Black Friday follows Thanksgiving Day and is one of the key periods for a business to make money. With the right approach, you can get a month’s revenue in a few days, promote your brand, and expand your customer base. According to Adobe, in 2023, consumers spent $222.1 billion vs. $211.7 billion in 2022. Moreover, Black Friday alone brought $9.8 billion, second only to Cyber Monday.
Moreover, Black Friday 2024 is projected to get a whooping online spending increase of about 9.9% YoY to around $10.8 billion. Historically, Black Friday has meant miles of traffic jams, crowds, and even fights for products. Thanks to modern e-commerce technologies, shopping can be done in a couple of clicks, which has undoubtedly contributed to the revenue growth during the event in recent years.
Not only that, but Black Friday marketing campaigns have also become longer.
For example, Jot sent this email on November 10, 2023 — almost three weeks ahead of the holiday.
Most likely, this tendency will continue this year which makes email marketing a great option for such extended e-commerce sales.
Here’s why email marketing is a great sales channel for Black Friday campaigns, long and short:
So, let’s take a closer look at how to put together compelling Black Friday email campaigns that will really work.
Let’s imagine you have already analyzed your stock and know what products you can give discounts for. You need to figure out how to tell about them in your holiday marketing emails to make them both beautiful and catchy.
Now picture this. You open your inbox at the end of November and there are endless Black Friday deals on templates with black backgrounds (OK, there are tons of white, red, and gold also). What will you remember? Anything that’s different from the rest and holds some value. But to offer something valuable, you have to know your audience.
You know how important it is to build an email list. The importance of every email address increases dramatically in anticipation of the biggest sale of the year. By the way, we have a comprehensive guide on building email lists, be sure to check it out. And don’t forget to also clean up your lists, because it’s not quantity, but the quality that matters.
Then think about what you want to say to your audience. How can you surprise and attract customers, convince them to make a purchase?
You don’t need to be a copywriting genius to write compelling copy. The most compelling and effective marketing copy comes from the audience, not the marketer. Here are some ways to get insights:
Also, ask yourself the following questions:
If this is your first holiday sales season, analyze your competitors’ experience using any information available, and come up with some hypotheses for your own business.
Attractive subject lines are crucial to the success of every email campaign, especially when the competition is at its peak. So, the task is to come up with a subject line that will definitely make the recipient read the message. This will help:
Here are some examples:
Need more inspiration? Here are some more Black Friday email subject lines, along with a bunch of helpful tips on composing them.
Create a separate set of custom templates for Black Friday emails to make your campaigns look special on a special day. And you might want to go with a different structure, design, or color scheme to convey the e-commerce holiday spirit.
It may seem challenging, but you can always take ready-made templates prepared for you by email marketing services and platforms and use them as a starting point. The thing is, templates save time when you’re short on it. They are easy to edit, display beautifully across all email platforms, and adapt to mobile devices — plus you don’t need any coding skills to work with them either. For example, you can try our free Black Friday templates right in your Selzy account and edit them in our email builder. There, the editing process is super simple with our visual editor and AI tools, and if you want something more sophisticated — you can switch to the HTML mode in one click. Moreover, you can import templates from other sources and edit them in this builder too!
This is an example of our Black Friday templates:
You can also use services like Stripo that allow you to design beautiful templates and import them into Selzy:
Here’s what another Black Friday template from Stripo looks like in Selzy’s email builder:
If your e-commerce business is having a massive holiday sale, stating the percentage off is a no-brainer. But sometimes your customers need a little push. And although you may want them to purchase every single product on sale, focusing on your bestsellers or most lucrative deals may prove a better strategy. Another great option is using technology to your advantage. Thanks to segmentation and automation, you can send laser-targeted product recommendations and provide each subscriber with a personalized shopping experience.
For example, this email’s recipient probably purchased men’s shoes before. That is why men’s styles are shown first, and the recommended product in the yellow frame is men’s as well.
OK, now that you’ve got a template to work with, let’s fill it. The main idea: keep it short and clear. People know you’re having a sale, so cut to the chase, tell them what it’s about, promote your best deals.
According to Litmus, subscribers spend an average of 9 seconds reading emails. They have this time to determine whether a message holds something interesting or not. It means that you have little time to get them to do what you want, so don’t overload your marketing message with a lot of text. That’s your brand website’s job. There, you can tell in detail about everything you want to offer.
Some tips on making your Black Friday email on point:
Moleskine sent a minimalist email stressing the exclusivity to motivate customers to make a purchase. The email has an effective copy and a big button leading to the page with deals.
Many companies change their email design during the Black Friday period to emphasize the importance of holiday deals. So your task is to make your campaigns look different from both your regular mailings AND from whatever your competitors might come up with. Typical Black Friday emails usually follow a total black-and-white design. OK, everybody knows it’s BLACK Friday, we get it. Why not change it?
Here’s what you can add to your message to stand out from the holiday inbox clutter:
A couple of points deserve special attention:
Put your best graphics forward
We recommend not sending Black Friday emails with the corporate design that you use in all other mailings. Sure, identity is essential for recognition, but a few times a year, allow yourself to deviate from the standards. It will look original and memorable enhancing the customers’ experience.
