How to create a pre-Black Friday campaign

For the quickest way to launch a Black Friday marketing campaign, use the pre-built campaigns available on the Carts Guru app. 

A Black Friday marketing campaign goes beyond the day itself! So, it’s equally important to pay attention to the lead-up and the follow-up.

In this article, we’ll show you how you can use your Cart Guru platform to build and send the perfect pre-Black Friday campaign.

To begin, here's a checklist of what you need to run a successful pre-Black Friday campaign:

• 1 email to send to all contacts
• 1 email to send to VIP customers (these are contacts that spend over a certain amount)
• 1 email to send to non-VIPs
• 1 SMS to send to VIP customers
• 1 SMS to send to non-VIPs
• 1 dynamic list with all contacts
• 1 discount code of 10% for VIP customers
• 1 Time trigger campaign

Step 1

The first thing to do is send an email to all your contacts three days before Black Friday, alerting them to the upcoming sales and giving everyone a sneak peek into the great deals headed their way.

You’ll build this email template in the ‘templates’ page of your Carts Guru app. Using our drag and drop editor, you can design the perfect on-brand email template with the ideal Black Friday content.

Some great things to include in the first email would be:

• An introduction to your upcoming Black Friday offers (in the text box)
• Examples of two of the products that will be on offer (using the image and text box tool)
• A recommended products section (curated by Carts Guru and based on the individual customer’s browsing history)
• A reminder to follow your brand on social media (with linked icons at the bottom of the template)

Step 2

Next, create another email template just for your VIP customers. This email is to be sent two days after the first one (the day before Black Friday) and includes special Black Friday offers just for your most valued customers. Include a special VIP discount that gives your VIP customers an extra 10% off during the Black Friday period.

Here's some tips on how to create it:

1. Use the text box in your email template to thank your VIP customers for their continued support to your brand and to explain the special Black Friday deals they will be receiving.
2. Give an example of one of the special products that will soon be on offer using the image+text box section on your email template.
3. Include a recommended product section (curated by Carts Guru and based on the individual customer’s browsing history).
4. Add a discount code section where you include the 10% off coupon for VIPs.

To create a discount, head to the ‘coupons’ page in your Carts Guru app. Then head back to your template, find the ‘discount codes’ module and drag and drop the section onto your template. Then, just find the coupon code you created in the ‘discounts’ drop-down menu.

Step 3

The final pre-Black Friday email is for all of your regular (non-VIP) customers. This email will be sent at the same time as your VIP email, on the opposite branch of your workflow, to get them excited the day before Black Friday sales start.

It will include:

• A reminder about what will be on offer during your Black Friday sales, using the text box in your email template.
• Dragging and dropping a recommended products section into your template. Each contact will get a unique ‘recommended product’ that is about to go on sale, based on their browsing history on your site.
• It’s always a good idea to finish the email with a ‘follow us on social media’ section, with both text and hyper-linked icons to take your customer straight to the relevant page.

Step 4

Not all your contacts will regularly check their emails. Black Friday campaigns are the most important of the year and it’s imperative that your message gets to every contact on your list.

So, include some SMS messages into your pre-Black Friday campaign.

Create the first SMS message for VIP customers only and send it 3 hours after your VIP email. This SMS message should include:

• Text alerting the customer to a special Black Friday deal only available for your VIP customers.
• The same 10% VIP discount from the VIP email.

It’s equally important to send an SMS to your non-VIP customers. The second SMS to create should say something like:

“Hey <customer first name>! Get excited for some HUGE savings heading your way tomorrow for Black Friday!”

Step 5

Once you’ve created your templates, it’s time to build your pre-Black Friday campaign.

First, head to the ‘campaigns’ page in your Carts Guru app. When creating your campaign, select ‘Time Trigger’ (as you want the campaign to begin for all contacts 3 days before Black Friday).

Select ‘engagement’ as the campaign goal and set the start date to three days before Black Friday (29th November in 2019). Then, add a dynamic list of all your contacts in the audience section on the left.

Finally, switch from ‘configuration’ to ‘workflow’!

When building your workflow you will see a box that says ‘start’. Then:

• Click ‘start’, then select ‘action’ and ‘email’ and scroll through the list of templates until you find your first pre-Black Friday email.
• From the ‘email’ block select ‘continue’, then ‘delay’, and input a time delay of 2 days.
• From the ‘delay’ block select ‘condition’ and create a condition to segment your VIP audience. Choose ‘contact property’ then ‘average purchase amount = greater than or equal to’ and input whatever value you think defines your VIP’s, for example, $500.
• This condition will split your audience into two paths: ‘true’ made up of your VIP customers, and ‘false’ made up of everyone else.
• Select ‘true’, then ‘action’ and ‘email’ and select the VIP Email Template with the 10% Discount you created earlier. Choose continue and add a 3-hour time delay.
• To finish off this branch, select an SMS as the next action, where the template is the SMS you created for VIP customers.
• Now head back to the true/false split and click ‘false’. Here you will input an ‘action’ and select the email template you created for non-VIP customers.
• Next, add another 3-hour time delay, followed by the SMS template for non-VIP customers.

And there you have it! Your pre-Black Friday Sales Campaign is ready to send!