carbon footprint (which helps with deliverability and the person expertise, win-win-win!)
- Accessibility. đź’ˇ Manufacturers are ensuring their BFCM emails are inclusive for everybody, with greater fonts, high-contrast colours, and screen-reader pleasant designs. ALT textual content? Examine. Cleaner layouts? Sure. Everybody will get a seat on the vacation desk.
- Person-generated content material (UGC). 🙌 Extra manufacturers letting their prospects do the speaking, by displaying off actual opinions, photographs, and movies in emails. Real group vibes construct belief with subscribers and makes the person expertise really feel actually private.
“I see a powerful deal with going inexperienced, being inclusive, and protecting it actual. Electronic mail entrepreneurs are searching for extra methods to deal with sustainability with eco-friendly e mail construction, making their emails accessible for everybody, and leaning into user-generated content material for that genuine, community-driven vibe.”
—Angie Weyman, Product Advertising and marketing Supervisor, Litmus
Listed here are extra traits we count on to see throughout vacation e mail campaigns.
Cellular-first e mail design method
Based on our newest information, from Thanksgiving to New 12 months’s Day, over 44% of emails have been opened on cellular units, and customarily talking, 60% of emails are seen on cellular units.Â
This shift is prompting retailers to deal with mobile-specific methods, together with calls-to-action (CTAs) designed for tapping and bigger CTA buttons positioned above the fold. We’ll additionally proceed seeing single-column, responsive templates optimized for cellular.
Cellular commerce is booming; in 2023, cellular units accounted for 54% of on-line gross sales, with Black Friday purchases up 10.4% from 2022, in accordance from Experian. Extra customers are utilizing their telephones for buying, making it essential for entrepreneurs to make sure their cellular websites and emails provide an optimized, seamless expertise.
If you happen to’re not already optimizing for cellular, now could be the time to deal with any points. Use responsive e mail templates to make sure your content material shows persistently throughout all units and ship mobile-friendly emails with each ship.
Anti-Black Friday campaigns
This development isn’t new, nevertheless it’s been gaining momentum over the previous few years. Pioneered by outside manufacturers like Patagonia and REI, these daring e mail advertising campaigns tackle bigger societal points and resonate with youthful customers keen to interrupt away from custom.
Customers, particularly throughout the vacation season, choose shopping for from manufacturers that give again. Based on Deloitte:
- 63% of Gen Zs and millennials consider companies have the ability to affect social equality.
- 62% of Gen Zs and 59% of millennials have reported feeling anxious about local weather change previously month.
- 25% of Gen Zs and 24% of millennials have lowered or stopped buying from companies with unsustainable provide chains.
Given these issues, it’s no shock that we’re seeing an increase in campaigns questioning the very premise of Black Friday. In any case, isn’t Thanksgiving about being grateful for what we have already got? As sustainability and social accountability grow to be extra vital to customers, we count on most of these thought-provoking campaigns to achieve much more traction this yr.
Darkish Mode-friendly e mail designs
Darkish Mode isn’t simply accessible—it’s additionally an efficient strategy to showcase merchandise with clear, monochromatic designs, with out too many bells and whistles.
Within the early days of e mail, designs mimicked internet pages, full with navigation bars, drop shadows, and shiny buttons. As we speak, retailers are streamlining their method, selecting substance over flash.
As a bonus, these minimal designs are Darkish Mode-friendly. With 35.4% of e mail opens taking place in Darkish Mode, it’s essential to make sure your emails are simple to learn and have interaction with.
Darkish Mode makes use of mild typography on darkish backgrounds, so designing with a black-and-white colour scheme ensures your message stays clear, even when the e-mail shopper reverses the colours.
On high of that, designers are more and more contemplating digital sustainability: making inventive decisions which might be each eco-friendly and accessible to all.
Countdown timers
Countdown timers are a no brainer for Black Friday—time and offers are restricted, and this straightforward function can drive urgency and a way of FOMO.
