As the holiday season approaches, businesses everywhere are gearing up for one of the year’s biggest shopping events. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or an eCommerce store owner, BFCM presents an incredible opportunity to boost sales, engage with customers, and make you stand out in the competitive world during the holiday season.
But here’s the thing: BFCM success doesn’t just happen overnight. It requires careful planning, a dash of creativity, and a lot of strategy. That’s where we come in.
In this comprehensive eCommerce holiday guide, we will walk you through the art of crafting a “killer” BFCM email marketing strategy that stands out in crowded inboxes and drives results that will make your holiday season truly merry and bright.
So, grab your favorite cup of coffee, settle into your comfiest chair, and get ready to dive deep into the world of BFCM email marketing. We’ll take you step by step, from understanding your audience to mastering the art of email content, design, and everything in between.
By the end of this journey, you’ll have the knowledge and confidence to create an email marketing strategy that survives BFCM and thrives in it.
What is BFCM?
Before we dive into crafting the perfect email marketing strategy, let’s clarify what BFCM is all about. Black Friday falls on the day after Thanksgiving in the United States, marking the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season.
Cyber Monday, which follows shortly after, is known for its online deals and promotions. Collectively, these two days mark the beginning of an intense shopping craze that extends throughout the weekend and continues until Christmas.
Did you know?
196.7 million consumers shopped between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday
So, Businesses across various industries, both online and brick-and-mortar, use the BFCM weekend by offering discounts and special promotions to attract new customers, re-engage with the old ones, and motivate repeat customers to buy more products.
The Importance of Email Marketing for BFCM
While BFCM involves various marketing channels, email marketing remains the efficient channel of success. It lets you connect directly with your audience, build anticipation for your offers, and nurture leads into paying customers.
According to research, email marketing generates an average return on investment (ROI) of $42 for every $1 spent. With such potential, crafting a killer BFCM email marketing strategy for your business is essential.
10 Steps to Create a Killer BFCM Email Marketing Strategy
1. Understanding Your Audience
The first step in creating a killer BFCM email marketing strategy is understanding your audience inside and out and creating a buyer persona. Getting to know who your customers are, what they want, and how they behave is fundamental to crafting effective email campaigns.
✔️Creating Buyer Personas
Buyer personas are detailed profiles of your ideal customers. They include information such as age, gender, interests, pain points, and buying behavior. Developing buyer personas helps you create content and offers that resonate with your target audience.
✔️Analyzing Past BFCM Email Performance
Reviewing your previous BFCM email campaigns can provide valuable insights. Analyze open, click-through, and conversion rates to identify what worked and what didn’t. Use this data to refine your approach for the upcoming BFCM season.
2. Setting Clear Goals and Objectives
Without clear goals, your BFCM email marketing strategy can lack direction and focus. Setting specific, measurable, and achievable objectives is essential for any business to outdo its email campaigns. Remember these two points while setting goals for your BFCM email campaigns:
✔️Defining Measurable Goals
Your BFCM goals should be quantifiable. Examples include achieving a certain revenue target, increasing the number of new customers, or boosting average order value. Measurable goals enable you to track your progress and make data-driven decisions in the coming years.
✔️Setting Realistic Expectations
While ambitious goals are excellent motivators, it’s essential to be realistic about what you can achieve during BFCM. Take into account factors like your industry, competition, and the size of your email list when setting expectations.
| Pro Tip: Comparing your current goals to the performance of your previous BFCM campaigns can help you establish a baseline for improvement. Identify areas where you fell short in the past and aim to surpass those benchmarks this year. |
3. Building a High-Quality Email List
An engaged and high-quality email list is the basic foundation for successful email marketing. As you prepare for BFCM, focus on growing, segmenting, and maintaining your list. This can do wonders for you. Try this!!
✔️Growing Your Subscriber List
To reach a broader audience during BFCM, consider various list growth strategies. These may include running lead generation campaigns, hosting contests, or offering incentives for signing up.
✔️Segmenting Your Email List for Targeted Campaigns
Segmentation enables you to send highly relevant emails to different groups of subscribers. Create segments based on purchase history, location, and engagement level to deliver personalized BFCM offers.
✔️Cleaning and Maintaining Your Email List
A clean email list is more responsive and less likely to result in bounce rates or spam complaints. Regularly remove inactive or unengaged subscribers and update email addresses to ensure deliverability.
4. Segment and Personalize Your Emails
Segmentation involves dividing your email list into distinct groups based on shared characteristics. This allows you to personalize your messages to different segments, increasing the relevance of your emails.
✔️Segment Your Audience
Common segmentation criteria include demographics, psychographics, geographics, purchase history, and engagement level (customer activity).
✔️Personalize the Content
Based on your segmented email list, craft your email based on their activity, engagement, and purchase history.
5. Crafting Compelling Email Content
Creating irresistible email content is essential for capturing your subscribers’ attention and driving them to take action by using the right CTA in the end. Here are some of the things that you can focus on for this BFCM 2023:
✔️Subject Lines That Grab Attention
The subject line is the first thing recipients see, so it must be enticing. Use attention-grabbing language, emojis, and a sense of urgency to pique curiosity.
✔️Writing Engaging Email Copy
The body of your email should be concise, persuasive, and easy to read. Highlight the benefits of your BFCM offers and use clear calls to action (CTAs) that guide recipients on what to do next.
✔️Incorporating Visuals and Multimedia
Visual content, such as images (it can be high-quality stock images and videos, can make your emails more engaging. Use visuals to showcase products, demonstrate how-to guides, or tell a compelling story about your brand.
