The most hyped sales day of the year is just around the corner. But not everyone embraces Black Friday.

While Black Friday undeniably works well for some retailers, others partake because they feel they have to. In these cases, they risk cutting into margins, alienating loyal customers or diluting brand equity.

Since 2011, retail brand Patagonia has been subverting traditional Black Friday messaging. Now many others are following suit, symptomatic of a major shift in consumer culture. Retailers the world over are finding new ways to break consumerist cycles: promoting recycled materials, fair trade and the repair and re-use of old goods.

Quick Links:

• • • 3 reasons retailers are opting out of Black Friday this year
    • Take a position on Black Friday
    • Position 1: Avoid It
    • Position 2: Subvert It
    • Position 3: Lean Into It
    • How To Use Sales Season To Acquire Lifelong Customers
    • Marsello: All your BFCM marketing in one place
      
      

3 Reasons Retailers Are Opting Out Of Black Friday This Year

1. They can’t compete with big-box retail brands

Retail giants have the purchasing power to bulk buy loss-leaders and attract Black Friday shoppers by the masses. Smaller retail brands don’t have the deep pockets to compete, so many find that running Black Friday sales just cuts into margins.

2. Their audience is made up of conscious consumers

The kinds of people who shop at smaller retailers are both more loyal and more conscious consumers than those that flock to the likes of Amazon. They’re more suspicious of broad-stroke sales and promotions such as Black Friday, and could be turned off or confused by hyperconsumerist marketing.

3. Their brand values simply aren’t aligned

Running Black Friday sales just feel antithetical to their brand. Brands with strong social or environmental purpose and values don’t feel comfortable participating in a sales day that promotes unnecessary consumption and waste.

We’ve worked with an increasingly large number of brands who don’t want to participate in Black Friday. But you can take an anti-Black Friday position, or subvert the normal marketing messages, and still leverage the hype. 

Our advice? Use that position to your advantage. Take the hype of Black Friday, participate in trending conversations, and build your brand and marketing strategy around it.

Take a position on Black Friday

You know your customer best. So take the time to think about what approach works best. By choosing the position that’s right for your brand, you’ll engage your customer base and build brand equity. 

Remember: Whichever position you take, you can leverage the hype around the sales season. Even if you’re taking an avoidant or subversive position, you can leverage Black Friday keywords and trending social hashtags to get your message out to a wider audience.

1. Avoid it: If your target market is predominantly comprised of conscious consumers, are traditional Black Friday campaigns the right fit? Some brands opt out of Black Friday altogether. Some businesses even close their stores, asking their customers to just go outside and enjoy the day rather than spending their time chasing the sales.
2. Subvert it: Do Black Friday, but with a self-aware twist. Or leverage the hype around Black Friday to promote your purpose—for example, brands running Blue Friday campaigns to raise money for ocean clean up projects.
3. Lean into it: If Black Friday works for you, then that’s okay too. You can still go all in for Black Friday, and use creative, unique campaigns to stand out from all the noise.

Once you’re steadfast in your position, be consistent. Otherwise, the campaign will feel inauthentic and confused. Craft all your hooks around your core campaign message. You can use these across your social posts, email subject lines and ads.

Position 1: Avoid It

Last year, the British Independent Retailers Association (BIRA) reported the highest number of smaller brands boycotting Black Friday they’d ever seen—a whopping 85%. This shows a growing movement against the likes of Amazon, who dominate the market and can offer huge discounts, bundles, deals and free shipping.

Here are some ways you can express your anti-Black Friday position:

• Encourage your customers to reduce waste and think about what they really need on Black Friday. 
• Volunteer time or money to plant trees, or donate to offset some of the carbon emissions generated by Black Friday consumption.
• You can even close your stores, like sustainable underwear brand Pantee.

True to their vision and values, Ecolateral never runs Black Friday sales or events promoting hyperconsumerism.

