Eight years ago, I recall setting up Black Friday campaigns that were scheduled to run for the one week leading up to Black Friday. But each year, the emails show up in my inbox a little earlier…two, three, four weeks before the big day.
Each year, it becomes more difficult for marketers to stand out from the noise. It’s not enough to simply be the first company to show up in the consumer’s inbox. You also have to have a stunning email design that catches the eye and showcases your offer spectacularly.
Granted, “standing out” is a highly subjective goal, and one that changes drastically depending on your product, industry, and brand design limitations.
Copy, imagery, and the offer itself have to be perfectly melded in order to resonate with your audience and incentivize them to convert.
How does that look in real life?
Here are 10 Black Friday email examples—along with a brief description of what makes them stand out.
This is a great email with a strong CTA in the header that does 3 things effectively:
See the full email in Spotmar.
This email starts strong with a clear, incentivizing subject line: Black Friday?! Up to 60% off + Free Shipping, and follows it up with a beautiful graphic displaying its 2-for-1 offer. The “Shop Now” button makes it obvious that you can take action from directly inside your inbox.
See the full email in Spotmar.
This one takes a different twist, leveraging the Black Friday frenzy to pursue a longer-term customer relationship strategy: building up their SMS list.
See the full email on Spotmar.
What do you do when you’re not *quite* ready to hit “go” on your Black Friday sale, but you want to give a heads up to your audience? The Curry’s team did a great job encouraging their subscribers to do a little window shopping and get ready for the big day (with a countdown included). A message like this also helps to boost sales in the short term, since many subscribers likely found something they wanted to buy in the interim.
A seasonal offer that creates a strong selling point…without any additional discounts layered in. Perfect.
See the full email in Spotmar.
As a consumer, I am inundated with Black Friday deals…and flash sales throughout the year. This particular email makes a more compelling offer by ensuring the “48hr only” part of the message is front and center.
See the full email in Spotmar.
Fun fact: this email was sent back on September 25, with the appropriate subject line: 60 Days to Black Friday: Your Sneak Peek Deals Are Ready! 🛍️✨
While this timeline might seem outrageously early, the subject line definitely did its job and garnered enough interest for me to click…and the BOGO offer was strong enough to make me want to act.
See the full email in Spotmar.
Black Friday deals…in August? Rugs Direct was not the only company who leveraged the “Black Friday” phrase to try and garner up some late summer sales. The timing of this email, however, was brilliant, with the topic being so out of place for August that it was more likely to receive a plethora of curiosity-based clicks that might not have been achievable with standard sales messaging.
See the full email in Spotmar.
Yes, we have another super early Black Friday email…this time, in July. Just like in the Rugs Direct email, the topic was most likely selected as a contrast from all the other “summer” labeled sales going on at the time. The subject line paired the BF messaging with limited time terminology, making it far more likely that subscriber would click through to view the deals.
See the full email in Spotmar.
Thanks to the frenzied nature of Black Friday, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and lose track of what emails you’ve received and which deals you still want to take advantage of. Last chance emails like this one from Theory Outlet are typically used to collect a few more sales before the campaign officially ends. Special props to the minimalist design and message of this email, a strong contrast against the maximalist graphics that tend to be used for sales.
See the full email in Spotmar.
All of the Black Friday email examples in this roundup were sourced through Spotmar, the world’s largest library of marketing emails. With 300K+ emails at the time of this blog post publish date, it’s an incredible tool for marketers looking to gain an edge in their email design, copy, and overall strategy.
Definitely check it out and create your free account today.
