In today's tough marketing landscape, with increased (and increasing) ad costs, your customers are your #1 asset. Most brands aren't taking full advantage of their existing customers. On the other hand, some brands are going too far, neglecting the customer experience and hurting their reputation in an effort to maximize revenue. Today, we're going to cover how to thread the needle this Q4 and find the perfect balance between maximizing revenue and keeping your customers happy. We'll share exact strategies and insights you can take back to your team to finish the year strong.
To maximize revenue this Q4, you need to maximize revenue through email and SMS marketing while keeping your customers happy. Your customers are your #1 asset and investment—not your ad spend. Email and SMS marketing is the foundation of marketing, profitability and growth. The difference between good and great email/SMS marketing is the difference between being a successful brand in five years or going out of business next year. Having a beautiful, Italian marble countertop doesn't matter if your house is made of cardboard. Email and SMS are the marketing channels to your existing customers and should be just as high a priority as acquiring new ones.
Email and SMS are the 20% input that drive 80% of your profitability.
The Five Key Strategies for BF/CM and Beyond
This Q4, it's more true than ever. Ad costs are going to be at all-time highs across all channels, from Facebook to TikTok to TV. Consumers will be more mindful of how they spend their money, but that doesn't mean they will stop spending entirely. It just means the best marketing will win.
Take back control by doubling down on your customers. Acquire the best customers with the best customer acquisition possible, and then don't leave money on the table on the backend.
The difference between good vs. best-in-class email/SMS marketing:
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TOFU Spend -> Site: 95% don't buy, 80% abandon, 70% never buy again.
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With Email/SMS: 25% more convert, 25% less abandon, 25% more buy again = $$$
Case Study: Our Client
We took a client who hired us in February from $250k/month in email revenue to $750k/month, and then to over $1 million per month from email alone. We found the gaps (which are different for every brand and I'll go over today). From there, we execute as an extension of their team.
Top 5 Must-Have Strategies for BF/CM this year and the mistakes to avoid:
1. Maximize Your Segments
When it comes to BF/CM, most people start with the offer and content and then never think about who and how many people are actually going to see it. If you email twice as many people, you might not generate twice as much revenue, but you will generate more. There are so many fine lines to walk when it comes to segmentation, but you want to do a few things:
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Open up the list so you are emailing as many people as possible.
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Warning: Don't open it up too much. You'll end up in the spam folder and with poor deliverability as you head into the rest of the holiday season, which will hurt your revenue. Determining your list allocation is key.
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The other thing to be aware of is emailing inactive subscribers post-iOS 15. If your segments aren't set up correctly, you will email inactive subscribers and be hurting your deliverability without even knowing it. It’s an unnecessary cost.
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Exclude purchasers from your BF/CM segments, especially if your offers are getting better throughout Q4. Nobody likes getting a bigger discount days after placing an order; it leads to a poor customer experience.
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Don't limit yourself to targeted segments. E.g., emailing a VIP segment of 10k subscribers instead of your entire list of 500k will leave money on the table. If you want to treat VIPs differently, personalize the creative or send it a day or two before, but still send that message to your entire list.
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Unengaged subscribers who you no longer target as your core subscribers might be great Q4 buyers. Don't forget to add these customers into your marketing mix again. This is especially true for brands that have a strong gifting customer base.
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Don't forget about your SMS segmentation. The same rules apply. Don't be afraid to open up your segments to a larger list. It'll cost more to send to more people, but you'll see the results.
2. Invest in Premium Creative
During Q4, every marketing channel becomes massively crowded, especially the email and SMS inbox. Premium creative is a necessity to stand out. This should be a no-brainer, but so many brands are still treating email and SMS creative as an afterthought.
Today, with all the competition, you need to be using creative to:
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Stand out and capture attention in the crowded email and text inboxes.
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Leverage your brand equity to get the sale. You need more than a good offer to win; you need attention and desire.
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Clearly communicate your offer and get them out of the inbox, away from the competition (direct and indirect), and onto your site.
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Pro Tip: Don't call your Black Friday sale "BF/CM Sale" or "Q4 Sale" consumers don't really know what that means.
3. Increase Your Send Volume
A lot of brands "don't want to be annoying," so they email and text their lists as little as possible. There is a reason Old Navy is in your inbox twice a day during this time of year: it works.
During the holiday period, there is so much volume that even the best subject line isn't going to get opened if it's buried by 100 other emails. We advise our clients to increase their send volume by at least 50% during November and December, including up to twice a day during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. From our 8+ years of holiday data, we know that brands that send more, make more revenue during this period.
Quality, not just quantity, is also important. If you are sending bad emails and SMS, more volume isn't going to help. Open rates and overall engagement decrease in November and December, but it doesn't mean your revenue has to. 40% of the revenue we drive for clients is typically generated in Q4. Of course, this varies depending on the client, industry, and so on.
4. Optimize Your Automated Flows
It doesn't matter if your annual revenue is $10 million or $100 million. We have clients who do both, and when they came to us, they were both running Abandoned Cart emails from 2019. This doesn't just mean the latest best practices are lacking. It also means the branding is outdated and leads to a bad customer experience that is significantly less engaging.
This year, outdated, under-optimized automated email/SMS flows are not going to cut it. You will leave revenue on the table, and it will hurt your overall marketing performance. Revenue from automation is either your strong foundation or money left on the table—the house of cards your entire marketing is built on.
Ahead of BF/CM, we work with our clients to optimize flows across the customer journey:
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Conversion Flows: Abandoned Cart, Browse Abandonment flows. These flows help you get more revenue from your existing traffic and customer base at a very high ROI. They need to be optimized ahead of Q4 and, in some cases, optimized for your holiday sale itself so your offers are cohesive.
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Retention Flows: Cross-sell, Repeat, Win-back flows. Don't acquire customers in Q4, the most expensive and competitive time of year, then let them go to waste. Instead, allocate your budget to agency support if needed to make sure you're getting the maximum LTV. If you're building post-purchase flows in January, it's too late.
5. Integrate Your Email and SMS
There is no "email marketing" anymore. There is only "email and SMS," and if you don't have both working together, your performance will leave more to be desired, and you might not even know it. If you haven't launched SMS, do it ASAP and be sure to integrate it into every aspect of your strategy.
Why This Year Is Actually Different
We could keep going on forever with different strategies and tactics you need to have the best Q4 yet. Either way, you can't "grow and hope" like in previous years. Between the economy, increased competition, and worsening performance from ads, best-in-class email and SMS is no longer a "nice to have" but an essential "must-have."
Claim a Complimentary Q4 Email & SMS High-Level Audit
With Q4 right around the corner, there's no time to waste. Wavebreak is offering a limited number of complimentary "mini-audits" for qualifying brands. This audit will reveal a brand's biggest revenue opportunities and what might be holding them back from having their best holiday season yet.
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Dylan Kelley is a recognized leader in CRM & Lifecycle marketing and the founder of Wavebreak, a leading agency driving retention growth for some of today’s fastest-growing consumer brands, including Curology, Nutrafol, and 50+ others.
With deep expertise in building and scaling lifecycle programs, Dylan has taken brands from 0 to 1M+ subscribers and manages 500M+ monthly sends across multiple verticals. His work focuses on designing and executing personalized customer journeys that not only engage and retain but also unlock powerful revenue growth.
Through his leadership at Wavebreak, Dylan has helped dozens of brands transform CRM from an overlooked channel into a primary growth engine delivering measurable results, fast.
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