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Black Friday Email Strategies

The results of many a strategy session over the past few months will play out in the next 10 days as retailers launch their Black Friday email plans. Maybe some of these ideas will help you make some last-minute improvement to your own strategy:

- A number of retailers are doubling down on Monday and Tuesday by sending extra sale notices this week, so those days are going to be high-traffic days for the email backbone. Pace out your own mailings as much as possible and expect delays in delivery as the ISPs manage the volume. Keep an eye on your own program so you can course correct as needed.

- We always see that a campaign approach works better than one-off messages. Keep a consistent theme to the week and stay focused on the key buying offers. Remember, the inbox is getting much more crowded, so you have less time to make an impact.

- Friday morning may also be a good time for reminder emails. We've worked on a couple of programs that include a Saturday "Didn't find what you wanted" follow up notes to encourage offline shoppers to just stay online. The notion of Cyber Monday (a big online shopping day when folks get back to work) seems to be less prevalent this year, but may be worth including in your plan. If subscribers have a lot of email in the inbox when they come back after a long weekend, a Monday afternoon email might counter any "select all and delete" mailbox management done by consumers early in the day.

- Help your messages breakthrough by spending extra time on your subject lines. There will be lots of sales, and lots of cross channel promotions. What is unique about yours? Remember that the best subject lines are specific—clarity always trumps clever. So keep to the facts—"No one beats our prices" or "A gift for you with a gift for them."

- Create urgency by having online sales times that reflect your customers' habits—e.g., moms shop online early and late and need time-saving quick cart-building links. We have a number of clients testing a 24-hour sale on Friday or Saturday, and the email program all week is promoting that window of opportunity.

- Even if you are not a retailer, consider that there is more competition in the inbox this week and through the end of the year. Consider metering back and focus on making fewer messages more compelling. Try adjusting cadence too—like three days in a row for a particular message and theme (make sure the offer warrants the cadence) or focusing on a particularly frequency, like "Tuesday Tips."

- As always, respect the permission grant given to you. Sending more email than promised gets noticed and can be a huge turn off for subscribers. Be sure to balance your need to promote now with the very real long-term need to sustain and nurture an active file.

—Stephanie Miller of Return Path

Posted on November 16, 2007 12:33 PM | Permalink

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the voices of email

The Email Experience Council's membership includes many of the brightest and most committed email marketing experts. We're pleased to have some of them share their insights here on these pages. Our blog contributors include:

Jordan Ayan is the chairman of Create-It!, a technology consulting organization, as well as the CEO of SubscriberMail, one of the leading email marketing companies. A two-time book author, a patent holder and a frequent speaker, Jordan has more than 20 years of experience in direct and database marketing. Read more.

Nicholas Einstein is director of strategic and analytic services at Datran Media. Specializing in email and CRM strategy, he helps some of America’s top brands leverage online channels to communicate more effectively with their customers and prospects.

Lisa Harmon is a principal at Smith-Harmon, a creative services consultancy dedicated to email marketing strategy and production. She works with marketers to increase clickthrough, maximize revenue, and infuse delight into their email creative. Lisa is also the blogger behind edm.smith-harmon.com, an ongoing commentary on the best (and worst!) in email marketing creative. Read more.

Chip House is ExactTarget's VP of marketing services, leading the teams responsible for client success. He was named to BtoB Magazine’s 2005 “Who’s Who in B-To-B,” for being a vocal proponent of legitimate commercial email and an active lobbyist regarding spam and privacy issues. Read more.

Marco Marini is the CEO of ClickMail Marketing (CMM) and an acknowledged expert in e-marketing with over a decade and half's-worth of experience in the field. Before taking over as CEO, he was CMM's VP of Marketing & Operations. Marini has also held key marketing positions with CyberSource, eHealthInsurance, DoveBid and IBM Canada.

Stephanie Miller is VP of strategic services for Return Path, the leading email performance company. She works with marketers to earn a higher ROI and response from their acquisition and retention email programs—developing content, contact and segmentation strategies, along with testing, measurement and production programs. Read more.

Erick Mott is communications director at email service provider Lyris. He has 20 years of experience from enterprise, SMB, agency and start-up marketing, communications and innovation roles at companies including Habeas, Nokia, MarkMonitor, GlobalFluency, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Philips Electronics and two of his own start-ups. Read more.

Jeanniey Mullen is the Email Experience Council's founder and the global EVP and CMO of global online publishing company Zinio. She is a thought leader and visionary in the email and digital marketing field. A columnist for ClickZ, she has published numerous papers and is a frequent speaker. Read more.

Kevin Senne is the Strategic Deliverability Director for Premiere Global Services. Kevin has been heavily involved in all facets of email marketing for more than a decade and he previously managed Email Operations for Travelocity.com. Kevin specializes in deliverability, strategy, and social media integratio and he focuses on helping marketers become permission-based one-to-one marketers. Read more.

Charles Stiles is the VP of worldwide business development at Goodmail Systems. In his role, Charles is focused on helping generate a better understanding of the email environment and potential solutions for a better consumer experience. He currently serves as the chairman for the Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group. Read more.

Jeremy Swift is director of client relations for email service provider BlueHornet. He helped form BlueHornet’s founding team in 2000 and has been responsible for client services and marketing strategy since the company’s inception. Jeremy is known for his ability to articulate technical information in ways that clearly resonate with today’s online marketer.

Kara Trivunovic currently serves as the senior director of strategic services for StrongMail Systems, where she is responsible for helping marketers optimize their email marketing programs for greater returns. Most recently Kara was founder and principal of The Email Advisor, a respected email marketing consultancy. Prior to launching The Email Advisor, Kara led strategic services for the email division of Premiere Global Services. Kara brings a unique perspective to the space having worked on the client, agency and provider side for 10 years.

Chris Wheeler is the director of deliverability at Bronto Software. He is leading the charge for ensuring both Bronto's customers and staff are well informed about email marketing practices and technology as well as being the face of Bronto deliverability externally. Previously, Chris created the internal deliverability program at Amazon.com alongside program managing the operations of the email team and was at an ESP leading a team of deliverability consultants. Besides being a frequent contributor on Deliverability.com, Chris is a part of many email industry forums, both business and technical. Read more.

Chad White is the research director at Smith-Harmon, an email marketing strategy and creative services agency. He is the founder of the Retail Email Blog, a blog dedicated to tracking the email marketing practices of the largest online retailers. Chad regularly writes major research reports on email marketing and is an Email Insider columnist for MediaPost. Read more.