3 Post-BFCM Campaigns To Send in Q1
JAN 2024
By Caitlin Elgin
It's no secret that January can be a slow sales month for ecommerce - especially when compared to the increased volume driven by Black Friday / Cyber Monday strategies. We also often see email engagement tends to dip pretty significantly into late December and early January, making it a struggle to keep momentum going through Q1.
But! The good news is you likely gained a lot of new subscribers during BFCM season, and now is the perfect time to nurture them with strong brand moments or small incentives that drive engagement. It's also a great time to review your list health (especially ahead of Gmail and Yahoo's new sender requirements) and prioritize suppressing any users who have not connected with your emails in a long time. A healthy, clean list will support your overall deliverability health and result in a stronger sender reputation - which in turn leads to more sales and customer retention!
Here are a few strategies that can help boost your engagement and list health and create strong momentum early in 2024.
Horoscope / Star Sign
It doesn't take an astrologist to know that subscribers like surprises! Some of the highest engagement strategies we have run involved what we call a "click to reveal" campaign around star signs - the idea is to recommend a product based on a star sign and encourage the subscriber to click to see what it is. For one client, this type of campaign drove an over 5% click through rate - a 248% increase from their average campaign rate. This is also a fun way to run a conversational SMS strategy! Start by asking your subscribers a question - we simply used "What's your sign?" - and trigger a message with a recommendation based on their reply. For some added engagement, you could include a small short term discount on the recommended item!
PRO TIP: Not into astrology? Try a different angle, like a video game-inspired "Choose your fighter" / "Choose your character!"
Loyalty / Referral
If you have an existing loyalty program in place, subscribers likely racked up a lot of extra points during BFCM. Now's your time to remind them to redeem! You can garner some extra loyalty engagement by thinking outside of your regular rewards - offer a short term bonus reward for existing members or enable a gift with purchase redemption option. Referrals are a great way to engage with existing customers as well. You can use seasonal moments like New Year's resolutions (example: reward your workout buddy) or Valentine's Day (example: share the love with your bestie) to get creative with the referral angle, too.
Pro tip: Don't have a loyalty platform? Try a bounceback strategy - run a promo that offers a discount or store credit on a future purchase when someone places an order.
Sunset / List Cleaning
This may sound counterintuitive, but removing contacts from your list who are no longer engaging with your content will improve your overall email health. Post-BFCM is the best time to evaluate contacts for suppression - if a subscriber did not engage during the biggest promo of the year, it's unlikely they'll continue to engage with your brand overall. You'll want to start by looking for contacts that have been on your list for a while, and narrow down by ones that haven't purchased, visited your site or engaged with emails in a year. Send them a message asking if they'd still like to hear from you (you can include an incentive to grab a little extra inbox attention, too). Anyone who doesn't engage with this type of campaign can either be pulled into an unengaged segment to exclude from campaign sends, or can be fully suppressed from your list. Remember - if they want to hear from you they can always sign up again!
Pro Tip: A two-message strategy works really well for sunsetting - first reach out and try to engage the subscriber, then follow up with a reminder that you'll be removing them from the list. The FOMO on the follow up email often gets subscribers to engage!
Need more ideas for your 2024 campaign calendar? Schedule a discovery call with us at hello@fluencyfirm.com!