In Episode 55 of eCommerce Uncensored Kevin, Jason, and Paul go over the results their clients had during Black Friday/Cyber Monday week, and how implementing the “5 Keys for Getting eCommerce Emails Opened, Clicked Through, and Ultimately More Sales” proved effective once again.
Some Background…
A lot of the clients that the guys put campaigns together for are new to the eCommerce world and email campaigns. Some brands are more brick & mortar focused, others are more catalog/call-in based, but the results they got were impressive. The campaign was set up to run 11/20-11/27, so the Monday before Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday.
How the “5 Keys” were used in the campaigns…
KEY #1 FREQUENCY: The campaign comprised of 7 emails with the following concepts:
- Black Friday WEEK “starts now” (Monday)
- Reminder email 2 days later (Wednesday)
- Black Friday starts now (Friday)
- Black Friday ending now (Friday)
- Cyber Monday starting now (Monday)
- Cyber Monday ending now (Monday)
- Sale extended (sent in some cases on Tuesday)
While it may seem like a lot, frequency is very important here. You are running a promotion for a limited time. Not everyone on your list is going to see every email you send so as frequency increases so does the number of people seeing your emails. Customers on client lists were then segmented and re-targeted based on how they interacted with the email (open vs not, click through vs not, etc).
KEY #2 SUBJECT LINE: Under normal circumstances you don’t want to give away too much information about the offer specifics in the subject line (because you want the customer to open the email). However, due to the fact that it was Black Friday/Cyber Monday Week people are expecting some sort of offer in their inbox. While initial emails went out with more general subject lines like, “Black Friday Deals Start Now”, follow up emails, especially for those who didn’t open the initial ones had specific saving offers like, “40% OFF NOW”, right in the subject line.
KEY #3 CONGRUENCY OF THE EMAIL BODY: If the body of the email doesn’t match the expectations of the offer you put in the subject line, you can get yourself in a lot of trouble and really annoy some eager shoppers. Don’t offer one thing in the subject line and actually present something different or convoluted in the email.
KEY #4 CALL TO ACTION: Every email you send, especially when running a Black Friday/Cyber Monday campaign needs to have a call to action. Do NOT overlook a link or a big obnoxious button within the email that makes placing the order easy and simple. The longer someone has to think about it, the more likely you’ll lose the sale.
KEY #5 SCARCITY: Your campaign needs an ending date. Use that as an excuse to email your customers to remind them that time is running out. “Offer Ends Soon”, “Offer Ends Today”, “Offer Ends Tonight” are all ways to create scarcity and makes people take action because they don’t want to miss out.
What we learned…
If you follow the 5 Keys and present a strong offer, people will take it.
Some examples of Black Friday/Cyber Monday successes:
- ‘Baby Guy’ went from $8,000 per month sales to $25,000 that WEEK
- B to B company that previously took most orders by phone made $22,000 in sales that WEEK
- Record number of sales transactions for numerous other clients
All in 7 days, and all using the 5 Keys for Getting eCommerce Emails Opened, Clicked Through, and Ultimately More Sales.
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