The holiday shopping season is approaching fast. Are you prepared? Do you feel confident that your current email marketing strategy is ready to captivate consumers? You are in the right place if you are in need of email marketing strategy inspiration. Today we are going to go over a few tips on how you can prepare you email marketing strategy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, two very important events during the holiday season.

Strategy 1: Tease Them

Consider adding sneak peeks of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals to your email marketing strategy. Do this by sending out an email campaign that leads up to your Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers. Let your prospects know about your deals in advance. Online consumers take a hands-on approach to heavily discounted deals on events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They will research and compare discounts in advance so they are prepared to get the best deal when the day comes. These lead-up emails will keep your products and services in mind and include your business in their Black Friday and Cyber Monday preparations.

Strategy 2: Make it Urgent

Along with building anticipation, building urgency with your email campaign can help drive up your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. This can be done through the use of time-sensitive emails and online offers. Some strategies you can use to build up anticipation and urgency are limited-time deals and discount codes that have an expiration date offered in your emails.

Here’s an example of an urgent “Don’t miss out!” email marketing strategy performed by Zulily.

(Source: http://www.zulily.com/holiday-brands)

Strategy 3: Go Mobile

According to IBM’s 2013 Holiday Benchmark Reports, mobile traffic was 39.7 percent of all online traffic on Black Friday last year. This includes traffic through smartphones and tablets. Despite many customers being back at work on Monday, mobile sales increase on Cyber Monday as well, even though most businesses utilize desktop computers. Mobile traffic reached 21.8% of all total online sales in 2013. You should definitely make sure your email marketing strategy includes mobile compatible email campaigns.

Here is a quick checklist to help with your mobile email marketing strategy:

  • Use responsive email template designs to enable your email layout to scale and work effectively on a smaller smartphone and tablet screens.
  • Make sure your main call-to-action is visible on a mobile device without the user needing to swipe down.
  • Don’t forget about your landing page! The email should take your email receiver to your main website where they can learn more about your product and purchase it – and that landing page needs to be responsive too.

Black Friday remains to be one of the best profitable holidays for businesses. Although, Cyber Monday dominates when it comes to online sales revenue over the Thanksgiving weekend. Cyber Monday online sales were up 31.5 percent over Black Friday, according to IBM’s report. So, take advantage of the holidays, up your email marketing strategy game and you are bound to increase your sales this holiday season!