Remember, the point of seasonal e-commerce campaigns is that they are… seasonal. Using vivid colors and fonts, combined with a cool proposition, will help increase your click-through rate and conversions to purchase.
Add GIFs
GIFs are great for turning people’s heads because they are dynamic and simple, and get more attention than static illustrations.
If done wisely and tastefully, GIFs:
However, with GIFs, moderation is key: 1-2 animated elements per email are usually enough. You don’t want to overload your subscribers and attract the attention of spam filters, so make sure your emails don’t weigh a ton. Also, remember to run a few tests to make sure your GIFs display OK before sending.
CTA or call-to-action is an element that motivates a user to take a certain action: go to the website, buy, sign up, subscribe, leave a request. There are different kinds of CTAs: buttons, links, images.
Whatever the kind, the main rule of CTA design in emails is to make them as clear and visible as possible for a smoother shopping experience:
Read more about CTA placement and looks (and lots of other stuff) in our article about email design.
“What?” and “How?” are very important, but your customers are also interested in “When?”.
It might look overused, but copy phrases or subject lines like “Don’t miss this chance!” or “Buy now!” (or even “BUY NOW!”) make people do things. It works because creating urgency is a psychological trick that attracts attention by triggering the FOMO effect (fear of missing out). This mechanic helps to stimulate demand and increase sales even at times that are unfavorable for the business.
There are several ways you can create the urgency effect:
The exact numbers can change, of course — but you get the general meaning.
If you are curious to see more examples of using the FOMO effect in emails, check out our article on FOMO email marketing.
And of course, you can combine several elements such as colors, GIFs, and FOMO in one email, as done in this example:
Timers deserve special attention since they are a simple but powerful e-commerce technology that stimulates people to make a purchase. Looking at a timer, one feels like the clock is literally ticking away. To avoid missing the opportunity, people click on the CTA button, and the results can be impressive. Adestra describes a case study of how adding a timer to an email got it a 171% higher click-to-open rate and a 400% higher conversion rate.
Humor can be an effective marketing tool that melts the ice between a company and its customers. A simple joke or a pun is a versatile thing:
Even though Black Friday is a massive sale, you can still offer customers something special. Take into account the interests and preferences of each subscriber and make them personalized offers.
Call them by their names, provide discounts on products that they are interested in the most. Or try out other personalization techniques to enhance the customer experience.
Almost 50% of total revenue during the 2023 holiday season was brought from mobile devices. In 2024, mobile share is projected to surpass that and reach 53.2%. Plus, according to a 2021 Litmus study, mobile is the most popular environment for reading emails. It means that mobile versions of emails are a prerequisite for high conversions.
Email service providers like Selzy usually have responsive options in their email constructors that allow you not only to adapt your messages for mobile devices but to create separate versions for the purpose.
Here is one of the good mobile optimization examples:
Black Friday falls on the first Friday after Thanksgiving, which is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. So, the sales season is roughly at the end of November each year. In 2024, Black Friday will take place on November 29.
But as is with all holiday campaigns, sending Black Friday emails on this exact day is not the best strategy. To make sure your messages work, start sending them several days in advance. Ideally, you should prepare an email sequence that stretches about 10 days around the date. In the next section, we will explain how to do it in more detail.
Now that you’ve learned tips and tricks for creating Black Friday emails and seen a bunch of examples, let’s go over some of the ideas that can make your campaigns perform even better.
On the eve of discount sales, inboxes will be filled with a variety of product offers from e-commerce businesses. So if you send just one Black Friday email, your offer may go unnoticed. An email chain is another matter.
A movie starts with its trailer, right? Same with a big email campaign — you need to announce it first and then reveal the details. Basically, there are 3 stages:
Below is the 3-part Black Friday email campaign by Bose. Earlier in the article, we’ve already demonstrated how the scratch-off trick works. Now swipe to see all emails in the sequence:
You can expand on this scheme with something like this:
Sounds complicated? Email automation will make your life easier by allowing you to basically set your campaign on autopilot. Create templates, choose lists, and set actions and reactions. For example, don’t send the Last Chance email to people who have already bought something.
There are several email mechanics you can explore to run your Black Friday promotion:
Your loyal customers are your main asset and best partners. They generate significant revenue and often provide extra advertising. The more often they shop, the more your business grows. So why not single them out into a separate segment? Reward your loyal customers and show them that you care with a closed sale like this one:
Cyber Monday is a couple of days after Black Friday so these two events are very closely interconnected and are often perceived as one. Why not capitalize on it and make Black Friday and Cyber Monday email campaigns look alike for further brand promotion?
Say what? Yeah, you can do just that. If you don’t have the resources to arrange a super-deal for your customers, you can still be a part of the Black Friday hubbub by playing on the subject to your advantage. REI Co-op doesn’t promote anything directly but you’ll remember them:
So, here are the final thoughts:
When everything’s said and done… Don’t relax yet. You have Cyber Monday ahead of you.
This article was originally published in October 2021 and was updated in October 2024 to make it more relevant and comprehensive.
