Email is a significant driver of revenue for many businesses. During Black Friday, the conversion potential of emails becomes even more pronounced as customers are on the lookout for the best deals from their favorite online stores.
It goes without saying that preparing your email list for Black Friday should be at the top of your priority list ahead of the holiday sale. But if you’re not sure where to start, I’ll provide some simple email growth strategies you can apply for your BFCM campaign.
Let’s begin.
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Building Your Black Friday Email List: Tips for Pro Users
Set Up WPForms for Email List Building
First things first, you’ll need to install and activate the WPForms plugin on your WordPress site. Once that’s done, follow these steps:
- Go to WPForms » Add New in your WordPress dashboard
- Choose a form template (the Newsletter Signup Form template is perfect for this)
- Customize your form fields (at minimum, include an email field)
- Set up your form notifications and confirmations
- Configure your form settings, including connecting to your email marketing service.
Remember, simplicity is key. The easier you make it for visitors to sign up, the more likely they are to do so. Start with just asking for an email address, and you can always gather more information later.
These are the basic steps you need to start collecting emails with WPForms through signup forms.
In the next sections, I’ll go over different types of forms and strategies you can use to build your Black Friday email list.
1. Simple Newsletter Signup Forms
A newsletter signup form is one of the oldest tricks in the book of a digital marketer. The idea is simple: you put a signup form on your website’s popular posts and pages, and let people sign up so they can receive more of your exciting content.
Creating custom newsletter forms in WPForms is easy. You can use the pre-built newsletter form template as-is or as a starting point before making further changes. For instance, it’s a good practice to add microcopy within the form to highlight your value proposition.
Here’s an example. I used the newsletter form template and added the Content field, which lets me simply type in some copy into the form.
There’s no HTML required to insert content or media into your form. The Content field is a WYSIWYG editor that makes adding microscopy incredibly easy.
When you’ve created your form, feel free to embed it in different areas of your site. For instance, you can add it at the bottom of your popular posts, sidebar widgets, and the footer of your site to give visitors the maximum chance to subscribe to your newsletter.
Once you launch Black Friday, you can then send your promotional offers to these subscribers directly via your email campaigns.
2. Signup Form With Discount Incentives
Nothing gets people to sign up faster than an exciting discount or deal. If you want to add a boost to your email collection strategy, you can make an attractive discount offer your main value proposition.
This, again, is something that’s very easily taken care of with WPForms. Using the Coupons Addon, you can create a custom coupon code and use it as an incentive to get more people to sign up to your list.
For example, here’s a 50% off coupon code I created.
You can check out this guide on BFCM coupon codes if you’re looking for inspiration.
The next step is to display this code to the subscriber as soon as they submit the signup form. WPForms gives you a few options for this, including sending the coupon via email and providing it inside the confirmation message on the form (or both).
I prefer using both options at the same time to ensure the subscribers do not miss the coupon code. You can simply mention the coupon code in the confirmation message and notifications from their respective settings in WPForms.
Finally, you can use the Coupon field inside your order or checkout forms where you want to apply the discount. The subscriber can then enter the discount code they received from you at signup and claim the discount as they checkout.
With an exciting signup discount, your new subscribers will naturally expect even bigger and better deals for Black Friday. So make sure to have something special for your Black Friday email list!
3. Capture Emails With Popup Forms
Conventional signup forms are effective, especially when you’re a recognized brand or content creator with a healthy fan following. However, building your list can be a little slow if you’re only embedding your newsletter forms inside posts and widgets.
Sometimes, you need the power of a popup form to grab the visitor’s attention. Ahead of BFCM, generating your email list like this can be particularly effective.
OptinMonster is one of the best tools for creating popup forms for newsletter subscriptions. It also integrates with WPForms, so you can turn any form you’ve built with WPForms into a popup element. Here’s a guide on creating WordPress popup forms that explains this in more detail.
Remember that popups work best when they’re used strategically. No one wants to be pestered by a popup as soon as they land on your website.
