Tactic #21: Increase your Black Friday sales with an early-bird list

Read this tactic on the CXL blog.

Tactic #21: Increase your Black Friday sales with an early-bird list

Fast marketing tactic successfully tested by Budai Media:

• The company: Marketing agency Budai Media, working for an outdoor clothing brand.
• The goal: Increase Black Friday sales, while decreasing the burden on fulfillment by making the offer period longer.
• The tactic: Build an early-bird VIP list, and open up offers two weeks before Black Friday.
• The result: $26K revenue in advance of Black Friday.

The goal: Increase Black Friday sales

Budai Media’s client, an outdoor clothing company, wanted to increase Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) sales, while reducing the burden on their fulfillment by making the event longer.

The fast marketing tactic: Build an early-bird Black Friday list

The team built an early-bird BFCM “VIP” list, and monetized it weeks before BFCM:

1. They built a custom landing page where they collected email addresses to subscribe to the early-bird BFCM VIP list. 
2. They drove traffic from multiple channels, including website, emails, organic and paid social, to this landing page, starting in October.
3. They sent email and SMS sequences to subscribers, welcoming them and building excitement around the early-bird offers.
4. They opened up the early-bird offers two weeks before Black Friday.

An ad for the Black Friday "VIP" list.

The result: $26K revenue in advance of Black Friday

The team started running this campaign in October 2022, and opened up the early-bird offers in the two weeks before Black Friday. These were the results:

• 2,280 subscribers.
• 50%+ average email open rate.
• 7.7% of subscribers made a purchase from the four emails sent. Even the first welcome email, that did not include an offer, generated revenue.
• $26,220 of sales (equivalent to $11.5 per subscriber) in those two weeks. That’s 1/3 of the brand’s total sales over the BFCM period.

In addition, the brand could then also retarget these new subscribers with further offers and campaigns at a later date. 

Why does it work?

• People love feeling part of an exclusive club, such as an early-bird VIP list.

• Opening up Black Friday offers ahead of BFCM taps into the growing trend of Black Week or even Black Month offers, and reduces the burden on fulfillment by expanding the period of offer.

Want more ideas on how to execute BFCM and other promotions to drive growth? Check out our Promotional Events course.

Meet the specialist behind this tactic

Daniel Budai is the founder of ecommerce email marketing agency Budai Media. The agency helps DTC ecommerce companies increase their customer lifetime value through email, SMS, push, and loyalty programs.

Follow Daniel on LinkedIn for more insights.

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