11 Ways to Build Your Email List for Black Friday

Black Friday is coming. You may or may not be thinking of campaigns or have them done already, but who are you sending those campaigns to? 

90% of people who buy online during Black Friday and Cyber Monday opened an email from the brand before the holidays started. Add to that the less than 20%, 8-week customer retention rate for most industries, and you have a need for fresh, engaged email addresses prior to the holiday season. 

Here are 11 ways to build your email marketing list for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Use Popups

You probably already have popups on your site, but make sure you are getting the most out of them by using both welcome and exit intent popups. To optimize for Black Friday signups, tell customers email subscribers are the first to hear about sales and discounts and possibly offer early access to sales.

Need help? Here are a few popup resources.

Complete Guide to Exit Intent Popups with 16 High Converting Examples

How to Use Popups the Right Way – 8 Unique Uses

Use RAEK

RAEK builds first party data customer profiles on your website visitors and tags unknown visitors for identification. The profiles can include name, email address, postal address, and other identifiers. You can transfer the profiles to your ESP for Black Friday Email Marketing and use the profile to build lookalike audiences on ad platforms. 

Profiles are for unknown visitors are built once they have been identified on the RAEK network. Allowing you to grow your Black Friday email list at a faster rate.

RAEK offers both free and paid plans and installs on your website in less than 5 minutes. 

Run a giveaway or contest

Giveaways, which have a conversion rate of 34% are a great way to build your email list for Black Friday. The shareability of most giveaways and contests increases reach exponentially. Yes, some people will sign up purely for the giveaway and then churn, but you will see overall list growth. 

Partner with non-competitive brands in the same space. 

Partner up with a non-competitive brand in the same space as you. I.e. if you sell sleeping bags, partner up with a brand selling camping cookware. Both brands promoting the giveaway gives you access to a whole new group of customers.  

Offer Early Access

People love early access to sales, especially Black Friday sales, where products have a higher likelihood of selling out. Tell people email subscribers will receive early access to your sale. You can even build anticipation by building a dedicated landing page for Black Friday early access signups. Sign up to be the first to know, builds FOMO and excitement.

Use Quizzes

Quizzes are great email list builders, but they also build first party data  which you can use for email personalization. Personalized emails perform better across the board than non-personalized emails, making the data extremely valuable when you’re competing for inbox views during the holiday shopping season.

For more information, read:

First-Party Data Collection for Small Businesses

Host an Event

Host an online event related to your products or your brand’s mission. This both builds your email list by requiring an email address to attend, but it also builds familiarity and trust in your brand, your products, and what you stand for.  

Offer Loyalty Points

Loyalty program participants are some of the most engaged subscribers. Offer Black Friday incentive points for signing up for the program. Don’t forget to mention loyalty members receive early access. Offering points up front also allows you to send out personalized emails inviting subscribers to spend their loyalty points on Black Friday.

Encourage Email Referrals

Include referral links in all your emails asking visitors to invite a friend to join the list. People are already doing this as they often forward things their friends will like, reward them for doing it with an email referral program. You can incentivize sharing by offering discounts or free product for referrals. 

Leverage Social Media

A brand I follow often teases that something new is coming before a launch and states that email subscribers will be the first to find out and have access. They then share the link to their email sign up form. Do the same on all your social channels, teasing your Black Friday sale. Drive people to a dedicated landing page for sign up. 

Live Chat Opt-in 

Many brands have live chat to help customer find what they need and answer questions. Set the live chat to automatically ask people if they would like to be added to your email list, either before or after they chat with someone. 

Wrapping it Up

Hopefully we’ve given you some ideas about how you can grow your email list before the holiday season. Having an engaged email list prior to the holiday shopping season can help you save on paid advertising costs.

Need more ideas?

Black Friday Marketing Strategy

39 Black Friday Email Subject Lines that Get Clicks

Black Friday Email Examples

Here’s a list of 38 Creative Ways to Grow Your Email List. 

How to Use Email Marketing to Spend less on Paid Advertising

Are you building first-party data? With RAEK you can build first-party data customer profiles on your website visitors. Profiles you can use to build targeted audiences, create lookalike audiences, and grow your email list. 

Get started for free.