"We're about helping people to make genuine and sustainable changes in their life for the benefit of the planet. And if we're true to our vision, people respect that."

— Jamie Stott, Ecolateral

Source: Ecolateral Instagram

Position 2: Subvert It

Patagonia’s “Don’t buy this jacket” campaign famously subverted traditional sales messaging around Black Friday.

The conscious retailer is known for its clever use of marketing around sales season to boost its brand profile, PR and social media engagement. In 2016, they used Black Friday promotions to raise money for charities with environmental purpose.

If your audience doesn’t resonate with hyper-consumerism, taking a subversive position can be an extremely clever approach.

You might not see the same revenue success as those leaning into Black Friday, but the objective (the bet) is to build brand awareness and customer loyalty that will last longer than one day in the retail calendar.

Source: Patagonia

Here are some ways you can subvert traditional Black Friday messaging:

• Use Black Friday to promote upcycling, repairing and reusing. Patagonia has an online store, Worn Wear, dedicated to resales of pre-loved clothing. Hoopla Kids does the same.
• Take part in Blue Friday, an initiative pioneered by a group of small businesses as an alternative to Black Friday. All participating businesses pledge to donate a percentage of sales from Blue Friday to support ocean conservation projects.
• Donate a percentage of sales made over Black Friday weekend to a good cause. Out of the Box Gifts donated 10% of all their 2021 Black Friday sales to a local food bank.

“It’s time for us as a company to address the issue of consumerism and do it head on. The most challenging, and important, element of [Worn Wear] is this: to lighten our environmental footprint, everyone needs to consume less. Businesses need to make fewer things but of higher quality. Customers need to think twice before they buy.”
—Patagonia

Position 3: Lean Into It

If you are leaning into Black Friday this year, here are some marketing tips to help you hit your revenue targets.

Tip #1. At peak sales season, the normal marketing guidelines don’t apply.

Don’t send emails on the weekend? Don’t schedule social posts after 8pm? Don’t send more than 3 emails for week? Forget it.

Consumers are receiving more emails, SMS messages and targeted ads than ever around this time. Don’t be afraid to dial up the frequency of your marketing messages. Be prepared to get some unsubscribes, but the resulting sales will more than outweigh that.

Tip #2. Get personal with segmentation.

This tactic has helped our retailers get more Black Friday sales, and higher average order value. 

Slice up your database by type of products purchased. For example, if you’re a technology retailer, you could create segments for “Photographers”—people who most frequently buy photography equipment.

Send targeted Black Friday or Cyber Monday campaign emails and SMS messages to those segments, adding only products from their preferred category. Of course, you can add a “See All Deals” call-to-action below your product blocks to pull in more general interest to the broader sale categories.

For higher impact, start strong with a personalized subject line:

“Alice, get 60% off everything photography! 🤑📸”

Tip #3. Black Friday is about more than just revenue targets.

Did you know sales season is bigger than just hitting holiday revenue targets???

Collect customer details over these heavy traffic periods to build your list of re-marketable customers.

According to the Pareto principle, around 80% of a business’s profits come from just 20% of its customers. That means regular customers, who buy from you again and again, are worth A LOT to your business.

It’s more expensive to acquire new customers to retain them, so make the most of your campaign spend and continue selling to Black Friday participants long after November has been and gone.

How To Use Sales Season To Acquire Lifelong Customers

In the current economic climate, consumers are much more price-sensitive, so they’re more willing to switch brands on a whim. That’s especially true around peak sales season. Any new customers you’ve acquired over the holiday season have more than likely found you through a sale or promotion.

So how do you keep new customers in your orbit year-round?? With a value-packed and engaging loyalty program they won’t want to leave!

After the holiday rush, run double points days, VIP sales, personalized deals and creative in-store shopping experiences. Regularly deliver value to your loyal customers with birthday gifts, loyalty rewards and freebies—they’ll love you for it.

As a consumer, what are your favorite loyalty programs you’re part of? There are always a few standouts you can learn from!

