Well, I survived another Black Friday writing copy for online course creators. 53 emails, 3 sales pages, 3 clients in done for you and then a dozen or so in group coaching.

It was intense. It was insane. And even though these promos are so profitable, I don’t want to write another Black Friday campaign again. But then… I said the same thing last year.

Rant over, now let me tell you what I’ve learned from Black Friday this year so you can take these lessons and improve your campaigns next year.

Lesson #1: Deliverability before anything else

This should be a regular part of your email marketing strategy, but even more ahead of a big launch or Black Friday.

A subscriber’s inbox is prime real estate and with the amount of emails they’ll be getting in the week of Black Friday, you want to increase your chance to actually get your email in their inbox (not spam, not promotions) and recover potential customers.

So if your open rates are low, if only 10% of your entire email list actually gets your emails, don’t waste your time planning for Black Friday before you fix your deliverability issues first.

Action item: Find out how good your deliverability is with an audit at deliverabilitydashboard.com (free and paid plans available)

Since deliverability is such a complex topic, you could benefit from watching this podcast episode recorded with deliverability expert Adrian Savage to get a better grip of the concept.

Lesson #2. Re-engage your subscribers ahead of time

This is an activity that’s part deliverability and part selling. The more subscribers you can re-activate before Black Friday the more prospects you’ve warmed up. More eyes on your offer, better chance to increase sales.

It’s also a great opportunity to train for the click. Give your subscribers value in these re-engagement emails and make sure to include something clickable so they can start to make micro-commitments leading up to your big sale.

This strategy holds so much potential.

For example, the team at Data Driven Marketing (the agency where I write and coach with) re-engaged one of our done for you clients before Black Friday. Turns out 17.6% of the Black Friday buyers were re-engaged subscribers.

Action item: Re-engage and clean-up your list a few weeks before the launch of your Black Friday campaign. Try to move as many people into your engaged segments and warm-up them up before sending promotions their way.

Watch this podcast episode from The Art of Selling Online Courses about running a re-engagement campaign. The guest is Martina Viljevac, the best project manager I’ve ever worked with.

Lesson #3. Tease your Black Friday early

It was usually the ecom brands that would be teasing their Black Friday offers one or two weeks ahead of the actual sale. This year I’ve seen big course creators teasing their offers and even running early bird offers two weeks before.

It makes sense. Many of the people who are actively interested in Black Friday will start to pay attention and even research what they intend on buying weeks ahead of the actual sale.

Lesson #4. Give early access to a select few

A very successful strategy ahead of Black Friday is creating a waiting list for early access. Some brands do it only for current customers, others open the doors to their whole list.

Sending early access or running a Flash Sale before Black Friday has really good potential if the offer is a no-brainer.

For instance, CopyHackers had an early Black Friday offer for existing members that went out mid November. I know, because I jumped on it as soon as it hit my inbox.

One of the course creators I coach at Data Driven Marketing used the waiting list strategy. 90% of his Black Friday purchases came from that list.

Lesson #5. For the love of God, use your social media

You don’t have to plaster your Black Friday discount all over your social media for one week, but do the minimum and at least communicate when it begins and ends. Not everyone who follows you on social media is on your email list.

Lesson #6. Got affiliates? Bring them in

This is such a great way to turn your Black Friday promotion into a very, very profitable campaign. Make sure you inform your affiliates about the upcoming campaign. It helps if you create a roadmap and give them the assets.

Take Thinkific for instance. In late October they had already released a roadmap so their affiliates had the best shot at making commissions. They even included a huge swipe folder with Black Friday messages that affiliates could include in their content calendar.

Lesson #7. Your website is not dead. Use it

The success of your Black Friday promo isn’t all in the email list. In most cases, your website is a premium asset and you should be using it to tease, nurture and redirect leads into your Black Friday sales page.

If you have a membership area, add a banner or a notification on the login page to inform non-buyers of your sale. Here’s an example from Optinmonster (I know, not a course, but course creators do use it).

There’s a lot more to say about Black Friday. I’ll probably update this blog post into a massive thread, but for now, this is the minimum to take into consideration as you prepare the next big sale.

Whatever you do, please, please send more than one email and make sure your email list is actually active. You’ll thank me later.