✔️Adding Personalization for a Personalized Touch
Personalization goes beyond just using a subscriber’s name. Tailor your content to match their preferences, past purchases, and behavior. Personalized recommendations can significantly boost conversion rates.
6. Designing Visually Appealing Emails!
The design of your emails plays a crucial role in capturing and retaining the reader’s attention. Here’s how to create visually appealing BFCM emails.
✔️Choosing the Right Email Template
Select an email template that aligns with your brand and the message you want to convey. Whether you choose a simple text-based or visually rich template, ensure it is mobile-responsive.
✔️Choose an AI-powered email software
Email marketing softwares like BayEngage helps create exciting subject lines, headings, high-quality stock images, images generated via prompting, and compelling CTA buttons using AI. You can create error-free and plagiarism-free content and visuals with ease.
✔️Creating Mobile-Responsive Designs
With the majority of emails being opened on mobile devices, it’s essential that your emails display correctly on smartphones and tablets. Test your emails on different devices and email clients to ensure they look great everywhere.
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Source: BayEngage
7. A/B Testing Emails
A/B testing, also known as split testing, allows you to experiment with different subject lines, CTAs, and design elements. Test variations of your email template, color schemes, and button placements to identify what resonates best with your audience. Learn more about the advantages of using A/B testing tools for your email campaigns.
✔️Enhances Open Rates
The competition for attention in inboxes during BFCM is fierce. Crafting the perfect subject line can be the difference between your email being opened or ignored. A/B testing subject lines lets you discover which ones grab your audience’s attention and entice them to explore your offers.
✔️Refining Design and Layout
Testing different email templates and designs helps you determine which layouts, colors, and visuals are most appealing to your audience. A well-designed email can capture attention and lead to higher engagement.
✔️Maximizing ROI
Your marketing budget is valuable, especially during BFCM, when ad spending tends to increase. A/B testing ensures that you’re getting the most out of your email marketing efforts. By optimizing your emails, you can increase your ROI and make the most of your budget.
Using BayEngage, you can A/B test different subject lines, email copy, and visuals to identify what resonates best with your audience. Use BayEngage’s A/B testing reports to refine your future emails. |
8. Setting Up Email Automation Workflows
Create automated email workflows that trigger based on subscriber behavior. For example, set up abandoned cart recovery emails to re-engage shoppers who left items in their cart without completing a purchase. Here are some of the important emails that can be automated to grab your customers’ attention.
✔️Abandoned Cart Recovery Emails
Abandoned cart emails can recover potentially lost sales. Craft persuasive emails that remind shoppers of the items they left behind and offer incentives to complete their purchase.
✔️Welcome Emails for new customers
Welcome Emails can be a creative and engaging way to get started with your newbies. Add special coupons for signing up to your store or newsletter. This email can be automated to get the attention of the customers.
✔️Review Request Emails
Set up special email workflows to collect pictures and product reviews from your loyal customers. After the review submission, trigger an email with the bonus points or coupon codes as an incentive for reviewing or rating your products.
✔️Personalizing Automated Messages
Personalize automated emails with dynamic content that adapts to the recipient’s preferences and behavior. Display product recommendations and messaging based on their browsing and purchase history.
9. Creating Urgency and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
One of the key strategies for BFCM’s success is creating a sense of urgency and fear of missing out on incredible deals. This can drive your customers to buy more from you within a period of time. Here are some ideas where you can create urgency among customers.
✔️Limited-Time Offers
Promote time-sensitive offers and discounts that are exclusive to BFCM. Highlight the urgency by mentioning the countdown to the end of the sale.
✔️Countdown Timers
Incorporate countdown timers in your emails to visually display the time remaining for BFCM deals. This adds a dynamic element that can stimulate action.
✔️Highlighting Scarcity and Exclusivity
Emphasize limited stock or exclusive offers to create a sense of scarcity and exclusivity. Let your subscribers know that these deals won’t last forever.
Here are some editable template ideas from BayEngage for this BFCM 2023!
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Source: BayEngage
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Source: BayEngage
10. Scaling for Mobile Shoppers
With an increasing number of shoppers using mobile devices for online purchases, optimizing your emails for mobile has become essential in recent years. So, when you design your email campaigns, focus on these things to optimize your templates for mobile users.
✔️Mobile Optimization Tips
Make sure that your emails are mobile-responsive, meaning they adapt to various screen sizes and orientations. Test your emails on different mobile devices to guarantee a seamless experience.
✔️Mobile-Friendly Calls to Action
Your CTAs should be easily tappable on mobile devices. Use large, prominent buttons with clear and actionable text to encourage clicks.
✔️Responsive Design Considerations
Consider how your emails look on mobile screens when designing them. Keep text and images readable, and avoid cluttered layouts that can be challenging to navigate on small screens.
Wrapping It!
As you reflect on everything you’ve learned, remember that success during BFCM doesn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of careful planning, creativity, and a deep understanding of your audience. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you’re well-prepared to make this BFCM your most successful one yet.
So, what’s next? It’s time to put your newfound knowledge into action. Start by understanding your audience inside and out, setting clear goals, and crafting compelling email content. Design visually appealing emails, time your campaigns strategically, and leverage automation to streamline your efforts. Don’t forget the importance of A/B testing and continuous optimization to refine your strategy.
So, go ahead and create that killer BFCM email marketing strategy. You’ve got this! And remember, we’re here to support you every step of the way. Here’s to a BFCM filled with soaring sales, delighted customers, and a thriving business.
Now, it’s your turn to shine✨
