5 Emails to Send in the Lead Up to Black Friday

Black Friday is almost upon us and that means merchants are gearing up for the biggest sales weekend of the year. Which means it’s only a matter of time before our inboxes start overflowing with Black Friday emails. In this article, we’ll see 5 emails to send in the lead up to Black Friday.

And there’s a reason merchants send so many emails in the lead up to and during Black Friday.

Email marketing is responsible for 1 in every 4 Black Friday purchases, according to Custora, beating out every other channel. Social media only generated approximately 2%.

It’s not just that email drives more sales than any other channel either, but people who purchase through email spend 138% more on average as well.

So it’s not hard to see why Black Friday email marketing is so important. The question, however, is how do you do it well?

What elements go into a successful email campaign for the biggest sales weekend of the year?

Send multiple emails

An email campaign for any event, let alone one as big as Black Friday, should always consist of more than a single email.

You’re sadly mistaken if you think you can just wait until Black Friday arrives to send out an email in the morning with your offers and expect it to generate results. The reality is that just about every one of your competitors will be emailing their subscribers not only on Black Friday but also in the lead up to it as well.

To ensure your customers know about your sale you ideally need to start emailing a couple of weeks in advance using a service like Bookyourdata. This gives them a chance to decide to spend their money with you over your competitors.

By then following this up with a series of additional emails as part of your larger campaign, you’ll ensure that your customer base remains fully aware of your sale.

So how should you structure your campaign?

While there’s no one-size-fits-all formula that’ll work for every store, below is a list of 5 different emails you should consider adding to your campaign.

How to structure your Black Friday email campaign

1) Teaser Emails to Send in the Lead Up to Black Friday

A great option for your first email is a simple teaser-style message that aims to pique the interest of your customers by being sparse on the details.

The email below from Peel is a good example of this in action.

Again, ideally, you’ll get the first email in your campaign out at least a couple of weeks before Black Friday, so this type of email is perfect if you haven’t finalized your offers just yet.

What you’ll also notice however is that Peel offers their customers a ‘sneak peek’ where customers can check out some of their upcoming offers. Even though the full sale is yet to be announced.

This gives the email a sense of exclusivity and by also spinning it as an invitation, their customers are more likely to engage with the email which will help foster brand loyalty.

2) Sale announcement

At least a week before Black Friday you’ll want to formally announce details of your Black Friday sale.

While you’ll obviously want to announce this on your site as well as across your social media profiles, you should also send a simple sale email out to your email list.

All this email has to contain are details of your sale including your offers and when your sale starts and concludes (e.g., does it run just for the Friday or does it cover the whole weekend and Cyber Monday or does it even begin early?)

One thing to consider including to help build excitement and anticipation is a countdown timer to when your sale begins. Like in Zagg’s email below.

While some email service providers will let you add a timer when composing the email. If your current email app doesn’t have that option, there are plenty of custom HTML options available.

3) Gift guide: Emails to Send in the Lead Up to Black Friday

Once you’ve announced details of your sale you’ll want to send a couple of follow-ups to keep your sale front-of-mind for your customers. However, you don’t want to keep sending the same message otherwise you’ll risk annoying people.

One way to keep things fresh is by emailing customers a gift guide.

Seeing as a lot of people take advantage of Black Friday sales to get their holiday gift buying done. This type of email will likely resonate with a significant portion of your email list.

In terms of creating the gift guide, you could create product collections based on price like Bed Bath & Beyond has done in their email below. Or you could instead break collections down by who people are buying for (men, women, children, husband, wife, etc.).

4) Reminder email

A day out from the start of your Black Friday sale (so on Thursday if you’re keeping things traditional). You have an opportunity to send one final reminder email.

This one can be pretty simple. All you have to do is remind people that your sale starts in less than 24 hours. The key points of your offer(s). The email below from Urban Barn is a good example of this.

5) Emails to send on Black Friday itself

Okay, so these aren’t emails to send in the lead up to Black Friday per se but rather on the big day itself.

Given how significant Black Friday and the amount of competition. It’s probably the only day of the year where you can get away with sending more than one email.

So in addition to sending an email in the morning announcing that your sale has begun. You should also send a ‘final chance’ style email later in the afternoon. The aim of this final reminder is to create a sense of urgency. Activate people’s fear of missing out (FOMO).

One way of doing this is to include another countdown timer like in the example below from Christopher and Banks. To help improve your open rate. You’ll also want your subject line to create the same sense of urgency as well.

Of course, if your Black Friday sale lasts the whole weekend. So, you’ll want to hold off on this email until the final day of your sale.

Emails to Send in the Lead Up to Black Friday Conclusion

Black Friday and email marketing are a powerful duo.

While Black Friday emails already outperform other marketing channels when it comes to driving sales and average order values. By sending a proper campaign complete with multiple emails, you’ll drastically improve the performance even further.

And with Black Friday coming up fast, there’s no time to waste putting off creating your emails any longer.

If you get stuck for ideas or inspiration, you can always check out more examples of Black Friday emails or simply spy on your competitors to see what they’re doing.

The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be able to start sending!