6 All-Time Best Black Friday Email Ideas And Templates

You might think the November marketing campaign scope is an excuse to take it easy when creating your Black Friday email. All you need is an unambiguous headline, a prominent call to action button, and a vast “100% OFF” text in the center. This is not entirely true.

We admit that Black Friday email with a primitive design, but an incredibly profitable offer inside, can attract customers' attention. But in the week leading up to day X, your audience's inboxes will be flooded with competitor Black Friday emails that may be just as good as yours. People receive dozens or even hundreds of messages with different promotions on Black Friday. This is the main task of drawing attention to your company and overtaking competitors. You can do this by email. 

We will share some Black Friday email ideas and tell you how to create excitement among your customers and prepare them to receive special offers.

Table of Contents

1. 6 Black Friday Email Ideas
2. How To Write a Perfect Email for Black Friday?
3. 5 Black Friday Email Templates
4. How to Encourage your Audience to Buy Using Black Friday Email

6 Black Friday Email Ideas

1st Idea. Reactivate the "sleeping" base

“Sleepers” can be users with whom you have not interacted for a long time (several months, six months, a year). In addition, these may be those with whom you communicate through other channels. Often it is enough to launch a Black Friday email that gives some benefit to users. For example, during Black Friday, “sleeping” customers can be told about a promotion or offered a discount or a promotional code.

2nd Idea. Cross-sell

During Black Friday, you can also talk about related products. For example, if a customer has already purchased a product, tell them about related products.

3rd Idea. Run a themed quiz

Marketing quizzes in Black Friday emails help both raise user awareness and reach new target audiences. For completing the quiz, the user expects to receive a reward. It doesn't matter what the award is. The main thing is that you give your audience a sense of satisfaction when they pass it. Thus, you increase the loyalty and engagement of users. In addition, the quiz helps:

• collect and segment customers;
• classify leads to understanding how ready a person is to make a purchase;
• explain to the user how to use the product or service, and warm it up for purchase;
• sell to a warm customer base.

4th Idea. Treasure Hunt

During Black Friday, various game mechanics can be used to attract potential customers. One such mechanic is treasure hunting. The idea of the game is to hide the promotional code on the site. After users find it, they need to send a promotional code in the Black Friday email to receive a discount.

5th Idea. Catchy headers of emails

Add keywords like "free" or "discount," using numbers (80%) or simply playing on subscriber expectations. You can send a reminder about the start of the sale: “Black Friday starts tomorrow” or “Sale starts now.” If the Black Friday email is intended for customers who have already made purchases from you and are aware of your offers, then “Don't miss this year's biggest sale.” You should also add an emoji to your email header. Come up with a catchy phrase that resonates with your brand. 

6th Idea. Content and design

Many brands use a common technique and create Black Friday email designs in black colors. This is understandable and requires no explanation. However, stay true to your brand when you consider design and color.

Here is an example of letters from Casper from last year:


The color palette of Black Friday emails is not only soothing and sleepy, which is in line with the intention of the company that sells mattresses but is also consistent across all platforms and channels.

Also, all these emails have a simple structure: a catchy headline, a clear promotion description, and one call to action. No chaos, flashy images, or useless text. When an email is right on target, the chances are high that the client will follow your instructions without much thought.

Another great idea is to include GIF animations.

They attract attention, and if they also demonstrate the process of unpacking the product, this increases the expectation and joyful excitement.
 

How To Write a Perfect Email for Black Friday?
 

1. Set a clear goal

At the beginning of any project, the most important element is to set one clear goal so that all the campaign efforts are directed to one specific point. This will allow you to determine whether the result has been achieved. Usually, Black Friday emails targets are divided into two types:

• Getting income

Your goal might be to promote a particular product, reactivate customers, or make a great offer. You can talk about exclusive promotional codes that users can only get in the messenger, discount a product/service, or make a special offer.

Measuring the results is straightforward: track the Response Rate, analyze link clicks using UTM tags, and count the number of purchases, revenue and return on mailing (ROMI).

• Create a loyal audience

You can send helpful information about the company, invite you to an event or ask questions to get to know your customers and qualify them simultaneously.

It is crucial here that the content you submit is valuable and exciting to the audience. For example, you can send checklists, educational presentations, helpful PDFs, and more.

2. Build an audience

Your Black Friday email will be pointless if you only have 30 people to send it to.

There are several ways to build a database:

• Download from your CRM system. Indeed you have a database of contacts you have been collecting for years but have never been in contact with, or it was a very long time ago.
• Collect applications through the feedback form. When a user leaves their phone on the site, you can automatically send them an email and make the first touch.
• Use pop-ups on the site.

