BLOG

Boost the ROI of your B2C Email Marketing for Black Friday

For brands
Nov 22, 2022 • 10 min read
B2C Email Marketing for Black Friday.

Achieving a good ROI with B2C email marketing is getting increasingly difficult. Every click counts, especially on Black Friday. Find out how to get results.

Table of contents
✅ Black Friday Marketing: it’s not all about sales
✅ Tips for Black Friday B2C Email Marketing
✅ Why use B2C email marketing for Black Friday marketing?
✅ What are the pros and cons?
✅ How to improve the ROI

Black Friday Marketing: it’s not all about sales

The official start of the holiday shopping season is approaching, and that can only mean one thing: Black Friday is coming! In preparation for the biggest shopping day of the year, it’s important to think about how you can take advantage of this opportunity to grow your business. Marketers often get a decent ROI on their Black Friday marketing campaigns, but what if it could be better? What if the campaigns you run on this special event result in loyal customers, instead of one-time purchases? By putting more focus on customer retention in your Black Friday marketing campaigns you can increase brand loyalty. Black Friday doesn’t have to be just about sales, but also about creating lasting relationships with new and existing customers.

Consumers spent almost $8.9 billion online during Black Friday in 2021 (Adobe).

What is the benefit of B2C email marketing?

B2C email marketing is one of the most effective ways for retailers to reach shoppers with personalized marketing messages that encourage them to buy products, open new accounts, or make a purchase online. B2C email marketing campaigns make it easy for marketers to include images, links to relevant products, discounts, and promotions in their emails. Reduced marketing budgets and increasing competition among retailers have made email marketing a popular tool for any business looking to grow. 

Tips for Black Friday B2C Email Marketing

Now you know what the benefit of B2C email marketing is, but there are more opportunities to get results. Make sure that you are prepared for the Black Friday rush by following these tips:

☑️ Analyze your data
Every business has different data, but your data is the key to making your Black Friday email marketing campaign successful. Before you begin writing your emails, it’s important to understand your audience. What are their interests? What products are they interested in?

☑️ Create multiple segments
With the data that you have, you can create different segments. This will help you send more personalized emails to different segments.

☑️ Include compelling CTAs
While your emails should be personalized, they also need to have compelling CTAs. Make it easy for your customers to click on the links and make a purchase.

☑️ Start planning your emails early
It can take some time to create compelling Black Friday emails. It’s important to start planning your Black Friday emails early so you have enough time to create them properly.

Why use B2C email marketing for Black Friday marketing?

Increased traffic to retail websites and stores during Black Friday is a trend that we have seen growing year after year. Marketers are ramping up their marketing initiatives to capture shoppers’ attention during their online shopping journeys. With B2C email marketing, marketers have found a method to drive more sales with their Black Friday marketing campaigns. It has become crucial to have a plan in place to increase visibility and take advantage of the opportunity to capture more sales. Capturing the attention of your target audience by sending distinctive, eye-catching, and compelling emails is becoming more difficult. Because we all know it: on Black Friday our inboxes are usually packed with emails. 

The global email marketing software market size was valued at USD 1.15 billion in 2021. - Fortune

What are the pros and cons of B2C email marketing?

Running B2C email marketing campaigns for Black Friday isn’t easy. Here are the pros and cons of this popular marketing method.

Pros of B2C email marketing

☑️ Personalization
It’s a great way to engage your leads and convert them. B2C email marketing makes it easier for marketers to send relevant emails

☑️ Cost-effectiveness
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective B2C marketing methods. It is relatively cheap to set up and manage and requires a minimal upfront investment

☑️ Scalability
B2C email marketing campaigns can be easily scaled up or down as needed. Black Friday is the perfect example of when marketers scale up their B2C email marketing efforts.

☑️ Popularity
3 out of 4 people are using email. About 76 percent of Americans (248.7 million) are email users and many check their email several times daily (usually on their cell phones) Source

The global email marketing software market is projected to grow from $1.26 billion in 2022 to $2.76 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 11.8% in the forecast period - Fortune

Cons of B2C email marketing

☑️ Low CTR
Most people won’t open your email. This is especially true if you’re sending a generic email to your entire audience.

