Cyber Monday Emails: Marketing Strategies to Get Inspired By

Cyber Monday is a big shopping event that falls on the first Monday after Thanksgiving. In 2020, it will be November 30. Originally, Cyber Monday aimed to encourage online shopping after the huge shopping marathon of Black Friday and Thanksgiving Sunday. This is why it’s actually called Cyber.

However, convenient online browsing and order making, advanced online payment, numerous local deliveries, international shipment have long turned Cyber Monday into just a regular sales event. And COVID-19 made even the most loyal offline shoppers go online. That’s good for businesses, but at the same time it eliminates the very idea of Cyber Monday as of online sales.

However, people (especially in the United States) expect brands to deliver Cyber Monday sale emails with offers and discounts, so marketers need to meet these expectations. And the main challenge here is to avoid merging of Cyber Monday emails with previous holiday messages, turning them all into one indistinct campaign.

Cyber Monday Email Subject Lines

A good subject line is what helps you succeed with any emails. The advice for a Cyber Monday email subject is the same as for the rest of campaigns:

Also, I would recommend to ensure that only the subject and preheader are displayed in the line. Pieces of copy shouldn’t step in as they make it all look heavy and steal the focus.

And now let’s take a look at what last year lines from my Inbox I liked. This year, they might be a kind of inspiration for you:

What Makes a Good Cyber Monday Email Campaign

Cyber Monday is a sales event, and as any sales event it allures customers with the following incentives that are common for all businesses:

Which one to choose depends on what you're selling. B2C ecommerces most often choose discounts and free shipping, while B2B companies opt for system updates, free subscription and access to advanced features.

You can combine several offers within one email or send a series of drip emails with a focus on one particular option. Start from the smallest gifts and raise your stakes with every new email. For example, for a series of 3 emails, offer a 20% discount in the first one. If it’s ignored, send a 20% discount + free shipping and if it’s ignored as well, make an ultimate offer with a 20% discount + free shipping + gift for a friend.

This is how such an automated workflow can look in the our system. Each email is sent after a day gap if the previous one is ignored. If the person performs the required action (which you set by yourself), they don’t receive the following emails.

And the next big question is how to make a user respond to your offers. You won’t be the only one sending Cyber Monday marketing emails with sales and gifts. Any holiday season is a time when inboxes are stuffed with promos of all kinds. A good email subject line, your sender name and satisfying previous interaction with your brand can generate an open, but a click is much harder to prompt.

So don’t rely much on the all power of the word SALES!!!!! Yes, it attracts attention but can't do the job on its own. A well-thought email design is what you also need to take care about.

Cyber Monday Email Template

First, you come up with the overall concept of your Cyber Monday campaign: offer type, content, copy. Next, pick the template that would fit it the best. It can feature a big banner, countdown timer, product cards, off-grid layout, animated buttons, etc. The main thing is that it should resonate with how you see your campaign. If you feel like you need inspiration, check Cyber Monday email examples and see how other brands coped with the task.

By the way, these are two of our ready Cyber Monday templates you can use and edit in the our email editor for free. All you need to do is to fill it with your content and adapt to your corporate design. The rest (size, proportions, dapping, spacing, containers, etc.) is already covered. For more options, go to Gallery and select the one that fulfills your particular needs.

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And now, when you’ve decided upon the template, comes the best part about email creation – the design itself. Hope you remember that your task is to stand against other Cyber emails so unleash your creativity. Holiday promo campaigns are the best place to implement the most innovative and crazy ideas and design techniques. Below, I’ll share some of them, and you choose what makes a good match for your offer.

Off-Grid Layout

A standard grid is a layout built in the way the user expects it to see. Headlines and text are centered, product cards are given in 3-column rows, blocks and containers are split by separators.

Boring to someone, it’s actually user-friendly and ensures convenient navigation through emails. However, an off-grid design is what makes interaction unpredictable, ignites curiosity, requires more focus, and gets people to engage with your message.

Folks at Herschel know that asymmetric design makes emails more dynamic (and this is exactly what you need to for your Cyber Monday email marketing). Background and text color contrast is also well thought, and different text styles and size make the absence of images unnoticeable.

Rollover Image

A rollover is an effect that changes an image in the email to another one when it’s hovered over.

Visually, it looks like animation but you don’t need to deal with GIFs or HTML: two images are enough to bring in dynamic vibes.

A rollover effect can be useful when you need to display a product from different angles or in different settings. Fashion ecommerces often use it to give a general outlook of the piece and to show how it looks like on a real person.

You can also apply a rollover effect to a CTA if you create them based on images. This way, your buttons would like CSS animation.

In our platform, you can add a rollover effect to emails straight inside the editor by enabling the corresponding option. When uploading the second image, make sure it’s of the same size as the first one. Otherwise, the rollover image would look distorted.

Learn More

How to add rollover images to an email

AMP Carousel

To go even further with images, you can opt for an AMP carousel. This feature will let you create a kind of a slide kaleidoscope that can include several images within one container.

Such functionality can help give your product a better display, and it can be especially useful for non-material services and events you’ll be offering in your Cyber Monday emails. One image can be not enough to transfer the mood or visualize all details while a set of images allows more options.

In Sputnik, a ready AMP block is already built in the editor. You simply drag it to your template and fill with your content.

Learn More

How to create an AMP carousel

Animation

An animated element makes emails look more appealing and dynamic. I would recommend focusing on one item instead of animating the entire background. It can be a promo code, a gift box, or a bit of glittering over any piece of your products.

Gamification

Gamification is an approach that engages users into interaction with your content in a game-like mode. Wheel of fortune, hidden prizes, mysteries, and different kinds of tasks aim to ignite anticipation and generate clicks.

You’ll be probably sending discounts on Cyber Monday but don’t put them up front. Let people perform a simple task like play a game, solve a puzzle or spin a wheel to gain their prize.

Countdown Timer

When you deliver time-limited offers, the best way to remind about it is to add to an email a countdown timer. But be sure to send such emails in advance: people should have time to consider it and decide if they’re interested. Sending a campaign with a timer 1 hour before its expiration isn’t the best idea, especially if you send to a new audience who isn’t familiar yet with your products.

Also, don’t forget to check the timer. The time should correspond to that shown on the website. If you mention it in the subject line (Hurry up! Expires in 2 days), double-checking is also needed.

Color

Cyber Monday is an extension of Black Friday and is therefore associated with its main color – black. Most campaigns you’ll receive on this day will be black or black and white. For contrast, consider opting for a more diverse palette: bright colors can give your emails that exclusivity you’re looking for.

Nice Cyber Monday Email Examples and What to Learn from Them

Take a look at the folks who have got the job done and what helped them in doing so.

Dr. Martens

Key elements:

Funnel Bear

Key elements:

J.Crew

Key elements:

Alternative

Key elements:

Adidas

Key elements:

This is it. You have some food for thought while preparing your next Cyber Monday campaign. Also don’t forget to take care about follow-ups for those users who will respond and become your new customers. A proper welcome and onboarding will help build one-time buyers into life-long friends.

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