3. Warm up customers before Black Friday

If you have just built a contacts database and have not made a single “touch” yet, we strongly recommend sending out your first mailing list with helpful content at least a few weeks before Black Friday. Indeed, you understand that we will all be oversaturated with advertising during the promotion period, so you need to ensure that you will be the center of attention in advance. This will give you a more incredible conversion than immediately sending a Black Friday email to an “unheated” audience.

You should not focus too much on sales at this stage, as it is about building long-term relationships. If you build an audience, wait, and then pop in for a Black Friday discount, you're likely to be ignored. First, make a good impression about your brand, and only then try to sell!

4. Create a smart campaign

Your interaction with customers will be more effective if you are more creative while being true to your brand.

To prepare a potential client for sale, you must carefully and unobtrusively remind yourself of your offer. In this case, the ideal number of touches is up to five, more - most likely, nothing but irritation will cause.

Communication with customers needs to be thought out in advance. For example, before Black Friday, you can send an announcement about an upcoming sale, the first details about promotions or discounts for early buyers. Then send a Black Friday email with your offer, and at the end of the sale, unobtrusively remind you of the last opportunity to purchase a product or service.

5. Test your mailing list

Check:

• How the Black Friday email designs look on different devices. Is the email displayed well on the phone and the computer?
• Whether the length of the text suits. It depends on your audience and campaign, but short messages are best.
• What the image looks like: format, size, quality.
• Do you need automation? Will the customer journey be the same for everyone? Do you get the correct message when you reply to a message (click a button)?
• Is the CTA clear? Make sure it's visible in the text and appears at the bottom of your post.
• Are there tags? Tags are unique tags for tracking button click statistics. Use them to calculate the Response Rate and evaluate the effectiveness of the Black Friday sale email.
• Links with UTM tags? This will help you keep track of what users are doing next on your site and will also help you measure the success of your campaign.

5 Black Friday Email Templates

1st Black Friday Email Template. Minimalism

Use a minimalist style if you don't want to overload your email with details. 

2nd Black Friday Email Template. Lots of neon

If you want to break away from the traditional black-and-yellow color scheme, use animated allusions to neon signs to attract attention.

3rd Black Friday Email Template. Total black

Clothing stores often prefer the classic Black Friday email templates. Indeed, total black is a win-win option if you want to show style.

Some brands skillfully play with the idea of the black, making their offer appear exclusive in the spirit of Black Friday. Example from Nike:

Since Nike has chosen several products for its themed Black Friday email, it's understandable why they added their call-to-action button below each product. So the client gets directly to the page with the product they like and makes a purchase faster because the stock of goods is limited.

The text of these Black Friday emails is as concise as possible. Customers need more time to read: thousands of competitors are already sweeping products off the shelves!

4th Black Friday Email Template. Black Friday classic

Those who have stayed true to the classic black and yellow color scheme often have a more restrained Black Friday email design: a black background and a few bright accents.

5th Black Friday Email Template. Black Friday

Create a celebration for your audience and the feeling that Black Friday is the time to please yourself with purchases and buy gifts for loved ones and friends.

How to Encourage your Audience to Buy Using Black Friday Email

Here are the main points for your Black Friday email ideas:

• a clear goal is a guarantee of good results;
• the wiser your Black Friday Marketing Strategies, the better;
• the more mailings you test, the greater the chance of success;
• long-term communication with users increases loyalty to your brand.

Black Friday email cannot be exciting and valuable to all users at once. For your email to be interesting, you need to divide recipients into segments by interest, product, or stage of interaction with your company (already bought something, refused, still thinking, etc.). For each of these groups, there is a relevant proposal that solves their problem and closes a specific “pain.” Send this offer to the segment.

If the audience cannot be divided into segments, then try conducting a small survey, the answers to which will help segment users. To begin with, it is not necessary to have a large number of segments, 2-3 segments will be enough to start the Black Friday emails.

Remember to back up your servers. If your site crashes because hundreds of customers are trying to click the “buy now” button simultaneously, it could cost you dearly. You will lose customers, not only on Black Friday, but in the long run.

Check stocks of goods and the condition of warehouses. It is better to have overstocked warehouses than to deny customers a purchase due to a lack of goods.

You can also extend the sale until Cyber Monday - another holiday that online stores should pay attention to.

Make sure that the interaction with your brand is as pleasant as possible for both you and your client.
And most importantly: do not annoy your new audience with your Black Friday emails. You have now built a rich, receptive subscriber base for the future, be careful, take your time and build relationships beyond instant sales.