Whether casual or electric green, FixxeL takes Fridays not too terribly seriously around here—until the biggest one in e-commerce rolls around: that’s right, Black Friday, bringing in $70.9 billion in a day last year¹, is just around the corner. Grossing $9.8 billion in the U.S. alone¹, a 7.5% increase year-over-year according to Adobe Analytics⁶, that is projected to increase by another approximate $200 million this year². We hope yours will be electric and bring in lots of green too, and that’s why in this article, we at FixxeL will be sharing our best strategies and tips on how to make your e-mail marketing campaigns as successful as possible for Black Fridays now, and in years ahead. Here’s a guide and right-now plan with insights and how-tos that you can utilize and share with anyone who could use a boost in their Black Friday sales.
1. The Build-Up – Creating Anticipation Early
Black Friday doesn't start on the day—it begins with an effective build-up strategy. According to DotDigital, last year (2023) 32% of Black Friday shoppers started their shopping early³, meaning Pre-Black-Friday e-mail sends aren’t only a fantastic chance to prime your audience.
“Sale without the sale” e-mails have been shown as an effective tool for building excitement, hinting at what’s to come without giving away what’s to come and may even warrant smaller purchases.
“Teaser” e-mails can start garnering pre-Black-Friday revenue at the times in accordance to your brand. A few strategies to consider:
A. Early Access Offers:
Consider granting early access to loyal subscribers or high-value customers. This makes your email list feel exclusive and appreciated.
B. Sneak-Peeks:
Use strategic imagery that gives a peek – without giving away the main offer or product offering. Further, one can utilize countdown timers or other anticipatory tools to generate buzz around what your company will have available.
C. Wish-List Building:
Encourage your subscribers to start curating “Wish Lists”. This tactic can help with increasing anticipation—while also giving you data on what your customers are most interested in.
The primary goal is to establish a grand sense of anticipation; secondly, urgency; and thirdly, to garner a few sales. Overall, it’s to get your customers thinking about your brand and feeling those sparkling emotions of looking forward to the big day in general—so that when Black Friday hits, subscribers are primed and ready to let loose.
2. Advance Strategy Preparation: Plan Everything In Detail
Preparation. Is. Everything. for Black Friday, including in e-mail marketing campaigns. Planning an overarching strategy as well as the individuals in advance allows you to be out front, agile, and not willing to leave anything to chance. Here are some things we recommend thinking through and mapping out around four to six or more weeks in advance:
A. The Offer:
a. What will you offer? – What products? How will you offer/present them?
b. Why?
c. Are you providing percentage or fixed discounts? Bundle deals? Free shipping?
We can clarify the type, level, product(s), discount(s), and/or exclusions first.
B. Segmenting for Exclusions and Timing:
Then, establishing rules around those parameters can be a helpful next step. We need to think through who should and should not receive what e-mails so as to prevent missed notifications, opportunities and any redundancies. For instance, we can exclude customers from future series sends who made a purchase the previous day to avoid inundating them.
Don’t forget to consider setting auto cut-off dates for certain deals based on time zones, so no one is left out – or including which time zone your platform cuts off within to avoid upset customers.
C. Segmenting for Audiences and Groups:
You can segment audiences based on standardized demographics as part of your Black Friday e-mail targeting, as well as for other, “offer-based” audiences. Segment to deliver more personalized offers* to certain groups based on their shopping behavior, past purchases, or activity and loyalty statuses, as examples, to increase their engagement and/or sales.
FixxeL’s E-mail Marketing Management utilizes strategic segmentation, on-tone branding, and compelling narratives to achieve results, taking the heavy lifting off you while appeasing customers and sales. Contact us for the Standalone Service, or find in-Package!
3. Test. Test Again.
Black Friday is no time for broken experiences. Test your e-mails' key elements from your campaigns:
Send E-mail Previews & Tests to various e-mail clients and devices to see how they render. TEST ON MOBILE. Make sure all links, buttons, and promo codes are functioning correctly.
Mobile Black-Friday shopping overtook desktop last year, accounting for 54% of all sales⁴, and Adobe Analytics predicts it to be right back in the same vicinity at 53% this year.
Landing Page Testing: Verify that your landing pages load quickly, look good on mobile, and have all your latest updates published.
Test the Check-out Process - make sure all payment options are presented - and work on both mobile and desktop.
Promo Code Validation: Double-check that discount codes apply correctly, especially for tiered discounts or special offers. (It’s not a bad thought to glance and make sure they’re set to expire on the right day/at the right time(s) too.)
Have Plans in Place for Everything. If not everything, the things that are within your control. Fail-safes are your friends.
A comprehensive strategy in place means you're now better prepared to react swiftly if anything unexpected happens—because, in marketing, things happen, and agility is underrated; and realize it or not, it can translate into money lost or in your pocket. Preparation. Is. Key!
4. Black Friday Isn’t Just 1 Day—Maximizing the Multi-Day Opportunity
Instead of thinking of Black Friday as a single event, it can be treated as up to a week-long opportunity (or more, depending on your preference, brand style, audience, and market). With the right planning and research, you can maximize engagement over a period of several days.
