You’re leaving a lot of money on the table if your business isn’t engaging in Black Friday or Cyber Monday promotions.

In 2017, U.S. retailers saw a record $7.9 billion spent on Black Friday. They added another $6.6 billion in online sales on Cyber Monday, which was a new record high for online shopping in a single day.

Sales aside, the number of people participating in Black Friday, 133.7 Million, is more than those who attend Disneyland (20.4 million).

So, we can see that the opportunity is there for sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

eCommerce Email Marketing Integrations Perfect for Black Friday & Cyber Monday

The Case for Integrating eCommerce and Email Marketing

First, let’s look at why email marketing can be one of your most effective tools during Black Friday and Cyber Monday:

  • There’s an 106 percent increase in customer reactivation on Black Friday when compared to every other day of the year.
  • On Black Friday, open rates (309 percent increase) and click-through rates (455 percent boost) explode in comparison to standard bulk email sends.
  • Using email automation and a sequence of three emails can lead to an increase in orders to the tune of 90 percent.
  • Email marketing led to the highest conversion rate (4.29 percent) on Black Friday in comparison to other marketing channels: search (3.04 percent), direct mail (2.39 percent) and social media (1.81 percent).

It’s hard to argue with the numbers in favor of sending email marketing campaigns for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Let’s take it a step further and talk about why integrating your eCommerce tool can be even more effective this holiday season.

Integrating with any third-party tool or app is a great way to grow your email list. However, when you can sync your email marketing and eCommerce, you’ll be able to get more data on your subscribers. This will lead to a better relationship with the contacts on your email list.

After all, the ability to send targeted, relevant content has a major impact on the success of email marketing. That comes from properly segmented lists, which is best achieved when you have sufficient data on your subscribers.

How much more effective are segmented email campaigns?

  • Open rates for segmented email campaigns are 14.32 percent higher than their counterparts.
  • Additionally, segmented email campaigns see an increase in click-throughs of 100.95 percent in comparison to non-segmented email campaigns.

Your email list is your most valuable marketing asset. Especially when you can segment it in a way that allows you to send the best possible content to each and every subscriber. That’s how long-standing, meaningful customer relationships are nurtured.

eCommerce Data You Can Use to Segment Your Black Friday & Cyber Monday Email Campaigns

There is a ton of data that you can use to segment your Black Friday and Cyber Monday email marketing campaigns, when you integrate your eCommerce Store.

First Time Customers

If a subscriber is a new customer, they may not have had much of an interaction with your brand before. So, this is your chance to make a first impression and greet them with a warm welcome.

A Welcome Email campaign should be standard for any email marketer. It sets the tone for your email marketing and let’s new subscribers know what to expect.

This can be automated so that every single new subscriber to your list gets the same greeting.

This welcome email from Ancestry.com does a great job of greeting new customers. It eases anxiety by informing them that it’s simple to get started and backing that up by showing them clearly what the steps are to do so. It also does a good job at maintaining their branding.

Ancestry Welcome Email

For the holiday season, you can get your Welcome Emails into the holiday spirit with some simple design or template tweaks.

You can even offer a discount for all purchases made before or during the holiday season!

Repeat Customers

Did you know that it costs fives times more to acquire a new customer than to get repeat business?

If you know that you have recurring customers, you can create an email sequence that supports their repeat business.

For example, Amazon and other retailers often offer a subscription plan for products you consistently use. Things like toilet paper and paper towels, bottles of water or anything else you always use. Those retailers offer a small discount when you create a subscription for those products.

By being able to sync your eCommerce data with your email marketing tool, you have easy access to your repeat customers and can create campaigns dedicated to them.

Top Purchasers or VIP Customers based on Milestone Sales or Order Numbers

For Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you can reward your loyal customers.

First, segment your email list from your eCommerce customers to discover your top purchasers.

Then, you can create a loyalty reward campaign and send it to that list!

What can you reward them with?

Maybe it’s early access to your holiday sale or an exclusive sale just for them!

It could even be a special discount just for your loyal customers.

This Cyber Monday email from Wigs.com offers a discount to the members of their Loyalty Program. It even denotes their current status in their program and the points available to them.

Wigs.com loyalty program email

Make your loyal customers feel special and they will reward you with their continued business.

Location

Sometimes, you want to use a few fields as possible on your signup forms. That means you don’t always get location data from the get go.

However, if you integrate your eCommerce data with your email marketing account, you can get location data in that manner.

If you’re a restaurant with multiple locations or any other business with several brick and mortar locations, you can use your location data to send targeted email campaigns this Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

This email from Kate Spade promotes their new line of bags and let’s their subscribers know the closest location to them.

Kate Spade email

For your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns, you can promote your sales for the day and let your subscribers know where they can go to take advantage of the promo. It’s especially an effective strategy if you’re offering an exclusive giveaway to the first 100 customers through the door on Black Friday.

Inactive Customers

Subscribers go inactive sometimes and so do your customers.

Email marketing affords you an opportunity to re-engage those customers who haven’t come back for more in a while.

There are a few tactics you can try to re-engage an inactive customer:

  • Tell them you’re going to remove them from your list. Remind them that being on the list gives them access to sales and promotions and other great information. They can choose to opt back into your email campaigns and not miss out on your Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions.
  • Incentivize re-engagement. Tell your customers that they’re missed and offer a small incentive to make a new purchase. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday on the horizon, you can give them an offer for Free Shipping or a percentage off their next order to bring that customer back into the fold.
  • Send a poll or survey. If a customer hasn’t returned in a while, you can ask them why. You can even get creative with it. Tell them you’re putting together a gift giving guide for Black Friday and Cyber Monday and ask questions about how they’re purchasing for and various interests. This will give you great data and feedback for your holiday campaigns.

Shopping Cart Abandonment

It’s reported that between 50 and 80 percent of consumers leave items in their online shopping cart. That’s a lot of potential sales!

Perhaps some of your subscribers didn’t convert after your Black Friday sales. It happens. It’s OK. You have a chance to complete the conversion on Cyber Monday.

If you segment your eCommerce data by the abandoned shopping cart list, you can send a cart abandonment email to them for Cyber Monday.

First Time, Last Time and Item (Last Time)

Email marketing helps stimulate repeat business and you can keep customers in the purchase cycle with well-timed emails.

One way to do this is by keeping purchase history data. With an eCommerce integration, you can see the first time or last time a customer made a purchase and send campaigns based on that information.

This data can help show you when it might be time for a customer to come back for more. After all, a well-timed email with the right message is when email marketing is working at its best.

How to Integrate Your Benchmark Email Account with WooCommerce

Benchmark has many eCommerce integrations, perhaps none more powerful than our WooCommerce integration.

All of the data points detailed above can be synced with your email marketing account to guarantee real-time, up-to-date data.

You can learn more about our WooCommerce eCommerce integration in this helpful FAQ.

Wrapping Up

For Black Friday and Cyber Monday and holidays throughout the year, you can use your eCommerce data to send better, more targeted email marketing campaigns.

Now that you know that strategies that you can put into action, we’ve also got free holiday email templates to help you along the way.

Do you have any tips on integrating eCommerce and email marketing or for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Share them in the comments below!