How to perfect your email messaging during the Black Friday season

We’re racing toward Black Friday/Cyber Monday, one of the busiest weeks of the year for many companies. Smart brands have been scrambling to build robust email lists, allowing them to reach as many potential customers as possible during that critical selling period. But the smartest brands know the work of building a customer base is only the beginning. These brands know they don’t want to just grab a customer’s attention one time with an email offer or for a one-off purchase. This is the opportunity to set the wheels in motion for a long-term relationship. “That’s how the flywheel of customer acquisition and retention should work,” said Jon Palmer, product marketing manager at Klaviyo. “A brand acquires customers, then works very hard to retain those customers, knowing that the real payoff is lifetime customer value. We all know it’s less expensive and time consuming to keep customers rather than find new ones, and with the right automations, the retention piece can take care of itself.” For a brand, the flywheel takes the form of not only repeat purchases over a customer’s lifetime, but also the creation of customers who are fans too. “Eventually these people become your biggest advocates,” Palmer noted. “When you ask your VIPs and loyal customers to share their user-generated content on social, this has the compounding effect of not just bringing in revenue but also customers and impressions for your business.” Multiple opportunities to engage The flywheel includes opportunities to engage, re-engage, gather more data or deepen your relationship at each step of a customer’s contact with your brand. Consider the following scenarios: 1. When customers visit your website. Capture their consent to make it more economical to retarget them. Consider using a popup to grab their attention with a discount offer. 2. When the customer subscribes to your communications. After the customer enters an email address or phone number, have a follow-up step within your popup to collect more first-party data, such as, “Are you holiday shopping? Are you shopping for gifts or for yourself?” That helps to understand the customer better and allows for more targeted messaging. 3. When the customer views a product but leaves the site. Yes, there’s the expected email that reminds the shopper what they were looking at. But with automated platforms like Klaviyo, you can go one step further. If someone browses the site’s best-selling product, for instance, follow up with an email highlighting that product: "Hey, you’ve browsed this product three times. Now we’re going to recap its features and show you all the options, plus buyer reviews.” 4. When the customer adds a product to the cart but leaves the site. In addition to the standard “look what you left behind” message, create a hierarchy of emails based on cart behavior. If it’s the customer’s fifth time visiting and adding something to the cart—without buying—an email can provide information on potential areas of concern, such as payment options or the return and exchange policy. Craft one message for the shopper who selected a single clearance item, and a different message for the consumer who’s added four bestsellers to their cart. 5. When the customer begins—but doesn’t complete—the checkout process. Take it beyond the usual cart-abandonment email. Klaviyo’s predicted analytics tool can quickly assess the cart to predict lifetime customer value, and then send automed, tailored messages based on that calculation. Sometimes that means treating a shopper like a VIP before they’ve even bought something. 6. When the customer completes a purchase. Cement the customer relationship by providing a wonderful end-to-end experience. Send thoughtful emails that thank the customer for their purchase, and provide shipping and delivery updates. Welcome the customer to the community, perhaps with a note from the CEO, to let them know this is a company that cares. 7. After the product has arrived. Send warranty information and other educational content to help the customer make the most of their purchase. Highlight the company’s charitable efforts and giveback programs. 8. If the customer experiences an issue. Provide personal outreach to understand and resolve the problem. Ask for feedback, and reply instantly to any online complaints. Integrating data from a help desk solution such as Zendesk with your marketing platform enables you to segment out profiles who are currently engaging with customer service from getting marketing communications. This also allows you to automate a followup sequence or NPS survey and deliver different messages based on the individual's perception of their customer service experience. Post-purchase action is critical For Palmer, the post-purchase interaction is the final piece of the flywheel. Brands need to ask for reviews and user-generated content that can then be repurposed to reach the next set of first-time customers. Palmer said for the best, long-term customer retention, it’s important to manage the flywheel carefully and thoughtfully during Cyber Week and the larger fourth-quarter selling season. Suppress or delay messages that ask for reviews or social posts—customers can do that after they get their holiday shopping finished. Also remember to communicate with them about your return and exchange policy, and if (and how) it’s being extended for holiday purchases. Every brand today needs to be thinking about email communications with a long-term lens: optimizing lifetime value. And that’s just as important in the busy BFCM season as it is the rest of the year. About Klaviyo Klaviyo (CLAY-vee-oh) powers smarter digital relationships, making it easy for businesses to capture, store, analyze and predictively use their own data to drive measurable, high-value outcomes. Klaviyo’s modern and intuitive SaaS platform enables business users of any skill level to harness their first-party data from more than 300 integrations to send the right message at the right time across email, SMS and push notifications. Innovative businesses like Dermalogica, Living Proof, Citizen Watch, and more than 130,000 other paying users leverage Klaviyo to acquire, engage and retain customers—and grow on their own terms.

How to perfect your email messaging during the Black Friday season

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