Black Friday's Over. What Now?
eCommerce brands spend months preparing for the biggest sales event of the year — so what happens once Black Friday is over? With an influx of new subscribers (many of whom will only stick around for BFCM) it’s important to communicate with these customers in a strategic way. As damage will likely be done to your sender reputation over the Black Friday period, you’ll need to work on your email health score (i.e. open rate, click rate, conversion rate, unsubscribe rate etc.). We recommend doing this by:
- Cleaning your BFCM subscriber list
- Merge your clean lists into your master list
- Create new segments for campaign use
In addition to these steps, crafting a personalised journey for subscribers through email and SMS automations will work to nurture these customers into their next purchase.
Clean your BFCM list
In the lead up to Black Friday, many brands opt to create a separate list encouraging new and existing subscribers to sign up to be the first to know when the sale launches. This is a great tactic for generating hype — plus, it makes it easier to clean and organise the data post-BFCM.
We recommend running your Black Friday list through a list cleaning tool such as Email List Verify. This will remove invalid data such as incorrect or incomplete email addresses. By removing this data, you’ll reduce the number of bounces, plus improve your open rates.
If you didn’t create a separate email list for your Black Friday sale, you can work around this by:
- Creating a segment of people who signed up to your master list between set dates before / during Black Friday
- Exporting this segment as a list
- Running this list through a list cleaning tool
- Exporting the list of invalid emails from the list cleaning tool
- Suppressing these invalid profiles in Klaviyo (or your chosen ESP)
Cleaning your lists is a quick and easy way to improve your deliverability score — especially after any damage done over the Black Friday period.
Merge cleaned lists into your master list
Once you’ve cleaned your lists using a list cleaning tool, you can import this information back into your ESP. We recommend keeping the list as a separate Black Friday list as well as merging these subscribers into your master list. By doing so, you’ll have a more accurate picture of your whole database, plus can refer to this separate list the following year to compare performance.
Create new segments for campaigns
With an influx of new subscribers coming in over the Black Friday period, brands need to be strategic in nurturing them to increase their lifetime value. While some new subscribers might only be interested in the Black Friday offer (and some who intended to shop the sale but didn’t) there’s still a chance to nurture these customers.
Sending email campaigns to your entire list is a surefire way to get sub par results — and damage your sender reputation. Once Black Friday is over, your work in sending strategic email campaigns isn’t done. Start by creating a segment to target these new subscribers based on the following behaviours:
Engagement:
- Opened [all / a few / zero] BFCM campaigns
- Clicked [all / a few / zero] BFCM campaigns]
On-site activity
- Viewed Product during BFCM
- Added to Cart during BFCM
- Started Checkout during BFCM
Purchase behaviour:
- Placed Order zero times during BFCM
- Placed Order one or more times during BFCM
By narrowing down customer segments, you’ll be able to target customers at the right frequency. For example a customer who opened all campaigns sent during BFCM, clicked on one or more, and was active on site but did not purchase is a key customer to nurture. New subscribers who opened little to no BFCM campaigns and did not click on these campaigns are likely to unsubscribe if they’re sent frequent campaigns post Black Friday. This subscriber group should be sent campaigns sparingly — once they begin engaging more frequently with campaigns and displaying on-site behaviour, this is when they can be sent more campaigns.
Craft a strong customer journey
To deliver a personalised customer experience, strategic email automations are essential. As new subscribers begin engaging with your brand more and more after Black Friday, these automated emails will work to nurture the relationship.
These touchpoints can include:
- Browse abandonment series
- Cart abandonment series
- Abandoned checkout series
Once these subscribers make their first purchase post Black Friday, it’s important to adjust the way they’re approached. For example, prompt customers to “grow your collection” instead of “start your collection”. Tailoring content to customers based on their interests and behaviours will work to encourage engagement, prompt repeat purchases, and increase lifetime value.
Get in touch
If you’d like to increase the lifetime value of new subscribers post Black Friday, get in touch with the team at REP. We work with brands who want to get more repeat customers. Email us at hello@rep-agency.co or purchase an audit here.