As retailers designate more of their holiday marketing spend toward the email and social media channels, they must focus on how to build out effective campaigns. When it comes to Black Friday and the week leading up to it, consumers are active on email and social media at different times. As such, retailers must go where their customers are and create the proper campaigns to match their habits.
Retailers would do well to ramp up their email plans early in the week of Thanksgiving, according to research from Yesmail. In 2014, email open rates on Monday, Nov. 24, and Tuesday, Nov. 25 were 10% and 9% higher, respectively, than the open rates for the average day. Once Wednesday approaches, these open rates plummet, to the tune of 23% less than the daily average.
“Consumers at the beginning of the week are getting into the mindset of Black Friday shopping,” said Gurjit Sandhu, Marketing Specialist at Yesmail. “It’s not quite Thanksgiving yet. On Sunday and Monday, they’re doing their early preparation for what they want to shop for. If they want to get that big TV they’ve been thinking about, that Xbox console, or the latest deals, this is when their attention span is at the freshest.”
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Even though 33% of all Black Friday-themed emails are deployed on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, the two days have seen varied success over the past two years. In 2013, Thanksgiving emails had a paltry 2% higher open average and Black Friday had a 1% lower open average, indicating that emails on these days weren’t any more engaging than those sent out on a regular day. The next year, open rates on Thanksgiving proved to be even less successful, with consumers opening them 6% less than the average, while Black Friday emails turned out to be a big hit with open rates at 8% above average.
These results show that more consumers are opening Black Friday-themed emails early in the week but are becoming less interested in them as the day approaches, only to have their interest spike again on Black Friday.
“In the beginning of the week, retailers should send an email that has a sneak peek of the Black Friday deals that are coming up, that say ‘Coming Soon’ or ‘Visit us on Friday,’ to build excitement,” Sandhu said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “Come Black Friday itself, that’s when retailers should create high urgency subject lines, such as ‘Today only…’ or ‘In the next three hours, shop 20% off.’ That’s when you use creativity that fits the context for time of the week.”
Prioritize Facebook Early, But Engage Twitter On Thanksgiving
The rules for when and how retailers should engage with consumers on social media tend to differ from those using email. In fact, retailers carrying out Facebook campaigns on the Sunday before Thanksgiving in 2014 experienced a whopping 157% increase in engagement above the daily average. While this total is astronomically high, the rest of the week reaches nowhere near this level of engagement, with major declines on average on Thanksgiving (down 53%) and Black Friday (69%).
Considering retailers still share 28% of their Black Friday-themed campaigns on the day itself, it is imperative that they understand that consumers’ peak Facebook activity occurs early in the week and adjust their plans accordingly. Yesmail recommends retailers launch ‘deal sneak peeks’ on Facebook earlier in the week to prepare consumers for Black Friday.
Sandhu indicated that retailers can coordinate these sneak peeks to be shared across multiple channels, highlighting the Kohl’s #BlackFriday Twitter Trivia campaign that was cross-posted on Facebook.
