Once again, Black Friday/Cyber Monday is around the corner, and as an Account Manager working in an Ecommerce email marketing agency the responsibility of driving high revenue and conversion goes to the marketer. In this article we want to show you how to plan in advance for this season and avoid any mistake or inconvenience and go through the most hectic time for marketing of the year smoothly.
Here are a few tips on what we have experienced in the 5 years the agency creation, and even from our audience and the results we obtained in 2021:
- Keep your offer simple and crystal clear
You can start by checking what’s done last year or the last promotional campaigns and use those as a baseline to create this season’s promotion. Prepared the strategy to offer a higher promotion than any other previously this year, if this is a struggle go simple with an extra 5% off.
Be straightforward with what you’re offering and how long that promotion is going to last without making it complicated by putting in a lot of unnecessary details. Also, if any code needs to be typed manually make sure to make it visible and avoid your customers to lose brand loyalty with misinformation. Remember there are more than just promotional emails to send in this period of time, you want to hyped up the audience. In case you’re not sure which to use here’s an article about the 7 Types of Email Campaigns You Can Add to Your Content Strategy.
- Grow your list NOW!
Saving time, expenses and efforts is the goal here. Acquiring an audience after September is expensive, everyone will be getting ramped up for the holidays and the ads will become more expensive with everyone piling on the top, before the most hectic time of the year. Take into account that starting a preparation process in mid August is ideal, you don’t want to be bringing in cold traffic, you need qualified prospects ready to convert. So we would ideally want to build that list organically, gradually, but early in time, and it doesn’t matter if they don’t convert right away.
Building a VIP list is also a good idea! Profiles that have already purchased and have shown a certain level of high-value purchases should be included here. Depending on your product and price you can go around people with 3+ purchases. It’s all about making them feel special and creating a unique experience for those repeat customers.
- Plan channel strategies that complement each other
Unique channels like email, SMS, organic, and paid should be included in your strategy in a certain way they complement each other. On a daily basis, I suggest pairing up email and SMS, however these need to be used differently. SMS is more inmedite, so it works really great in the first 24 hours. Our advice is to reach out through SMS first, to get a prompt response and the email to nurture with more information about the promo. Once they have been purchased in the BFCM window, we recommend excluding them from the communications afterward because we don’t want to overload them with all of those sales messages.
- Test, test, and test again beforehand
The actual Cyber Week, or even Novembre is not the time to test. Start testing offers, designs, and even subject lines and time of sending within a couple of months prior. As an account manager, all the strategy is put together when the content calendar is clear and approved, you can decide if doing it monthly, by trimester, semester or yearly, but always make sure to have your plan on written and established so briefs and having the assets ready won’t translate in last minute changes or issues.
- Be honest
In the digital era we’re currently facing, people on the internet know a lot, this is not a season to tease them with unclear information or offers not related and explained correctly. Make sure to be loud but specific about the goals you want to achieve this BFCM and ask in advance to your customers if what you’re thinking of might work is what your audience is willing to receive.
To conclude, plan your strategy well before time. Avoid last minute stress and work to enjoy that time sitting back while making money.