Read next: Top 8 Marketing Hacks For Black Friday/Cyber Monday Campaigns

Marsello: All your marketing, in one place. Schedule social posts Send email and SMS campaigns to customers Create set-and-forget marketing automations Track the direct impact of all your marketing on revenue Build a customer database

The opportunity for sales through TikTok is colossal. 67% of TikTok users say they feel an impulse to shop while scrolling through their feed. 20.6% of consumers who have bought products through social media say they frequently purchase on TikTok.

In addition, TikTokers use the platform as a search engine; TikTok crawls comments, tags, and captions for keywords to provide highly relevant search results.

This illustrates a rapidly growing preference for organic, user-generated content over keyword-stuffed blog posts in traditional search engine results.

As Black Friday approaches, users jump on the app to find deals and see what their favorite TikTokers are buying. It’s no wonder TikTok is the place every retailer wants to be this Black Friday…

Quick Links:

• • • Why User-Generated Content Works Best
    • Top 5 TikTok Trends To Use This Black Friday
    • Dos and Don’ts for Black Friday TikTok success
    • Marsello: All your BCFM marketing in one place
      
      

Why User-Generated Content Works Best

TikTok is all about authenticity.

TikTokers are more discerning than any other social media user. They’re social natives, raised by influencer culture and reality TV, so they know when someone’s there to sell them something.

On the other end of the authenticity spectrum… you’ve got traditional, big-box, branded Black Friday campaigns.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t harness the power and influence of the For You page to stand out from the crowd this sale season.

The key? User-generated content, or UGC.  That’s right, you want to make content that looks like it was made by one of your customers, NOT by your marketing team.

Let’s dive in!

Top 5 TikTok Trends To Use This Black Friday

These are not new or fleeting trends. (Nope, we’re not going to make you edit corn into your next collection promo video).

TikTok moves fast, so trying to plan out content ahead of time can be a headache. You don’t want to awkwardly miss the beat on a trend, it’ll be very obvious. For quick, hot-and-fast trends, you want to jump on them right away.

Once you’ve spent a bit of time on the platform, you will get a pretty clear idea about what kinds of trends will last a few days or weeks, and what will stand the test of time. 

If you aren’t super au fait with TikTok just yet, never fear. We have put together some tried-and-tested successful formulae that we see working over and over again. With these trends, it’s all about creating a hook that entices the user and gets them to stop scrolling.

1. Black Friday Hauls

Create a video of someone shopping online or in your physical stores, then cut to them showing all their new products. Walk the viewer through the discounts, bundles, and deals.

Example of a Black Friday haul:

Some hashtags to add: 

#blackfridaydeals #blackfriday #haul #christmashaul #shoppinghaul

2. Deals You Need To Know About

Create a video showcasing your brand’s deals. To level up the authenticity, promote some complementary deals from brands you collaborate with too. It’s all about community!

Example of a deal finder:

Some hashtags to add: 

#cybermonday2022 #blackfriday2022 #blackfridaydeals #christmasgiftideas #giftguide2022

3. Unboxing Experiences

These work particularly well if they’re ‘oddly satisfying’ or ASMR inspired. You can add a mention that the product was on sale on a Black Friday deal.

Example of an unboxing:

Some hashtags to add: 

 #unboxing #blackfriday #ASMR (if applicable)

4. Get Ready With Me (GRWM)

Make this trend Black Friday relevant with a “GRWM: Black Friday edition” showcasing all your Black Friday deals. Mix and match with non-sale items, or do a full ‘on sale’ promotion. This works for clothes, make-up, beauty, accessories… get creative!

Example of a GRWM:

Some hashtags to add:

#outfit #winter (or any applicable season) #grwm

5. Come shopping with me

If you have a bricks and mortar store, bring the viewer "shopping" with you. Take a timelapse of walking into your store from the street, looking around, then slow down to pick up products and deals. Show the viewer you’re adding it to your basket, all while showcasing your in-store experience candidly.

