I have a confession to make. I was not AT ALL impressed with the Black Friday/ Cyber Monday offering served to my inbox this year. There, I said it.
I am based in the UK, and I know we kind of copied the US, and we don’t have Thanksgiving the day before, but, I am still a Black Friday advocate! It is the perfect time of year for a sale, I mean, who isn’t going to be interested in a cheeky bargain six weeks before Christmas?! Like many, I am not mad keen on hitting the highstreets and much prefer to participate from the comfort of my home, on the sofa, with a nice cup tea and my laptop.
So what’s the problem? There’s a couple.
Lack of imagination
Uninspired is an understatement. I was looking for something more original to pop up in my email tray and spark my interest but every subject line looked the same.
I wanted to be entertained. Maybe by a bit of humour, a scratch off panel, a promotional video.
I clicked into a few emails; all they mentioned were the discount on offer. They were like clones of each other. None of the content was relevant to me.
I wanted to feel special and valued as a customer. A bit of personalisation or contextualisation would not have gone a miss; a recognition that the retailer knew my age group, my region (maybe a map to nearest store for ‘Click and Collect’ purposes) or a suggestion of items I had browsed previously onsite to jog my memory.
In reality, I was intending on visiting these retailers’ websites anyway, half of which had their promotional code on the home page, the purpose of these emails confused me.
Romance is dead
I feel queasy from the slew of email promotions and reductions that have whittled their way through my mailbox in the past year. A sea of ‘!’ ‘Sale’ ‘Reductions’ ‘%’ ‘Discounts’ ‘One time only’.
Except, it never is one time only. It seems like my favourite stores are deceiving me. Most of the year, I would be happy to purchase products at full price, but am I a fool to even consider it?
There is no urgency anymore. The excitement and the exclusivity a flash sale has been diminished by perpetual promotions, a never ending honeymoon period. Gone are the days when you used to have two annual sales. When partaking would be a genuine event. When it was a treat to nab the last half price top in your size, to purchase that widescreen HD TV or to wait all year for that dream kitchen.
What happens as a consequence? The novelty wears off, I wonder why there is always a sale on and if the business struggling? Is no one buying their goods anymore?
Then, I fall out of love with the brand.
How to stand out from the crowd
I get it. Retailers have strict targets to reach, sales equal quick wins and these can be fantastic for boosting brand awareness, but, are you looking at the impact that constant sale periods have on your brand in the long-term.
‘Research has shown that deep discounts do cause the consumer to believe that something is wrong. Frequent discounting serves to lower the value of the brand because of an almost subconscious reaction by the consumer who believes that quality also has been lowered’ Killian Branding
Never fear! There are a number of techniques that you as a retailer can incorporate into your email marketing during peak sale periods which will help you to stand out and boost revenue without sacrificing your reputation.
For more info on personalizing email campaigns through relevance and contextualization, please ask us.
To leave you on a more positive note, I have handpicked a few campaigns from Black Friday weekend 2015 which I really loved!
Cross channel marketing to add suspense and intrigue
Catchy Subject Lines
Content, content, content
Novelty
Urgency and Exclusivity
The River Island Sale only ran for 4 hours
