Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is a great time for businesses and consumers alike. Businesses get to sell in higher volumes, and consumers get to take advantage of great deals.

Adobe Digital Insights collected data through Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2016 to reveal that online sales were in the range of $13 billion![1] The number was bigger in 2017 and is expected to still be higher in 2018.

Now if you’re running a business online or involved with e-commerce marketing, you definitely want to get in on this action! You want to attract people towards your brand during BFCM to get them to buy from you.

One of the best tools available to communicate with your audience are emails, but it can be somewhat challenging to break through the clutter. As you’re probably aware yourself, inboxes tend to get hammered with emails regarding Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

This is why we’re showcasing 4 excellent examples for BFCM that are attention-grabbing, and if you take a page from their book you’re bound to get higher click-through rates and stand above your competition.

#1 Lucky Brand: Fear of Missing Black Friday. The time is now.

What the Email Is: A Black Friday discount email showcasing types of discounts being offered by Lucky Brand. Uses sharp images around a black and white theme and the choice of font accentuates the youthful nature of the brand.

The Good: First thing I noticed about this email is the multiple CTAs (call-to-action buttons), which is an uncommon practice. Most marketers advice to keep emails simple with as few CTAs as possible, but in the case of Lucky Brand. They’ve used it as a wonderful tactic.

Given that they’re a clothing brand with discounts in multiple categories. It makes sense to have CTAs for each category, further sorted by men and women’s section. This way the reader can choose which discount is relevant to them, and then be redirected to the page of their choice.

The email also works because of its excellent design. Though it is a small email, different sections (images, body, footer) have been arranged in a manner that makes the email easy to navigate.

Takeaways: If you’re offering multiple discounts on Black Friday, you can add multiple CTAs in your email but remember to keep the email neat and clean.

#2 Tanner Goods: Enjoy 20% off Danner, Dehen, and TG Essentials

What the Email Is: A Cyber Monday email by Tanner Goods that invites its readers to take advantage of their deals. A small email that starts with a graphic showcasing the primary offer then shows a catalog preview, followed by the email footer.

The Good: This email stands out on its virtue of brevity. The brand does a great job of catching your attention by starting the email with a graphic that shows 20% off. Once you know what type of deal they’re offering, you can learn more about the type of items the discount applies to. They show 6 season relevant catalog items that their readers may find interesting.

By this stage if you like what you see, you’re obviously going to want to visit their website. Pre-empting your needs, they put a CTA button right under the catalog preview to facilitate your journey through the email. The whole experience of the email becomes fluid.

Takeaways: If you understand the way people scan through emails, even a simple email with elements placed in the right spots can be very effective in driving click-through rates.

#3 Grammarly: 55% OFF Annual Plans – TODAY ONLY

What the Email Is: A ‘Cyber Savings’ email by spell-check app Grammarly which offers a 55% off for its users if they opt for an annual subscription. Email uses a single graphic and 2 body sentences, leading to a call-to-action button.

The Good: First admirable thing about the email is its title ‘A deal of cosmic proportions’. The title implies a bigger than life value proposition to its readers. Obviously, everyone knows it’s an exaggeration but it does a good job of catching the reader’s interest.

The second good thing about the email is the coherency of body text to the title. Poorly designed emails can have great titles or catchy subject lines, but once you read the email the body text often skews away from the subject. A great subject line and a title are followed up by disappointing body copy.

In Grammarly’s case that is not true. They do an excellent job of justifying the title with text that explains the discount with a humorous analogy, claiming it is so good it’s from another dimension.

Such consistency in text causes the least amount of dissonance to a reader and they are more likely to visit Grammarly’s website through the CTA.

Takeaways: Email content should be relevant to email subject and title. A consistent message is more likely to convert readers to visitors and an inconsistent message is likely to irritate readers.

#4 Casper: zzz what’s inside

What the Email is: A Cyber Monday discount offer email by Casper; a home bedding brand. Email uses a single blue backdrop as an effective contrast against a cleverly designed image and some crisp copy.

The Good: This is one of my personal favorite Cyber Monday Emails. I instantly smiled at the clever image design. The symmetrical gift wrapped letter Zs show that with their brand Casper, sleeping also becomes a thing to celebrate. The whole vibe of the email makes you feel cozy. To complement that mood, they also use a light font with white color for text.

Another admirable thing about this email is the flow. When you start reading, the first thing that catches your attention is the $150 discount, followed by the subject of the email ‘The Gift of Sleep’ which hints to the content of the email. To complement the subject is the Zs graphic. By this point, the reader is fully primed for the main message and is definitely more likely to click on the CTA.

Takeaways: You don’t have to have emails loaded with content to stand out. You can use well-designed graphics to make your mark in readers’ inboxes.

To design beautiful emails and manage your email lists, check out MailMunch; a tool built specifically to grow your email lists and help automate email marketing for you.

If you’re looking for further inspiration, check out this guide for Mailchimp templates to learn more.

1 Becky Tasker, “2016 Holiday Shopping: Up-To-The-Minute Data From ADI,” CMO.com by Adobe: Digital Marketing Insights, Expertise and Inspiration – for and by Marketing Leaders, November 9, 2016, accessed October 29, 2018, https://www.cmo.com/adobe-digital-insights/articles/2016/11/8/2016-holiday-shopping-up-to-the-minute-data-from-adi.html#gs.ET0zaYk.