Example of a shop with me:

Some hashtags to add:

#comeshopwithme #mallshopping #shoppingaddict

Dos and Don’ts for Black Friday TikTok success

Don’t brand your videos.

Use TikTok’s native fonts, instead of your own branded fonts. This will give your content a much more organic feel, and won’t stick out as “marketing” content on TikTok’s For You page.

TikTok’s native fonts include Proxima Nova Semi Bold, Kaufmann Bold Script and Georgia Bold. You can mix and match fonts and styles.

Do make sure your videos are well lit.

Good lighting is essential for creating high-quality content. Every successful TikToker has this down. If you can, film in good natural light (but not direct sunlight). Golden hour (when the sun is setting) will give your content a warm, radiant glow.

As a second-best alternative, invest in quality artificial lighting, such as a ring light. 

Do get creative with transitions.

If you’re feeling confident, try some creative transitions between shots. TikTokers are known for using manual camera tricks to enhance the overall feel of their videos.

Do get familiar with editing apps.

If you’re creating content in advance, TikTok’s native editor is not ideal. Use an editing tool like CapCut to get a cleaner final result. You can download it for your phone, tablet or desktop.

Don’t try and tell your whole brand story.

While it can be tempting to start talking about how great all your products are and listing all the benefits, stick to the short, hook-based formats above.

Don’t use muffled audio.

If you’re doing voice-over style videos, it’s important to get crisp, clear sound. Invest in a small microphone you can clip to your clothing, like a lapel mic, that plugs into your recording device (i.e., your phone). These are affordable and easy to find online. 

Most TikTokers find it’s simple and effective to record straight into Voice Memos or similar. Your phone’s inbuilt voice recording app serves the purpose just fine.

Don’t spend thousands on equipment.

I can’t iterate this enough. Even the best quality user-generated content doesn’t need anything more than good lighting, good audio, your smartphone (as long as it has a decent camera), and a tripod.

Do have fun with it!

Express your personality, and have fun—otherwise, it will become just another marketing chore, and that won’t produce good content. Making TikToks is a creative process, so enjoy it!

Read next: Social media planning for BFCM - 7 Best Practices to Implement

Marsello: All your Black Friday marketing, in one place. Send email and SMS campaigns to customers Create set-and-forget marketing automations Schedule social posts Track the direct impact of your marketing on revenue Build a customer database

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend is coming up fast (just where did 2022 go?) It’s high time for brands to begin planning for this massive, revenue-generating shopping event.

179.8 million unique shoppers shopped in-store and online during the BFCM holiday weekend in 2021, despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With 2022 seeing record rates of inflation and more cautious consumer spending, brands will need to pull out all the stops to wow customers this holiday season.

Although still associated with shoppers streaming into store locations, BFCM weekend is becoming increasingly digital and mobile-first. According to Nosto, mobile outperformed desktop at 69% versus 31% when it came to product discovery and browsing, where social media emerges as a key channel. In fact, 54% of Gen Z shoppers and 58% of Millennials say that social platforms are better than online search for finding products and brands.

In sum, a robust social media strategy is now essential for a profitable BFCM weekend.

We’ve put together a list of the top social media planning practices your brand should follow to attract and retain customers this holiday season — and how Marsello’s brand-new social media toolkit can help.

Quick Links:

• • • Use data to inform your BFCM initiatives and planning
    • Iron out the BFCM promotions you’ll be running
    • Create compelling images
    • Use a calendar to track and schedule your BFCM content
    • Keep your marketing collateral organized
    • Keep your BFCM initiatives consistent across all platforms
    • Leverage built-in social selling features
    • Final words
    • Marsello: All your BCFM marketing in one place
      
      
      

1. Use data to inform your BFCM initiatives and planning

Not sure where to begin with your social media planning? A good place to start is to look into what strategies worked for your brand last year — and what didn’t. 

