Black Friday

The so-called Black Friday was created in the United States more than 40 years ago, but nowadays this shopping day has spread to practically every corner of the planet and nine billions of people around the world.

It comes up on the last Friday of November every year (just one day after Thanksgiving). It is a day where B2C companies make very attractive offers to increase their sales just before the Christmas sales campaign, in fact it is a day that many take advantage of to buy most of their Christmas gifts.

1. Origin of Black Friday

The origin of Black Friday has nothing to do with shopping; surprising, isn’t it? Most people consider that the expression Black Friday originated on Friday, September 24, 1869, when two Wall Street brokers (Jim Fisk and Jay Gould) tried to corner the entire gold market in alliance with a New York politician (Boss Tweed).

They failed in their attempt as the price of gold plummeted within minutes and many investors were ruined. That is why that day became known as “The Black Friday”.

2. The evolution of Black Friday

It was not until almost a century later, in the mid-1950s, when, according to the Telegraph newspaper, the city of Philadelphia collapsed on the Friday just after Thanksgiving Day, causing all of the city’s police officers to work 12-hour days to try to control the multitude of people who had moved to Philadelphia, which led to that day being considered “The Black Friday”.

The reason for the avalanche of people? Well… it was none other than an American soccer game between the army and the navy, which aroused great expectation and packed the city with people.

After that, the merchants of Philadelphia began to use the term to refer to the huge amount of people that went to the city’s stores the day after Thanksgiving.

Later the term Black Friday evolved and took on a more commercial meaning, due to the fact that many companies will sell more during a single day than in many months of the year.

Nowadays it has become the day that marks the beginning of shopping for the Christmas holidays. For this reason it has to be taken into account in any marketing plan and you have to plan well your email campaigns on Black Friday.

3. Keys for your email marketing campaigns on Black Friday

Good planning is often the difference between a successful Black Friday sales campaign or not. Therefore, you must take great care when sending mass mailings for this important date. To do so, take into account these recommendations:

• Plan your email marketing campaign in advance.
• Review the statistics of previous mass mailings.
• Select the KPIs you want to achieve with your Black Friday mass mailing campaigns.
• Check the health of your subscriber list and clean it up if necessary.
• Define the deal or offering you want to promote on Black Friday.
• Design a newsletter with calls to action and a simple layout.
• Run A/B Tests and… always have a plan B (other products).