☑️ Highly competitive
A Campaign Monitor study found that a whopping 116.5 million emails go out on Black Friday. (Source)

☑️ Spam
Too many email messages have an irritating effect on readers. Not targeting the right audience comes with a potential risk of people unsubscribing you. 

☑️ Not incentivized
With E-mail, there are a lot of limitations to incentivizing your audience. You can only do this with your content. Functionalities like gamification and more are off the table.

‘’Thanks for choosing us for your Black Friday purchase, we hope to see you more often. Here’s a welcome bonus to join our loyalty program, enjoy!’’

How to improve the ROI of your campaign

By having a mobile-first blockchain loyalty program, like Crowny. It’s the perfect follow-up to your marketing campaign. Implementing this in your email marketing strategy massively increases the odds of future repeat purchases from your Black Friday customers. Here’s an overview of how it leverages the pros and eliminates the cons of traditional email marketing.

‘‘The Crowny App complements email marketing campaigns. The app is like a safety net for converted customers, ensuring they are accommodated in the perfect environment to increase brand loyalty’’

Highly personalized experiences
Even though personalization is the single most important pro of B2C email marketing, there aren’t a lot of opportunities. At least, not compared to mobile-first loyalty programs. In email marketing, personalization is often referred to when an email simply addresses the recipient with the first name (Forbes). This works well when the recipient is in the ‘consideration’ phase of the customer journey, but it isn’t enough to provide a truly personalized experience that creates lasting customer loyalty. 

Cost-effective, or not?
Email marketing software providers will tell you that B2C email marketing is cheap. Starting with e-mail marketing is affordable, that’s true. But to experience the benefits email marketing could provide for your business, you will need to invest. Email marketing is as cheap as you want it to be, but cheap email marketing often results in low open-, low click-, and low user activity rates.

Scalable
B2C email marketing is said to be scalable. And yes, this is true. But what does it mean? It means that you can easily send a lot more messages to your mailing list. There’s a massive downside to that, which is called spam. And the only way recipients can do something about this is to hit the ‘unsubscribe’ button or to label your email content as spam. Content marketing in a mobile app fixes this issue. In an app, you give the content consumer an easy method to manage content preferences. You can think of limiting the number of push notifications an app user would like to receive in a day, for example. 

Popularity
Since there are so many individuals checking their emails on their smartphones on a daily basis, this is the perfect place to leverage and onboard your email recipients into your loyalty program. Crowny knows the ideal way to streamline your omnichannel marketing for a beneficial experience between consumers and businesses. Instead of using B2C email marketing exclusively, it’s time to differentiate yourself from competitors. 

Low CTR
With a mobile-first loyalty program, you will be able to reach your audience with features such as push notifications and geofencing. Features like these ensure the right message at the right time, to the right person. For example, when a person is walking past your store on Black Friday, you will be able to send him an automated message with an enticing Black Friday offer! You can imagine how the CTR of your messaging will drastically improve, boosting the customer lifetime value in the long run.

Highly competitive
Set yourself apart from competitors by offering blockchain-based loyalty rewards. The B2C email marketing environment is highly competitive. You need something relevant that stands out, an offer that sparks interest and rewards that everybody is talking about nowadays.

Spam
Too many email messages have an irritating effect on readers. In a loyalty app, users can adjust push notification preferences. But it doesn’t stop there. Users are also able to select the content they enjoy viewing and engaging with. Put the power in control of the recipient to always be sure you are sending your content to the relevant audience. Increase the odds of an optimal user experience as a result. 

Incentives
Mobile marketing with apps opens up a new world of opportunities for loyalty marketing. Marketers can use incentive-driven messaging to reward recipients for engaging with content, and a lot more. Providing enticing incentives for engaged customers has never been easier.

Conclusion

Black Friday is a great time to reach your audience with emails that promote deals, specials, and gifts. The campaigns could be leveraged a lot more. By following up on your Black Friday campaigns in a way that can retain those customers, you will be able to boost the ROI of your B2C email marketing. Black Friday is one of the best events to do this. 

The Crowny App offers all the features your business needs to boost your brand loyalty. You can design a branded loyalty program, and launch campaigns to make your community thrive!

Find out how it works, and get early access to a demo of the platform.