Social media metrics such as engagement, impressions, click-through rate, website traffic, and conversion rate will help you to gauge the performance of previous initiatives and where you can build on this success. Likewise, learning from past mistakes, such as posting at the wrong time of day for your audience, is one of the best ways to set yourself up for a profitable BFCM period.

Using Marsello, look back on what kinds of posts generated the most sales over past campaigns.

In addition to using your own data, don’t ignore the power of industry trends. Knowing what’s hot with social media users is a great way to stay innovative and serve up the content consumers want to see. 

For example, short-form video is gaining traction across all social platforms in 2022, with 26% of social media marketers investing more in short-form video than any other content format. If your target customer belongs to the Gen Z demographic, this should definitely be in your BFCM toolkit.

2. Iron out the BFCM promotions you’ll be running

Running seasonal promotions is an essential part of BFCM, and your followers will expect you offer some compelling deals and discounts throughout the weekend. To maximize engagement with your social content, make sure you’ve planned out all the core details of your promotions, such as:

The type of content. Are you using a single image, carousel, or video to publicize your promotion?

The type of promotion. The size of the discount/offer, what products are included/excluded, etc.

Length/timing of the promotion. How long the promotion is valid and whether you might extend it to increase conversions

However, be careful not to make your social media feeds too promotion-heavy. Constantly pushing discounts over BFCM weekend can become boring and repetitive for your followers. Consider mixing up your feed with other types of content and putting aside some time to plan out your content streams. This includes promotional offers, gift inspo, and user-generated content.

Starbucks is a great example of a brand that posts a careful mix of content during and in the lead-up to BFCM. In addition to posting about their seasonal drinks range and limited-edition holiday cup promotions, its social media feeds also include user-generated content and question prompts designed to encourage engagement.

3. Create compelling images

Consumers’ newsfeeds and inboxes are being inundated by promotions and discounts during BFCM weekend, trying to persuade them to drop everything and shop right now. But don’t join the race to the bottom by choosing the steepest discount possible; focus on creating eye-catching visuals that entice consumers to stop scrolling and check out your offer.

To tap into those short attention spans, your images need to have a “wow factor” that’s pleasing to look at and primes people to explore what you have to offer.

Known for its stunning social media feeds, Anthropologie does a great job at putting its followers in the mindset of holiday shopping ahead of BFCM. This fun visual swipe post allows Anthropologie fans to “turn on” the Christmas lights at one of their flagship stores — a clear sign of more holiday-themed content to come.

4. Use a calendar to track and schedule your BFCM content

It can be tempting to post all your social media content on the fly. But while there’s room for spontaneity in your content (for example, jumping on a trend while it’s still viral) you don’t want to leave your BFCM content to chance. 

Peak season is a busy time for brands, and it’s time-consuming and stressful to plan and post content as you go. More importantly, a scattergun approach also runs the risk of missing key promotional opportunities during Thanksgiving weekend.

Using a calendar tool is a great way to maintain control over your BCFM social media planning. Marsello allows you to add individual social posts to your calendar and add relevant information such as launch dates, copy, or associated promotions, ensuring that your team always knows what’s in the pipeline.

5. Keep your marketing collateral organized

BFCM is one of the biggest revenue-producing periods of the year for retailers, so your business is likely to be using more social media collateral in the form of graphics, videos, and product photography during this period to increase engagement. 

With so much revenue on the line, it’s vital to make sure your marketing team has a system to store and organize these assets. After all, nobody wants to lose a vital photo or video right before posting!

The Marsello media library is an excellent way to keep all of your BFCM collateral in one place where it’s easily accessible to your team. The media library connects seamlessly with all major storage systems, including Google Drive and Dropbox, so you can retrieve your assets as you need them for emails, social media, and other campaigns being run by Marsello.

