Black Friday…biggest shopping day of the year.
Camping out to get a flat screen TV. Scanning the web for the very best deals. Fighting for your spot in line.
Sound great. Glad I spent mine online and skipped the crowds.
Here’s a list of a few of the emails I received on Black Friday and a few email campaign tips we can put to work in our own emails.
Timing is Important.
Take a look at the Date Received column and notice that Black Friday emails started before Black Friday–makes sense. Then check out the times that the emails were sent out on November 26th itself. The first one comes in at 1:28 AM and by 8:10 AM most emails in this batch had arrived.
The takeaway here is that you should consider sending your email out before the morning so the emails show up in people’s inbox when they sign in that morning. You should split test your mailing and for example send 50% of your list at 6AM EST and the other 50% at 6PM EST and see which gets you the best results.
Subject Lines Matter.
You’ll see a few subject lines styles in this list. Who knows which one is the best for sure without testing but here’s a few ideas for you to put to work in your email campaigns.
You know that for an event like Black Friday it’s on everyones mind leading up to it. The media makes sure of that. 13 of the 23 subject lines use the term Black Friday in some way. If the topic is well known, you can use the term in the subject line. People will be expecting it.
A few of the emails use a percent discount to draw you in. Anything from 10% to 67% is fair game.
A few of the emails use an ! mark. It’s ok to use an exclamation mark in your subject line. Just don’t use six.
Four messages use ALL CAPS. Contrary to popular belief, capital letters don’t automatically get you blocked. Don’t use them every time.
Only one of the messages uses personalization ‘mitchtarr’ which isn’t actually a personalization of my name but my login id. Not sure why. It’s not personal and in fact reads a bit funny. You can still use first name in a subject line but make sure your data is clean when you do it or it just looks cheesy.
I have a question for you though.
Which particular subject line seemed the most compelling?