We think you will agree that both Black Friday and Cyber Monday were bonkers this year! Some businesses found their marketing efforts falling on deaf ears, and even worse, noticed sales after the events slow down and drop off. Why would such tempting discounts have the complete opposite effect on sales than expected? Well, to put it simply, their marketing efforts weren’t up to the challenge.

Mistake Number One – Blending In With The Crowd

Our inboxes were absolutely flooded with Black Friday promotions, we probably binned 95% of them without opening the email. Subject lines are your first opportunity to engage your audience. It’s even more important to get them right during worldwide promotional events like Black Friday when everybody else is also sending a campaign.

Over these gargantuan promotional weekends, you need to get creative with subject lines. The aim of the game is to stand out of the crowd, while being authentic to your brand, for example, if your brand is humorous and playful, you may decide to poke fun at the number of promotional emails being sent. You have one sentence to grab our attention – make it count!

🎉 Black Friday Offer 🎉 – No one thinks this is exciting by the way…

Mistake Number Two – Not Segmenting Data

Anyone who has worked in customer service during a Black Friday promotion will back us up on this one! If you send a generic promotional email to your entire database you are at risk of upsetting many loyal customers who have recently paid full whack for the product you are now promoting at 50% off. The backlash can be catastrophic! Resulting in partial refunds and in some cases cancelled orders and damaging feedback.

Managing your database correctly is imperative to the success of your promotional campaigns, especially when you are offering juicy discounts. The perfect people to target for Black Friday and Cyber Monday are those who have shown interest in your brand, open emails regularly but have not made purchases yet.

It’s a fact that you will see the best results from your efforts by sending numerous campaigns, each with targeted offers and messaging to various segmented databases.

Mistake Number Three – It Didn’t Get Personal

There are so many ways to personalise campaigns, making the recipient feel important and recognised by your brand. You can use names, generate individual discount codes, you could even offer all your abandoned carts a discount on the products in their basket. This is your time to show your appreciation to your valued database. Take the opportunity to connect with them and tailor campaigns around their interest and to ensure they remain or become loyal customers.

Mistake Number Four – Sacrificing Branding For Sales Messages

Let’s forget about the promotional event here, and concentrate on why the recipients of your campaigns are signed up to your mailing list. The people receiving your emails have a connection with your brand – not the promotion you are running. Making ‘Black Friday’ or ‘Cyber Monday’ the prominent messaging is not going to see results. Remember how many other promotional messages are being delivered to the inbox you are also targeting. Believe in the power of your brand and present your promotions in a way that represents your business. Don’t sacrifice valuable content real estate with off-brand colouring (blacks and reds – unless of course, this is your thing) and plastering BLACK FRIDAY everywhere.

Talk about your products, your promotions and how they will benefit the reader. Also, don’t feel pressured to offer huge discounts on your products. Large discounting can be damaging to future sales, especially in the run-up to Christmas. If your brand doesn’t suit large discounting, think about another way you can benefit your customers, can you add something of value to their audience or enter them into a prize draw for 10 people to win an item for free?

Review your strategy for your next big promotional event, and see if you are making any of these marketing mistakes. If you would like to talk through your ideas and how to make them a reality, you can get in touch with us here.