6. Keep your BFCM initiatives consistent across all platforms

If you’re planning on running a big promotion (or several) over BFCM weekend, it makes little sense to only publicize your offer on a single platform. To drive as much traffic as possible to your website and storefronts, all of your marketing channels — including social media, email, and even your store signage — need to be working together in harmony. 

It’s easy to say that the more channels you use, the stronger your promotional strategy will be. But it’s not quite that simple; more channels also means more time spent making sure that your messaging stays consistent. 

Here is a great example from Sephora, which successfully reinforced last year’s Cyber Monday sale across email and social media by using the same graphic and messaging:

Marsello’s campaign calendar makes it easy to achieve coordinated campaigns like Sephora’s. Social media, SMS, and email can be planned within a single dashboard to streamline your social planning and ensure consistency across channels.

7. Optimize your BFCM social media accounts for sales by leveraging built-in social selling features

Social media is no longer simply a marketing channel designed to direct shoppers to where the action takes place. Thanks to the birth of social commerce, many platforms now boast a range of tools that enable users to purchase products directly within the app.

Social commerce has a range of benefits for both shoppers and brands during BFCM. If prospective customers see a great holiday gift option, they’re going to want to move fast. By shopping directly within an app, consumers only have to tap the product tag to be taken directly to the product page and checkout. Redirecting shoppers to your ecommerce website, where they’ll need to find the product themselves and place it in their cart, takes extra time and effort and may result in them abandoning the purchase.

In addition to speeding up the checkout process, social selling makes your product catalog easy and seamless to navigate. For example, Walmart has created a range of collections in its Instagram store to address different shopper needs:.

Collections have a ton of applications for BFCM weekend. Consider catalogs such as “‘Top holiday picks for under $30”’ or “‘red-hot Black Friday deals” to optimize your sales strategy and drive consumers toward high-value merchandise.

Final words

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are among one the most important holiday shopping weekends on the calendar, and brands need to begin their social media planning early to maximize the promotional opportunities available. By following the social media planning tips above and utilizing Marsello’s social media tools, you’ll be well-placed to make your BFCM 2022 the best yet.

BFCM marketing hacks big-box retailers don’t want you to know 👇

Black Friday is creeping up fast. But while we’re still a decent way out, here are 8 of the best marketing tips you should be considering in your campaign planning.

These strategies are used by some of the world’s biggest and most successful retailers; however, they’re all actually incredibly simple. Some of these tactics can even wait until the last minute (if you’re “deadline driven” like I am!) and they’ll still be high impact.

Quick Links:

• • • Run pre-Black Friday sales
    • Segment your database for personalized deals
    • Add urgency with a countdown timer
    • Leverage the 98% deliverability of SMS
    • Send product recommendations and a discount code
    • Run VIP offers to your existing customers
    • Set up automated Abandoned Cart reminders
    • Last, but not least: build your customer database!
    • Marsello: All your BCFM marketing in one place
      
      
      

Run pre-Black Friday sales

Black Friday is BIG. It has global awareness, with merchants participating in countries in and outside of Canada and the US (even those that don’t recognize Thanksgiving). Needless to say, it’s on everyone’s minds for months in the lead up.

So—why not run sales before the actual day? Savvy retailers are using this strategy to capitalize on the hype without shouting in the crowd at peak time.

For example, Rubber Monkey, a technology retailer, runs a VIP Black Friday “Countdown Campaign” with several pre-Black Friday sales ahead of the big date.

Rubber Monkey’s lead-up campaign emails included dates for not one, not two but THREE separate Black Friday sale dates.

Alternatively, in lieu of running a multi-stage sale, simply send Black Friday / Cyber Monday previews. Tease your database, give them a sneak peek of what’s around the corner, and build hype.

You can also include a Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar invite, so your subscribers have your sale top of mind and receive automated reminders directly from their calendar app.

Segment your database for personalized deals

A blast to all customers is not always an effective marketing strategy. Instead, segment your database by type of products purchased. For example, if you’re a technology retailer, you could create segments for “Photographers”—people who most frequently buy photography equipment.