Instead, I recommend using Exit Intent popups, which are much less invasive and can be very effective at collecting emails when a visitor is just about to leave your website. OptinMonster gives you a lot of control with its display rule settings, so you can trigger your popup form based on precise user behaviors.
These forms can be a great asset for your Black Friday email marketing strategy.
4. Checkout Form Optin
Online stores frequently have a newsletter optin box on checkout. This is a relatively simple but effective way of encouraging newsletter subscriptions while a customer is ready to make a purchase on your store.
You can add a Checkbox field next to the Email field of your checkout form to let customers join your list.
Since customers are already interested in purchasing from you, a signup option in the checkout works wonders for creating a targeted list of active customers.
And if they’ve ordered from you once, they’re likely to order again, especially if you target them with Black Friday marketing emails during the peak holiday season.
Collect Emails With WPForms Now 🚀
Syncing Your Forms With an Email Marketing Service
When you start capturing emails on your WordPress form, you can view entries from your dashboard to see all the emails you’ve collected so far.
But these people still need to be added to your email marketing tool so you can send them your newsletter and promotional offers directly to their inbox.
This entire process can be completely automated by integrating WPForms with your email marketing service. All the popular email marketing tools like Constant Contact, ConvertKit, Brevo, ActiveCampaign (and lots more) connect with WPForms with straightforward, native integration processes.
So whenever a person fills out your signup form in WordPress, they’ll automatically get added to your email marketing tool. That’s how all pro marketers manage their email signup programs (including ourselves).
Bonus Tips for Black Friday Email Marketing
You’re now familiar with the essential Black Friday list-building strategies. But once you get comfortable, you can take things to the next level with these bonus tips:
Using WPForms Conditional Logic for Targeted Sign-ups
One of the most powerful features of WPForms is its conditional logic. It’s a versatile feature that has more applications than I can cover here, but you can use it to segment your audience right from the signup.
For example, you could ask what product categories they’re most interested in, and then tailor your Black Friday emails to their preferences. You can easily configure WPForms to segment your list using tags, groups, lists, and other similar options depending on the particular email service you’re integrating your forms with.
This level of personalization can significantly boost your conversion rates both at sign-up and when you send out your Black Friday offers.
Creating Irresistible Lead Magnets
Earlier, I talked about offering incentives to boost your email capture using discount codes. But that’s not the only list-building strategy you can use for Black Friday.
People love free stuff and discounts. And there are various ways you can turn your offers into a powerful lead magnet.
Here are some ideas for Black Friday-themed lead magnets:
- Early access to your Black Friday deals
- A Black Friday shopping guide for your niche
- Exclusive discount codes for subscribers
- A chance to win a popular product in a pre-Black Friday giveaway
When creating your lead magnet, think about what would be most valuable to your target audience. What problem can you solve for them? What insider knowledge can you share?
The more value you provide, the more likely people are to sign up, engage with your emails, and stick around.
Nurturing Your New Subscribers
Getting people to sign up is only half the battle (admittedly, a very important half!). To ensure people remain engaged (and eventually buy from you on Black Friday), you need to nurture these new relationships strategically.
The specifics of the strategy vary for every business and the industry you belong to. But in my experience working across SaaS and eCommerce sites, here are a few things I’ve found particularly effective:
- Send a warm welcome email/onboarding series immediately after signup
- Deliver your promised lead magnet or value proposition right from the first email
- Use a smart mix of value-driven content with more helpful tips and less promotional content
- Gradually introduce your products or services
- Build anticipation for your Black Friday deals well ahead of the holiday season.
Remember, the goal is to build a relationship with your subscribers. Don’t just bombard them with sales messages – show them why they should care about your brand and your offers. If you can do that, sales will naturally follow when Black Friday comes.
Next, Kick Off Your Black Friday Preparations
Black Friday planning can be quite a challenge for marketers. If you’re struggling to create an outline of your plan and figure out the necessary steps, see this BFCM checklist for ideas about how to organize your Black Friday marketing plan.
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