To kick off your Black Friday campaign prep, we interviewed one of our Expert Partners for the inside scoop on getting ready for the biggest event of the year.
Brevo’s Expert Partners are users with experience under their belts who lend their expertise to other Brevo users looking for dedicated insight and help. From setting up campaign templates to coordinating automation workflows, they bring their strengths to the table to turn problems into successes.
This year, we asked SmartSites, a full-service digital marketing agency and Expert Brevo Partner, about common issues they encounter each year during Black Friday campaign setup for clients. Let’s dive into their tips for success!
What industries do you work with?
SmartSites collaborates with clients across nearly every industry. While we work best with DTC ecommerce brands, we offer creative digital marketing solutions for just about every brand, regardless of size or industry.
What challenges do your clients have when creating end-of-year campaigns?
Time is often our biggest limitation when it comes to creating end-of-year campaigns. We encourage all of our clients to start their holiday planning early, but it can sometimes still be a challenge to get all of the necessary content & approvals in a timely fashion.
We find that recurring meetings and frequent communication between the client and their dedicated Project Manager is the best way to keep the project on track for a successful end-of-year marketing strategy.
How do you use Brevo to help them overcome challenges and succeed?
Having a streamlined process for review & approval is key to ensuring timely deployment of campaigns.
What are your top tips for success?
Our top 3 tips for success would be…
- Plan your BFCM strategy at least 2 months in advance
- Deliver relevant & personalized content to each of your subscribers
- Consider pre- and post-BFCM strategies to help warm up or cool down your subscribers around the sales period
Any must-dos to prepare in advance?
Setting approval deadlines for your team ahead of target send dates is a great way to help plan when your content creation needs to begin. Working backward from the target send date will give you a clear timeline for when different content pieces need to be finalized and approved.
How does the BFCM planning approach differ between medium-sized and large clients?
While larger brands might have more sophisticated data or customer segmentation strategies when it comes to BFCM planning, we find that we can recommend many of the same approaches for clients in the same industry - regardless of their size!
Offering subscribers a personalized experience should not be limited by the brand’s size. No matter what their total monthly order volume is, we are still able to execute a robust omnichannel marketing strategy for BFCM for any brand we manage.
What are the reasons for some of your clients not to do a BFCM campaign?
In general, we recommend that any ecommerce brand include a BFCM campaign as part of their promotional calendar due to consumer expectations. However, I have also seen strategies which include running a sale the week before BFCM in order to beat the crowd and reach subscribers before they become fatigued by the hundreds of other BFCM emails in their inbox.
About SmartSites
SmartSites operates as a full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO, PPC, Email Marketing, Social Media Management, and Web design. Since their start in 2011, they've managed $500M in paid search, won 30+ design awards, received 1k+ 5-star reviews, and have worked with almost every industry imaginable.