With Black Friday quickly approaching, the smartest marketers are preparing to pull out all the stops on their email campaigns for the biggest shopping day of the year. Perhaps you’re already outlining, drafting and even uploading your campaigns to your CRM or email service provider. But before you hit send, consider this: Your campaign must deliver more than discounts to be effective and profitable this Black Friday.

Post-pandemic consumers are savvier and more cautious with their spending. They’re looking for real solutions that meet their needs, not just a sale. To maximize your impact, three essential emails can help you stand out in the inbox and boost your sales potential. Let’s dive into these often-overlooked emails with examples to help you get started.

1. Video walk-through of the product

Using video is a simple way to make your emails more engaging, convey information to customers more quickly and generate conversions faster. Black Friday should be no exception. Since most companies send emails with static images and bold fonts highlighting discounts, your email will be a refreshing change for potential customers.

Remember, we’re not just showing up on Black Friday with another sale — we’re offering a real solution that addresses your customers’ genuine needs. When you can clearly show them that? You’ll capture their attention on a day when their inboxes are flooded with sales pitches.

Whether your product is physical or digital doesn’t matter — most potential customers are likely visual learners. Some may also be buyers who need plenty of information before making a decision.

Create an email that shows you or someone on your team walking through:

• What the product looks like.
• How it’s used by the average customer.
• The benefits and features of the product.
• The exact next steps that happen after a purchase.

This will very much take care of the need for customers to “see” the product in action before purchase.

Example email

Subject line: Buy 2 Get 1 Free
Preview text: Jayseon will never forgive us…

It’s Black Friday NAME! 

We know your inbox is being slammed right now with sales messages, so we promise to get right to the point. Right now, our baseball bats are buy two, get one free.

We have NEVER offered a deal like this one. It’s the perfect opportunity to take advantage of a sale and get everything you need for Spring…for an incredible deal.

If you’re ready to take advantage, great! Here’s a direct link to start shopping. 

Or you can watch this short video Jayseon made walking you through the bats that are available and how to add them to your cart. The discount should auto-apply for you, but just in case you need to see how it works, watch Jayseon do it in less than two minutes. 

The sale is only for the next 24 hours. Grab your bats today or hit reply to this email with any questions. The team (including Jayseon!) is here to serve you. 

We can’t wait for you to get all the bats you’ll need for the upcoming season right now, for a great price.

SIGN OFF

PS. Jayseon runs our HR department so it was fun watching him make this video. Like a kid learning how to hold a bat for the first time. Check it out!

Dig deeper: How to gear up email for a strong finish to 2024

2. Pattern interrupt

In the first email idea, we covered the importance of standing out from the flood of Black Friday emails your customers will receive. This second email, the “Pattern Interrupt” email, is another powerful way to do just that.

Like a Facebook ad designed to “stop your scroll,” the Pattern Interrupt email is designed to catch the reader’s attention, get them to open the email and be “hooked” because the email itself looks and reads differently from other sales emails they’ve been getting. How? The content inside the email is more story-based than sales-based. 

You might be thinking, “But it’s Black Friday! I need emails that are quick and to the point so people can make a decision as quickly as possible! It’s all about removing friction to maximize sales, Liz!”

I completely agree with that sentiment. However, to truly capture attention, we sometimes need to create a little friction. The Pattern Interrupt email helps regain the interest of customers who may have stopped opening our emails. It’s a refreshing break from the flood of “Buy now!” and “Deal ends soon!” messages that fill inboxes during the Black Friday and holiday season.

While the Pattern Interrupt email is story-based, that doesn’t mean it has nothing to do with the product. You can weave in a customer testimonial, a logical argument about how buying the product is a worthy investment or anything else you feel your campaign is lacking. Using AI may be a great way to help identify those gaps. 

Making it story-based simply helps grab the reader’s attention and keeps them reading until the end while you do your best to convince them of your product. 

Note in the example below how the subject line itself grabs the reader’s attention. You can imagine in a sea of Black Friday sales emails how a subject line like this one would certainly stand out.

Example email

Subject line: we’re BAD at this

You know one thing we’re bad at? 

(No, it’s not juggling. John from accounting is actually amazing at it!)

If we had to narrow it down to one thing, it would be this.

We’re bad at telling you about cool people.

Now, don’t get us wrong. We’ve emailed out some pretty stellar names and clients over the years.

We’ve shared how people like actress Mandy Moore, New York Times Bestseller James Clear and Grammy nominated Leon Bridges use our platform. But in the last few months, we’ve had some really fun conversations with people you’d like. People like you.

• Liz Wilcox shared how she’s used our software to add over $10k to her evergreen funnel.
• LaKisha Mosley talked about finally just getting started with her campaigns.
• Kirk Johnson chatted about the ease of use compared to his last software.

Around here, we aren’t just for “the big names” or creators that are already doing “big things.”

We’re here to get you started, too. To help make it easy to get to the next level of business. 

The same way we need to get better at talking about more of our awesome everyday customers like you….

If you’re ready to get better at email marketing, with a software company that’s easy to understand…please!

GRAB OUR SPECIAL BLACK FRIDAY DEAL FOR 20% OFF BEFORE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT.

Hop in now and you’ll have the 20% off your service every single month. 

SIGN OFF

3. Clicked-but-didn’t-buy downsell

No matter how amazing our Black Friday sale may be (or how many incredible sales emails we send out), there will always be a percentage of our email list that simply does not buy. Oof! I know! But that doesn’t mean we can’t offer them something else after the Black Friday madness has subsided. 

I highly recommend having a smaller, secondary offer to present to any and all email list subscribers who clicked on your Black Friday sale but did not buy. This can be a lower-cost item that doesn’t require a lot of heavy lifting on your part to fulfill and doesn’t require a lot of thought on your customer’s part to purchase. 

Be sure to send at least one email (or a short campaign) with a secondary offer to those subscribers. It may not be a novel idea, but it’s one you don’t want to overlook. Creating all the necessary assets can be challenging, especially with everything that goes into running a successful Black Friday sale. If you want to maximize sales this year, a well-timed downsell email to those interested but not yet converted leads can be just the nudge needed to help you hit your Q4 goals.

Example email

Subject line: one more thing 🤔

Patricia here. The team and I just wrapped up our Black Friday sale and we just wanted to say thank you for hanging in there with us. We get that not every offer is for every person and we love that you’re still here with us so that one day…we can help you with your copywriting skills. 

However, we did want to share some of the reviews that are coming in about the training that was part of our BF sale.

In short, the training was simpler, better and more actionable than they expected.

I’d hate for you to totally miss out so I spoke with Barry and he said that we can offer you just the training recording today for $65.

Two pay available. (because I know that may help some folks make this a no-brainer.)

Here’s the page to snatch it up.

-Patricia (and Barry)

PS. This will only be available for 24 hours so if you want it, get it.

[COUNTDOWN TIMER]

Dig deeper: 5 tips for an effective holiday browse-abandonment program

Summary

Yes, Black Friday is coming up, and we are all so excited to sprint to the finish line of 2024. Just don’t forget to show up with more than a sales link. Show up with a solution and use these three emails to stand out inside your subscriber’s (crowded) inbox. Happy campaigning!