We count on to see countdown timers as a serious development once more this yr, particularly as a crossover development from eCommerce shops.
They’re efficient at motivating prospects to take motion, because the visible cue of a clock ticking down on a deal creates a way of urgency that’s exhausting to disregard.
Early entry campaigns
Customers know and love Black Friday—and this yr, we predict retailers will go even greater. Count on extra “pre-sale,” “sneak peek,” and “early entry” teaser emails designed to construct pleasure and exclusivity.
Based on the Nationwide Retail Federation (NRF), 43% of customers sometimes begin their vacation buying earlier than November. Their high causes are:
- Spreading out their finances (60%)
- Avoiding last-minute stress (46%)
- Dodging the crowds (45%)
These early customers may very well be additional influenced by October gross sales occasions. In truth, the NRF reported that final yr, seven in ten vacation customers thought-about making the most of October offers for vacation presents, décor, and different necessities.
Key elements driving an earlier Black Friday begin
Amazon just lately confirmed its second Prime Day sale on October 8 and 9, kicking off the 2024 vacation buying season. Main retailers like Finest Purchase, Walmart, and Goal will probably be launching competing gross sales.
Nonetheless, whereas your subscribers count on Black Friday offers, they could maintain out for greater reductions (e.g. round Christmas time), so timing issues.
What makes a Black Friday e mail marketing campaign profitable?
Align targets with division & firm objectives
Your Black Friday e mail advertising marketing campaign must assist bigger organizational targets. Make sure that your objectives—whether or not growing income, clearing stock, or buyer acquisition—are clear from the outset.
Present you already know your e mail subscribers with segmentation
One can argue there’s no such factor as too many emails—simply poor segmentation. As a substitute of “blasting the record,” refine your Black Friday campaigns to cater to the totally different pockets of your e mail record.
An important Black Friday e mail marketing campaign can have a considerate segmentation technique. Look into any current insights you will have in your viewers, whether or not that’s nested in your e mail service supplier (ESP) or a device like Litmus Electronic mail Analytics for superior insights, like learn price and high e mail purchasers amongst your subscriber base. Then, outline your target market.
Segmentation will be primarily based on:
- Buy historical past. Current consumers, high-value prospects, occasional customers, or haven’t bought
- Engagement stage. Energetic openers, frequent clickers, dormant subscribers (e.g., clicked an e mail previously two weeks vs. six months in the past)
- Demographics. Age, occupation (if related to your merchandise), and placement.
- Preferences. Product classes, content material varieties, communication frequency
- Zero-party information. Info prospects deliberately share with you (e.g., preferences, pursuits)
- First-party information. Information collected straight out of your interactions with prospects (e.g., buy historical past, web site conduct, or an e mail reside ballot)
- Webinar or occasion attendance. In the event that they’ve attended one thing you’ve hosted just lately, they may very well be nice candidates for sending focused campaigns.
- Timing. This begs the age previous query: when do you have to ship an e mail? You possibly can look into historic information in your greatest open occasions, however take into account that your subscriber is probably going receiving a excessive quantity of emails throughout this time. Timing can even rely upon a couple of issues—for instance, in case your sale is about to present 12pm native time, you may ship a one hour reminder per area or time zone.
When you’ve outlined your segments, take into account the place you possibly can incorporate e mail personalization to foster a 1:1 expertise within the inbox. Automation and product feeds unlock a complete new stage of tailor-made e mail content material, particularly relating to e mail personalization for eCommerce.
Create compelling presents
It’s not nearly a catchy topic line. Your Black Friday provide should stand out. Assume irresistible reductions, unique bundles, or early entry to offers. Make sure that the promotion resonates together with your goal prospects.
- Showcase your greatest reductions. Provide vital financial savings, similar to 30% off sitewide, $20 off purchases over $100, or free delivery on all orders.
- Create particular presents with bundles. Create particular product bundles accessible solely throughout Black Friday, like “purchase one, get one free” or “three for the worth of two.”
