Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around every year, and it seems like each time they come on the scene, the rules for how to market to your audience have changed. It can be frustrating, confusing, and ruin the excitement and energy this season should bring (which your audience can pick up on).
But we want you to feel the joy this upcoming season and pass it on to your leads and customers, so we’re showing you this year’s top tips for catching your audience’s attention and landing more sales with your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns.
Unique bundles
Now is the perfect time to gather your team and start dreaming up some unique bundles that your audience has never seen before. Offering the same items, services or packages (even when they’re on sale) might not excite your audience. In fact, it might go ignored because they’ve grown used to seeing them across your channels. That’s why one of the best things you can do is mix things up. Even just presenting what you already offer in a fresh, new way can catch your contacts' attention and give them the nudge they need to purchase what they’ve had their eye on.
As you know, in order to level up your Black Friday marketing, you have to know what deals you’ll be promoting. That’s why creating these unique bundles are first on this list to help you stand out. When you make an effort to differentiate your products and services for this sale, the campaigns will follow suit.
Early access
I’m sure you’ve seen it — early access sales for subscribers before the official sale even launches. This is how I’ve been roped into far too many Sephora sales year after year (no doubt it’ll happen again this season). But what is it that’s so tempting to me and customers of any business? The main reasons include:
- Exclusivity: The mere words “early access” make people feel important because they’re getting a sneak peek at something the rest of the world doesn’t have the privilege to know about yet. It makes a segment of your audience feel special, which is a great way to turn leads into customers and customers into repeat buyers.
- Urgency: The early access sale doesn’t just give your audience an exclusive perk but it also comes with a sense of urgency. Without even stating it, “early access” often indicates that in just a short time, the general public sale will start and the early bird, exclusive deals will be gone. This can lead to quicker conversions than regular sales.
- Less noise: Running an early sale means you’ll beat the rush that comes with big promotions like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This can increase the chances that your campaigns will actually be opened and acted on by your contacts because they don’t have to compete with as many other messages.
How do you do it? Choose your sale and make it a bit more enticing than the one coming to the general public. Maybe this means you offer a bigger discount or include a free gift — whatever works for your business and will excite your customers.
Next, segment your contact list and decide who will get the sale. One idea on how to structure your campaign is to use your small business CRM software to send an email out a few weeks before the early access sale inviting people to sign up for your text club to access what’s coming (think of this as your teaser!). Then, you can send a text with a link to the sale when it goes live. This way you capture phone numbers you previously didn’t have, grow your text club, and hype up your sale so people are more likely to convert.
Personalized offers
Your contacts aren’t all interested in the same things, and if you shove all your sales into one email this Black Friday, they might not pay attention to any of it. This is where dynamic content can save the day.
Dynamic content helps create a unique experience for each contact by tailoring what they receive — whether it be deals or blogs — to their interests and needs. You’ll need a CRM for small business to help you pull this off, but once you have the right software, it’s pretty simple:
First, decide how you want to segment your audience. In the case of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, you’ll need to segment based on interests, which your small business CRM will be able to show you. Your software can tell you who has purchased in the past, which events they’ve attended, what lead magnets they’ve downloaded and more.
Just decide which of these are most relevant to your sales goals, segment your contact lists by this information and then send each group unique sales offers on products or services that align with their interests.
For example, let’s say you run an agency that offers a variety of services, including email deliverability webinars. You could implement this strategy by creating a group of everyone who has attended an email deliverability webinar in the past and send that segment info about your other services and products, such as 1:1 email marketing consultations.
Up your email game
Speaking of emails, there are a few things you can do to ensure your emails don’t end up in the spam folder this holiday season, and the first is this: Make sure you’re enlisting the help of email automation so you’re not stuck spending hours building and sending emails manually.
If you already have the hang of email automation, here are a few ways you can improve your current strategy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday:
Slowly ramp up your email sending
If you only send marketing emails a few times a month, you might attract the attention of spam filters when you suddenly spike your send rate during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But by slowly increasing how frequently you communicate with your contacts, you can keep the spam filters off your back AND build up the anticipation around your campaigns.
The key to this tip is to start NOW. This doesn’t mean you have to send all your planned emails this week, but simply start sprinkling a few additional emails into your outreach plans. Gradually send more as the holiday season approaches and don’t forget to hint at your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. This acts as an added boost for your emails because contacts will know something special is coming and keep an eye out for it.
Text only
It’s so tempting to think that flashy, beautiful emails will be more effective, but when it comes to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, email deliverability expert Scott Hartley says otherwise. Emails that are too big or contain excess images and coding mistakes are often flagged by filters and sent straight to spam. So, instead, you should opt for short, text-only emails.
Pro tip
Keap, the best CRM for small businesses, comes with a built-in AI assistant that can help you write stellar copy for these emails and any other asset you have in your strategy.
Avoid spam words
As you’re making your campaigns, you’ll want to make them as enticing and exciting as possible, but there are a few common words marketers go for that can actually hurt their campaigns in the end. “Act now,” “hurry,” “free,” and “guaranteed” are all ones to steer clear of because they’re often used in spam emails and attract the attention of filters. Any words that are too alarmist can fall into the category of things to avoid, but that’s not all. You should also avoid using ALL CAPS, too many exclamation marks (like this: !!!!), and any unnecessary symbols.
This is another tip Keap AI can help you implement. Just tell it what you want to promote in your message and which words or symbols to avoid. Then, our intuitive software will help you craft copy that intrigues your customers without sounding the spam alarms.
When should you start?
If you take away anything from this blog, it should be to start TODAY. The more time you give yourself to craft solid campaigns, the better they will be. And don’t forget that small business automation and CRM software was designed to make creating your holiday campaigns (and every single campaign your business needs) less stressful and time-consuming. This means you’ll be able to implement these tips quickly and take time away from work to enjoy the holiday season because you know your software is handling everything behind the scenes.
Keap users can start now by using Keap AI to craft copy and automations. If you don’t have Keap, we want to get you up and running with the best CRM for small businesses ASAP so you can witness its power this Black Friday and beyond. Set up a free call to chat through questions and discuss your goals with an expert.