15 Best Practice Examples for Your Black Friday Newsletters
Check out these 15 ideas to get your Black Friday newsletters off to a creative start.
The Black Friday countdown is on! For e-commerce businesses, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) at the end of November are among the highest-selling days of the year. To make sure your deals also reach customers on this sales day, we’ve compiled a list of 15 examples of how other online stores use the occasion to offer special deals.
Every year on Black Friday, the servers get slammed with a ton of emails, thanks to all the special offers. On Black Friday 2023, our customers sent over 27 million emails—that’s up to 1,500 emails a second! How many will there be this year?
To make sure your newsletters stand out on Black Friday, here are our top tips with 15 sample newsletters that get a lot right:
Create Urgency in the Subject Line
Black Friday is only once a year, so make sure you mention that in the subject line of your newsletter. Expressions such as “last chance,” “today only,” and “just a few hours left” make the recipient feel like they’re missing out on something special if they don’t act now.
Sounds good? Read more about the sales psychology principle of scarcity and how you can use it successfully for your email marketing.
Subject line examples from well-known brands from the past year:
- WMF: “WMF Black Week ends at midnight!”
- medimops: “Don’t miss out on -15% in our 🖤 Black Week 🖤”
- Parfümerie Pieper: “Save up to 70% off ⌛ just before the end!”
- Mister Spex: “Save up to 50% – only while stocks last”
- eventim: “🖤🚨 BLACK DEALS: Over 80 top events at rock-bottom prices!”
- A QUIET HOME: “Our Black Week starts now!”
Download subject lines for your Black Friday newsletters
Are you looking for inspiration for creative subject lines for Black Friday? We have put together numerous ideas for you to download free of charge.
Encourage Customers to Complete Their Wish Lists Before Black Friday
Many shoppers use wish lists to keep track of their favorite products. Before Black Friday, remind customers to update their lists and browse the selection. If they fill their wish list before the big offers start, they’ll be ready to buy right away. Later, you can send these customers personalized Black Friday emails with the products they saved. This increases conversion, provides a better overview of purchasing interests and creates a particularly personalized shopping experience.
Parachute, a home textiles brand, is reminding its subscribers to fill their wish lists in time for Black Friday and is also getting people excited about the upcoming sale.
Pre-access for Newsletter Subscribers
You can give your recipients early access to the Black Friday sale. This will make your newsletter more valuable and will make your customers more loyal. If you give your customers access to special offers early, they will feel special and appreciated. Staggered advance access allows you to control demand, manage stock levels more efficiently, and cushion potential peak loads in your online store.
Use pre-access as an effective marketing tool to attract new newsletter subscribers. Just make sure to clearly communicate the early access to the Black Friday sale in the signup form on your website or online store. And don’t forget to spread the word on social media leading up to Black Friday. You’ll be able to drum up more recipients and boost your overall numbers.
Parfümerie Pieper is giving newsletter subscribers an exclusive VIP early access to Black Friday.
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Promote Certain Product Categories in Time for Black Friday
Does everything have to go? There’s no need to turn the whole product line into a super special offer. For example, you can only offer discounts on black colored products to match the occasion or put a certain category on sale.
For Black Friday, the Luis Trenker online store reduced the price of its current winter collection. Past collections were discounted even more.
[Newsletter setn with CleverReach 🧡]
More examples:
Screenshot: Beispiel-Newsletter von Vintage-Händler Rebelle 
Screenshot: Beispiel-Newsletter von Fashionette – es werden nur Produkte der Marke UGG am Black Friday reduziert
Customize Abandoned Cart Emails
Around Black Friday, many customers fill their shopping carts several days in advance but don’t complete the purchase. There are so many offers out there that it’s easy to miss the really good stuff. This is where optimized abandoned cart emails come into play: adapt your messages for Black Friday and send targeted reminders about abandoned shopping carts. A special Black Friday offer or time-limited discount can motivate customers to make a purchase. This allows you to convert abandoned shopping carts into sales and capitalize on the high level of attention surrounding shopping events.
The online store Pulp & Press has cleverly combined a reminder email about items left in the shopping cart with an expiring Cyber Monday promotion.
