• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, October 31, 2023

It may be too late to tell you this, but make sure your email program is geared up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Email is by far the most popular channel with consumers for communications during that weekend, according to Black Friday and Cyber Monday Are A Big Deal (Pun Intended), a study released Tuesday by Sinch Mailgun.  

Here's the proof. The shoppers surveyed prefer: 

• Emails — 68.9% 
• Social media — 22.1% 
• Text messaging — 19%
• Online advertisements — 16.5% 
• Brand/retailer websites — 14.2% 
• TV/radio — 13.2% 
• Deals websites — 12.6% 
• Direct Mail — 11.4%
• Push/In-app notifications — 10.9%

But get those offers out now.

Consumers want to hear about Black Friday-Cyber Monday deals: 

As soon as possible — 35.5% 

One month before — 21.2% 

Two weeks before — 17.9% 

One week before — 19.6% 

The day before — 5.8% 

Shoppers also want reliable transactional messages sent via email and SMS. They say these are:

• Very important — 42.3%  
• Somewhat important — 38.1% 
• Not very important — 12.8% 
• Not important at all — 6.8% 

But the study advises senders to consider using subdomains to separate marketing campaigns from transactional emails. 

“This way, transactional messages, which usually have a higher deliverability rate, won’t be impacted by any dings to your sender reputation caused by your marketing emails,” says a blog post on the study by Em Blitstein. 

Don’t ignore SMS. “Even with an email-first approach to your Black Friday communications strategy, it’s not a bad strategy to double down and introduce mobile messaging notifications with your most loyal customers or when sending these important transactional updates,” the study notes. 

The takeaway? “Heading into this year's shopping season, we expect to continue seeing email as a vital communications channel,” says Kate Nowrouzi, vice president of deliverability at Sinch Mailgun. “For brands to have maximum impact, they should prepare beforehand to ensure maximum deliverability and engagement by validating email lists, personalizing messaging and developing content that resonates.” 

In addition, brands should make sure their campaigns are designed for mobile viewing, Nowrouzi says.

Sinch Mailgun surveyed  2,072 consumers in the US, UK, France, Germany, and Spain on September 26-27, 2023.