Send targeted Black Friday or Cyber Monday campaign emails and SMS messages to those segments, adding only products from their preferred category. Of course, you can add a “See All Deals” call-to-action below your product blocks to pull in more general interest to the broader sale categories.

For higher impact, start strong with a personalized subject line:
“Alice, get 60% off everything photography! 🤑📸”

I love how this Cyber Monday email jumps straight into product collections from the category I’m most interested in: photography.

Add urgency with a countdown timer

Ah, the old FOMO trick. Let your subscribers know when your sales start, so they don’t miss a deal. Using a dynamic, live countdown timer in your emails will capture visual interest, and drive urgent action.

Drag-and-drop the countdown timer into your campaigns with Marsello’s email builder. You can customize your timer to match your brand and campaign specs. I also love how this email uses a ‘Wishlist’ call-to-action—getting subscribers engaged with the sale in advance.

Leverage the 98% deliverability of SMS

Did you know…

• 75% of consumers want to receive text messages with special offers
• 90% of SMS messages opened within three minutes of being received

Scott Home Delivery uses SMS for their Black Friday campaigns, with incredible results. Some of their campaigns see up to a 26% click rate—much higher than the average email click rate (around 3%).

When used in the right context, SMS remains one of the most powerful marketing tactics on the block. The key? It’s really not rocket science: it all comes down to following the tried-and-true recipe for success:

• There’s one clear offer (50% off)
• Urgency (Only a few days left!)
• A CTA and link to drive conversions
• And there are instructions for how to opt out (a necessary inclusion)

Pro-tip: Get even more personalized and use merge tags in your SMS campaigns—include loyalty points balance, first name and more.

Send product recommendations with a discount code

You don’t have to discount specific products, but you could offer a discount code. That way, you can send an email with product recommendations to your customer database, and offer a discount code so they can go and spend it on the products you know they’ll love. 

Marsello’s product recommendation algorithm uses the same model as Amazon. We use customer purchase data to determine which products they’re most likely to be interested in buying next.

You can drag-and-drop this pre-built block into any of your Black Friday campaign emails. Beyond that, we recommend using this feature in all kinds of email campaigns!

Here, we show how you can drop the block into an automated Happy Birthday email using Marsello’s super easy email campaign builder.

Run VIP offers to your existing customers

Send exclusive Black Friday deals and offers to your existing customers. Rubber Monkey sent customers an extra $10 voucher to use over and above their Black Friday purchases.

Rubber Monkey’s additional VIP Black Friday offer to their email subscribers.

Set up automated Abandoned Cart reminders

Don’t let those Black Friday deals sit idly in customer carts. Use marketing automation to set up automatic abandoned cart reminders. Use triggers to set up a delay—around one hour is usually about right for a one-day sale, but you can test what works best with your customer database.

Take a look at Ozzie Collectables’ Abandoned Cart campaign, for example. This series of three emails has an overall conversion rate of 28%. In fact, automated email flows alone are generating 38% of their total revenue.

Marsello has a collection of pre-built email templates you can add to your Abandoned Cart flows. You can even tweak your flows in the days around Black Friday / Cyber Monday to include more relevant, urgent messages.

Last but not least, build your customer database!

Think bigger than Black Friday. Collect customer details over these heavy traffic periods to build your list of re-marketable customers.

According to the Pareto principle, around 80% of a business’s profits come from just 20% of its customers. That means regular customers, who buy from you again and again, are worth A LOT to your business. And they’re cheaper to market to as well.

The other 80% of your customers only make up the remaining 20% of your profits. These customers include your one-time shoppers, infrequent visitors, and any other more casual consumers.

It’s more expensive to acquire new customers to retain them, so make the most of your campaign spend and continue selling to Black Friday participants long after November has been and gone.

Read next: Social media planning for BFCM - 7 Best Practices to Implement