Before the Sale Is After the Sale
The time for online shopping starts even before Black Friday. A few years ago, it was common practice to sell all discounted products only on Friday, but now only a few customers wait for that day to do their shopping. It even seems that open and click rates are higher a few days before Black Friday than on Friday itself.
The online store Hafervoll started its Black Friday sale a week before the official bargain event and extended it until Cyber Monday.
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So, it’s definitely worth going into the pre-sale and advertising the first special offers before the competition does. It’s also a good idea to send newsletters to those who didn’t make it to Black Friday; Cyber Monday is the perfect chance to send a newsletter to everyone who didn’t open it, even after the Friday sale.
After Black Friday comes Cyber Monday: If you missed the Black Friday sale, don’t worry—Saturn has you covered.
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Be Special
It’s hard for smaller online stores to keep up with the discount wars of the big mail-order companies. It’s usually a deliberate choice to avoid making the brand seem “too cheap” to the customer. This can be a good thing for you because it makes a sale feel really special when it happens. Make sure you emphasize this in the newsletter. Your Black Friday sale is finally here, and we know a lot of people will finally use it to make that purchase they’ve been putting off.
The bag manufacturer Herschel sends out its newsletter with the message that Black Friday is the only sale of the year and grants a higher discount if the value of the shopping cart increases. This idea is also a good psychological sales trigger in addition to the sale with rarity value; the customer potentially spends more money in order to save more.
Use Reverse Sales Psychology
Instead of going on a Black Friday pre-sale, you can also actively discourage your customers from buying a few days before the event.
The furniture store Article says its customers shouldn’t buy before Black Friday. That’s really something!
Should you advise customers not to buy? Admittedly, advising customers to wait for a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale is a risky move. However, in the high-price segment, such as furniture sales, this strategy is smart in terms of customer loyalty, as demonstrated in the Design Händler newsletter. Customers appreciate even a small discount of 10% on an expensive product range — even more so if you, as the retailer, share this friendly “insider tip” with them. Customers will remember you positively and be happy to visit your store again in the future.
Combine Online and Offline
Have you planned a major campaign around Black Friday with a multimedia presence, including offline channels? If so, use your Black Friday newsletter to bridge the gap between the online and offline worlds!
The jewelry brand Astley Clarke skillfully combines the online and offline worlds in its newsletter, featuring a shot of its poster campaign announcing the Black Friday sale. It’s a successful example of a cross-media campaign!
Donations and Charity Work Instead of Black Friday Sales
Since the onset of the Coronavirus crisis, consumers have become more aware of sustainability. They now only purchase products if they are truly necessary. Additionally, consumption has become a political statement for many consumers — they want their purchases to have meaning.
If you value the environment and sustainability in your online store, you can make a statement, especially on Black Friday. The focus of the example newsletters below is still on sales. However, these are rarely associated with discounts, but rather with additional services from the store itself. Promotions such as “We donate €1 for every shopping cart” or “We donate 10% of your Black Friday sales to…” are well-received by environmentally conscious customers and can boost Black Friday sales even without discounts.
Newsletter fritz kola:
Related landing page:
Fritz kola is foregoing discounts for Black Friday and will even close its online store for the day. Instead, the company is presenting two charitable initiatives on a landing page.
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More examples:
Screenshot: Beispiel-Newsletter von armedangels 
Screenshot: Beispiel-Newsletter von Lanius
Creative Newsletter Ideas for Black Friday Success
Not all sales are the same. For example, any online retailer could send out a discount voucher in a Black Friday newsletter. With clever and unusual ideas, however, you can advertise your deals to customers in an even more eye-catching way. Experiment with different shipping times around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, or promote specific product categories. Combine these strategies with a good cause or a sense of urgency in your subject line, and your emails will stand out in your recipients’ inboxes, making your Black Friday sale a success!
Automated Black Friday Campaign
The best way to plan your Black Friday newsletter in advance is to use our smart email marketing automation. In our article “Black Friday campaign: email marketing automation wanted?” we show you step by step how you can set up an automated campaign for Black Friday and Cyber Monday with the help of our automation template.
Listen to even more exciting tips for successful Black Friday newsletters in the podcast
We were guests on the successful Handel 4.0 e-commerce podcast and talked to Jenny Ueberberg about the most important time in email marketing: Black Friday. We provide exciting insights and helpful tips for your perfect Black Friday email campaign. Listen in now!
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