Kicking Off On/Before Thanksgiving. Optional depending on your brand, but the choice to start on or even before Thanksgiving Day, with say, “Early-Bird” specials—as early as Tuesday/Wednesday or your strategic choice of day—can tap into any pre-Black Friday shoppers your business may have, a group particularly prevalent with Generation X (the pre-researchers) and Millennials, but also swelling more and more with members from Generation Z.
Black Friday Sale: This is the main event! Messaging will depend on your business and can still create urgency, with limited-time deals that drive clicks, conversions, and sales.
Extended Weekend and Last-Chance Emails: Follow up with messages indicating that the sale continues or that time is running out. The “Final Day” angle can provide one last push for customers who were on the fence.
In theory, this multi-series approach maintains momentum, driving consistent traffic and conversions all weekend. It also plays into the psychology of urgency and scarcity—two powerful motivators for people, as we know.
5. Dynamic and Fresh Messaging: Avoid Repetition Fatigue
The quickest way to lose your audience's attention during a multi-day sale is to send repetitive messages. So, to keep engagement high, treat each e-mail as a unique opportunity—one to delight, and possibly re-engage your subscribers.
Daily Updates: Design each day’s email with new (not novel) visuals, and tastefully altered messaging, while still keeping the core offer consistent. This gives the impression of something fresh and valuable each day.
Customer Segmentation: Adjust the messaging for different groups. For instance, target high-value customers with “exclusive” upsells, while offering other types of groups, such as Cart Abandoners, additional, or lower-priced incentives.
Testing Subject Lines & Other Elements. This can be started at any time in the year, really—A/B testing subject lines and various campaign elements to always better know your audience(s). Then, we can now optimize subject lines, preview (sometimes called “pre-header”) texts, CTAs, and more for each e-mail to ensure higher open rates, and create curiosity without setting off spam filters—gracefully dancing within best practice.
The idea is to make each e-mail feel intentional and relevant to them, rather than what we’re also doing, which is sending them repeated reminders. Done correctly, we’ll maintain a high amount of buzz throughout the entire Black Friday series.
6. Align All Landing Pages for a Seamless Experience
Sending a polished Black Friday e-mail is half the battle. The real challenge is creating a seamless customer journey from inbox to check-out. We must make sure the landing UX and those pages are yes, functional, but align with the e-mail's design and message!
Consistency is Key. The Landing Page should really reflect the same Black Friday branding and promotions mentioned in the e-mails. If a subscriber clicks through an e-mail promising 30% off, that landing page reinforces that offer immediately.
Dedicated Pages. If time and resources allow, consider creating Black Friday landing pages or dedicated collections/collection pages to minimize friction and guide your guests directly to sale items—ideally, showing some of the sale items they just saw in a mixture with new, interesting collections or items.
A Ready Website! Running a website audit a week or more before the big day can make all the difference in "making" or "breaking"—revenue vs. a website. FixxeL performs 360-degree audits to identify and fix potential issues like broken links, content/UX issues, and even minor annoyances that could disrupt the shopping experience, like slow-loading pages. Contact us here or at our website for a Free Comprehensive Audit with any Marketing Service or Package.
A consistent landing experience ensures customers are more likely to complete their purchases rather than abandon their attention span due to a confusing experience or distraction.
7. Track and Analyze
The best way to improve your Black Friday campaigns year-over-year is to learn from your results. Tracking allows you to gather, essentially, valuable insights:
Key Performance Metrics (KPIs): Focus on Open Rates, Click/Click-Through Rates, your Conversion Rate, and Average Order Value per e-mail at a minimum. Look for patterns in your customers' behavior that can inform future Black Fridays and even regular campaigns.
Segmenting Performance. Analyze how different audience segments responded—and to how you anticipated, if relevant. Did some groups respond better to specific offers? Track and record any compelling evidence or responses!
Post-Mortem Review: After Black Friday, conduct a thorough review of what worked and what didn’t. FixxeL helps to optimize future strategies with tailored Black-Friday analyses, complimentary reports and insights in our results-driven partnerships.
Analyzing the data helps us understand the effectiveness of campaigns—and equips us with actionable takeaways and rich, comprehensive material to knock it out of the park next year.
Black Friday has come to a time where it doesn’t just happen and they buy any more—it’s a time of planning, a product of preparation, and a grind of testing and analysis and getting better each year. With FixxeL, we’re not just about strategic and creative marketing; we’re also experts in ensuring those strategies are set up for success—from start to finish.
We’re here to help make your Fridays green and eventually, optimized with more such action plans to execute across your other platforms. For a complimentary comprehensive Website Audit when you book our E-mail Marketing or any Marketing Service or Package, just reach out using this article's code: BCREDIT24.
With this guide and action plan, each of your Black Fridays will be primed with e-mail marketing to bring in higher engagement, more customers, and more revenue every year—optimized with strategies that function seamlessly across various devices. This is the goal, FixxeL’s Black-Friday wish for you.
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