As the year’s most highly anticipated shopping events, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) offer an incredible opportunity for businesses to boost sales and acquire new customers.

 
But with inboxes overflowing, simply sending out a generic email won’t cut it. So here’s 15 practical cheat codes to help you stand out, connect with your audience, and drive conversions
 

1. Start early, and build the anticipation

 
Don’t wait until the last minute to start your Black Friday email campaigns. The most successful brands start teasing their sales well in advance, sometimes weeks before the event. Send sneak peek emails, teaser campaigns, or exclusive early-bird offers to build excitement.
 
This tactic ensures that when Black Friday hits, your audience is already warmed up and eager to buy. Timing is key. If you’ve left it a bit late this year then send a teaser email at least a week before Black Friday, followed by countdown emails as the big day approaches.
 

2. Segment your audience for both personalisation and profit margin

 
Personalised Black Friday content can dramatically increase engagement. Instead of a one-size-fits-all email, segment your audience based on behaviour, past purchases, and demographics.
 
For example, loyal customers can receive early-access offers, while basket abandoners might get targeted with special deals to complete their purchase.
 
Get clever! Use RFM (Recency, Frequency, and Monetary) analysis to target your top spenders with early-bird deals with discounts on high margin products, and casual buyers with deeper discounts on trending products that need to cleared from your inventory.

3. Test out different offers this year if last year didn’t hit the mark

 
Customers can get fatigued with so many similar discount offers. Change it up! Discounts are the most common approach during Black Friday, but higher discounts don’t always mean higher conversions.
 
Consider alternative promotions such as free shipping, free gifts with purchase, or bundle deals. A freebie or a buy one, get one free offer can sometimes feel more valuable than a percentage discount​.
 
The key is to run a series of A/B tests on different offers with your audience leading up to BFCM to see what resonates best. This approach will give you a better idea of which promotions will generate the most interest.
 

4. Offer time limited or strictly limited stock deals

 
Everyone loves a flash sale, and Black Friday is the perfect time to use them. Offering deals that last only a few hours or on stock that is highly limited creates excitement and keeps customers checking back for updates.
 
Sending multiple deal updates via email, as well as SMS, can help maintain momentum throughout the day
 

5. If your brand doesn’t offer deep discounts, use Black Friday for storytelling

 
While it’s tempting to focus solely on offers, weaving a compelling story into your email campaigns can help create a deeper connection with your audience.
 
Whether it’s the story of your brand, the ethos behind a product, or how your products solve issues, storytelling builds emotional engagement, which is key to driving sales​.
 
Sharing customer testimonials/reviews, or behind-the-scenes insights can make your email stand out from the flood of purely promotional content​ during Black Friday.
 
Make an anti-Black Friday stand if it fits into the narrative of your brand story.

6. Create a sense of exclusivity

 
Reward your VIP or loyal customers by offering them early access to your Black Friday sale. This will make them feel valued and increases the likelihood of them making a purchase.
 
You could send out a dedicated email to your top customers a few days before the sale goes public​. Alternatively, offering a special deal only to email subscribers is a great way to build your list and drive conversions from those already engaged with your brand.
 

7. Focus on the visual impact of your email creatives

 
With so many brands vying for attention (and with so many using similar Black Friday visuals) your email design should be eye-catching whilst on-brand. If you fall into the same design trap as others, then you’re email will not stand out in the inbox this year.
 
Using bold, seasonal imagery, bold chunky headlines, minimal body copy text, and clear calls-to-action buttons is crucial for cutting through the clutter. Make sure the CTA is prominent and easy to find. This could mean a large button that’s impossible to miss!
 
Consider adding animated GIFs into the hero image area at the top of the email to create a sense of fun and engagement. These interactive elements can draw attention and stop someone from immediately deleting or moving onto the next email​.
 

8. Use dynamic content to increase FOMO (Fear of missing out)

 
People are more likely to act when they feel they might miss out. Incorporating dynamic content like countdown timers or low-stock alerts within your emails increases the sense of urgency.
 
For instance, displaying “Only 5 items left” or “Sale ends in 12 hours” pushes customers to act immediately.

9. Use interactive content to build excitement and engagement

 
Build excitement as your customers reveal your Black Friday offer using scratch and reveal interactive content to increase engagement and the uptake of discount codes or incentives.
 
Interactive Hotspots allow customers to interact with images and reveal extra information about product range or features right from within the email in a smart way.
 
Hotspots are also fantastic way to promote product ranges with additional information about individual products, or interact to highlight technical product features.
 

10. Increase the frequency of all your automated abandonment campaigns

 
Normal browsing behaviour is intense and condensed into a shorter timeframe so your automated comms, especially your abandoned content needs to follow a shorter automated journey to bring them back to your site to guarantee that purchase.
 
Apply follow ups where these are missing. Follow up messages can drastically increase your conversion rates. Such an increase for so little effort! 30% of abandonment revenues can come from follow up comms.
 

11. Add in review content

 
80% of your customers think that customer experience is as important as the actual products that are sold. Good feedback deserves talking about!
 
Therefore, feature this in all prominent email campaigns before Black Friday and during Black Friday. It might make all the difference.
 
Use integrations such as Trustpilot whereby you can ask your customers for individual personalised feedback post purchase dynamically from any email campaign.

12. Create the perfect Black Friday subject lines

 
Subject lines and preheader lines are always super important but never more than during Black Friday. Don’t end up sending out the same subject line as everyone else.
 
Try to be unique and utilise your customer data in conjunction with dynamic content to personalise your subject lines for each individual.
 
If you can’t leverage this data, try an intriguing headline to pique curiosity and set the tone for the offer inside, making it essential for capturing the interest of potential shoppers. With limited attention spans, your subject line must stand out amidst the noise any way possible.
 

13. Clean up your email lists for better deliverability

 
Deliverability is crucial during peak sales seasons. An email list with inactive or disengaged subscribers can affect your overall deliverability, pushing your emails into spam folders if you send to them too often during Black Friday.
 
To avoid this, clean up your list ahead of Black Friday by removing inactive subscribers or those who haven’t engaged with your emails in a long time.
 

14. Don’t just rely on email. Use SMS and push notifications

 
While email is powerful, it’s important to acknowledge that during high-traffic periods like Black Friday, your emails can experience delays in reaching the inbox even if you have a perfect domain reputation.
 
ISPs often throttle email delivery to manage the influx, which means your promotions might arrive too late. This is where SMS, web and app push notifications come into play. These channels bypass the usual email queues and deliver your message instantly to your customers’ phones or apps.

15. Follow-up after Black Friday with post purchase and nurture campaigns

 
The BFCM period doesn’t end on Cyber Monday. Follow up with customers who made purchases by sending them thank you emails and encouraging them to leave reviews or take advantage of related promotions.
 
You can also re-target customers who browsed your site or engaged with your emails but didn’t make a purchase. You will most likely have collected a lot of new emails that registered but didn’t purchase. You need to engage these new prospects by sending them on a tailored Black Friday welcome journey before losing them forever.
 
Post-sale campaigns help build long-term customer relationships and can convert first-time buyers into loyal customers

Make sure you get into the inbox…

 
By personalising your email content, creating urgency, and offering a seamless, engaging experience, you can stand out in crowded inboxes. Plan early, test often, and don’t forget to measure the success of your campaigns so you can optimise for next year.
 
But all that will go to waste if you can’t get your emails to land in the inbox because of poor sender reputation. So, read our Black Friday deliverability guide to make sure that won’t happen!
 

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