- Early entry to offers. Present VIP early entry to gross sales for subscribers or loyal prospects, permitting them to buy earlier than most people.
- Restricted-time flash gross sales. Run flash gross sales with deep reductions that final only some hours to create urgency and drive fast purchases.
- Remind e mail subscribers of deadlines. Embrace “doorways closing” or “final probability” messaging in your e mail copy.
- Free presents with buy. Embrace a free reward with purchases over a certain quantity, similar to a free tote bag with orders over $75.
- Purchase extra, save extra. Implement tiered reductions the place prospects get a better Black Friday low cost with bigger purchases, like 10% off orders over $50, 20% off orders over $100, and many others.
- Benefit from the Black Friday weekend. When you might wrap up your Black Friday promotions shortly after your “closing hours” emails, keep in mind to think about Cyber Monday gross sales as a part of your promo plan (e.g. a gross sales extension for Cyber Monday).
Grammarly’s Black Friday promo was the most effective providing of the yr: 55% off for customers that switched to an annual plan—entrance and heart with an attention-grabbing hero picture.
The Washington Publish takes an analogous method, with an early-access Black Friday provide of 4 weeks for lower than a greenback. The particular provide is positioned prominently within the hero part in purple, contrasting with the black background to seize reader’s consideration. The decision-to-action button copy “Act now” is succinct and actionable.
Operational excellence
On common, e mail groups take two weeks or extra to create a single e mail. Meaning all the pieces from technique, copy, design, code, segmentation, QA testing, approvals, and hitting ship. For sure, there’s quite a bit on an e mail marketer’s plate.
Throughout this busy season, being agile and versatile is crucial. Having a streamlined e mail workflow will yield advantages not solely throughout Black Friday, however effectively past.
Run a fast audit of your workflow to determine areas that take up most of your time and take into account methods to simplify. Your future self will thanks!
Based on The State of Electronic mail Workflows, the most important impediment for e mail entrepreneurs within the e mail manufacturing cycle is amassing suggestions. It’s a ache level for leaders, too: 17% of e mail advertising leaders cite amassing suggestions and approvals as one in every of their largest frustrations.
Listed here are some methods that will help you transfer your greatest come Black Friday:
- Put together your Black Friday e mail templates. This contains design, constructing, making them Darkish Mode prepared, and QA testing—decreasing the necessity for last-minute fixes and e mail errors.
- Centralize suggestions in a single place. An e mail collaboration software program like Litmus Proof may help centralize suggestions in a single place—avoiding the e-mail threads, Slack messages, and the time consuming back-and-forth that may happen with amassing suggestions. (Some groups save as much as 5 hours a day with it!)
- Discover integrations that work together with your ESP. The common marketer makes use of over twelve applied sciences to handle their e mail program. Integrations—like ones with Litmus—enable you to transfer swiftly and seamlessly.
- Maintain a pre-send e mail guidelines helpful. This helps preserve your workflow in examine and empowers you to know that you simply hit “ship” with all the pieces in place.
Testing and optimization
Whereas Black Friday presents big alternatives, a damaged e mail can considerably diminish your probabilities of changing—and may even result in an unsubscribe or worse, spam. 86% of consumers will go away a model after solely two poor experiences.
Widespread points to be careful for:
Don’t let your advertising efforts go to waste! To keep away from these pitfalls, thorough e mail testing is vital. With e mail purchasers updating as usually as each 1.2 days, think about using a device like Litmus Electronic mail Guardian for additional peace of thoughts.You’ll get 24/7 monitoring and alerts you if any shopper updates might trigger points.
As for segmentation, don’t depend on guesswork. Leverage any accessible analytics, whether or not out of your ESP or a device like Litmus Electronic mail Analytics to see how your viewers is partaking together with your emails—all the pieces from gadget preferences to Darkish Mode utilization and learn time. This lets you determine traits and refine your technique to actually resonate together with your subscribers.