The Ultimate Guide to Black Friday and Cyber Monday Emails for Stellar Jewelry Sales

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday make up the busiest shopping weekend of the holiday season, and they’ll be here before you know it. These are crucial sales days for jewelry designers and business owners everywhere.

That means there’s going to be competition – and lots of it.

You need to be fully prepared for Black Friday with an email marketing strategy that will make your brand stand out from the crowd and create a sense of urgency so your customers can hardly wait to buy.

Whether you’re doing a virtual trunk show on Facebook, an Instagram livestream sale, or just selling on your website, the right email strategy is essential to raking in your best Black Friday sales numbers yet.

Don’t let this fall to the back burner – the sooner you start planning, the better!

I’m not trying to scare you. Every year I love helping hundreds of jewelry designers and small business owners crush their Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales goals and create massie success stories.

So If you still don’t have a Black Friday game plan, I’ve got you covered with these easy to implement tips that will ensure stellar jewelry sales (and they’re procrastinator friendly).

TIP # 1: Create a Black Friday Offer Based on Jewelry Inventory and Production Time

Before we can jump into your email marketing strategy, you have to hammer out the details of your Black Friday offer so you can identify how much time you’ll need to promote and market your products online.

Implementation is the first detail to consider. The last thing you want is to make promises you can’t keep, which is why it’s important to take your inventory and production time into account.

When someone says “sale,” you’re probably going to think of a sitewide discount. But those should be used sparingly and only for important periods like the Cyber Weekend, your business anniversary, a birthday, etc. 

There are tons of other types of offers you should consider using instead of or in tandem with basic discounts.

• Tiered Savings – the more you buy, the more you save.
• Bundle Offers – combine popular products often bought together into a bundle and sell at a discounted price.
• Gift with Purchase – every purchase over a certain price gets a free gift.
• Buy One Get One – this one’s pretty self-explanatory.
• Grab Bag or Sample Sale – a sneaky way to purge old inventory.
• Free Shipping – at the end of the day, everyone loves free shipping.
• …and if that isn’t enough, here are 9 ways to package up your offer for Black Friday & Cyber Monday.

A killer Black Friday offer must be time-sensitive, meaning it builds a sense of urgency and scarcity that motivates people to buy your products.

That could look like offering a limited number of items, one-of-a-kind pieces, multiple expiring offers, or anything else that gets people excited to whip out their credit cards. 

What’s most crucial to this is that your Black Friday offer actually feels special for your customers. If you’re always hosting sales and discounting your product, they’ll come to expect that from your brand and it will be a lot harder to drum up excitement.

One of our favorite options for jewelry designers on Black Friday is a Virtual Trunk Show. Try a Virtual Trunk show to boost your holiday sales 100% online. And if you need proof that this works, read about Jeana & Jarod’s Black Friday trunk show that brought in $8200 in 4 days! 

Stuck between a few different ideas for your Black Friday sales? Here’s how to test & pre-sell your Black Friday offer.

Tip # 2: Plan Your Email Marketing Sequence

The fact of the matter is, your customers can’t shop your Black Friday event if they don’t even know about it. 

Your email marketing sequence can make or break your promotion. People are busy and Black Friday is a highly competitive sales day. Your email list will need plenty of reminders and day-of incentives so your brand stays at the top of their shopping list.

With the right email templates, email copy, and catchy subject line – you can easily uplevel your email marketing and connect with your customers.

If you don’t have a list, drop everything you’re doing and learn how to build an email list for your jewelry/e-commerce business. It’s essential to a strong online brand presence.

The Best Time to Send Black Friday Emails

Your Black Friday emails should be the kick-off of your holiday email marketing plan, and timing is everything. Here’s our guide to your Black Friday Email Timeline:

• 2-3 weeks before – Tease your Black Friday promotion in the P.S section of your marketing emails.
• 10 days before – Send a teaser email for an inside scoop to the upcoming deals.
• 7 days before – Share your first official announcement email.
• 4 days before – Deliver a second announcement email.
• 1 day before – Send the third announcement email.
• 1 hour before – Make sure they didn’t forget with a quick reminder email.
• Day(s) of Black Friday promotion – Send multiple emails throughout the promotion that create a sense of urgency and get your customers to buy NOW.

Of course, this is just a general outline. The exact timing and volume of your emails may differ depending on the nature and duration of your Black Friday offer.

What I will say is this: don’t hold yourself back on your Black Friday emails because you’re afraid of annoying your customers. 

The people who signed up for your email list did so because they love your brand and your products. Anyone who doesn’t will just unsubscribe – and that’s okay too! 

A few loyal fans who buy your products all the time are so much more valuable than lots of prospective buyers who rarely engage.

Consider this the beginning of your holiday email marketing campaign – you’ll want to continue to be consistent in your email communications with your audience all the way through December!

Tip # 3: Use Catchy Email Subject Lines

Every business owner knows getting customers to even open your emails is half the battle. 

Boosting your email open rate is always a challenge, especially around Black Friday when your customers’ inboxes are probably flooded with other brands.

I hate to see a designer pour care and detail into beautifully crafted email copy, only to write a headline like, “Black Friday Sale.” For all your dream customer knows, that email could be from Walmart. 

A generic subject line like doesn’t tell the reader anything about your offer. Other issues include; a lack of urgency, no deep connection to your brand, and doesn’t speak directly to your customers’ interests. It’s time to push yourself to get creative, think outside the box, and create subject lines that will get your email audience excited to click on your message and read.

How to Write Black Friday Email Subject Lines

Like any skill, writing grade A email subject lines for Black Friday takes practice. Here are a few exercises you can try to get those brilliant ideas flowing.

• Write 5-10 different email subject lines and pick the best one.
• Brain dump key words you know your customers will resonate with.
• Take note of the email subject lines from other brands that would get you to click. Why are they effective?
• Have a bit of fun! Use emojis, all lower case letters, and think of ways to surprise and delight your audience. 
• Subscribe to big brands’ email lists for ongoing inspiration.
• Flip through magazine headlines and try to repurpose the wording for your customers.
• Keep them on their toes. Think of ways to create urgency in the subject line.

…or you could always grab our Emails that Sell Bundle and use one of the 600+ email marketing subject line prompts included + eye-catching email templates.

Pro tip: A/B testing is your friend here. Have fun and play around with your Black Friday email headlines. 

Tip # 4: Add Upsell Incentives to Your Black Friday Offer

You know how grocery stores always put candy right by the checkout lane? You never intentionally went to the candy aisle. But now that it’s right in front of you…you might as well grab a Snickers, right?

That’s a simple example of an upsell. You can do the same thing with your jewelry products during Black Friday. And email is a great way to do it.

An upsell is introduced once someone is ready to buy, or even after they’ve placed their order.  One cool email strategy you can try is sending them a 60-minute-only offer! Before putting the order together, send an email offering them one last chance to get the upsell. 

Something like this, 

“Before we package your order, we thought you might want to add this necklace… it matches the (offer/bundle) perfectly so we’re giving you a 20% discount, but only for the next 60 minutes!”

It’s urgent, it’s relevant, and it’s sure to boost your average purchase value.

There are lots of other ways to upsell your customers on Black Friday. Think about emails or offers you’ve seen when online shopping. What worked for you? Was it a discount, a way to get free shipping, access to an exclusive item, or retargeted advertising? 

Important note: if you’re going to upsell in an email sequence, you will need an email provider that allows you to “tag” contacts on your list. Once a customer buys from your Black Friday email promotion, they’ll automatically funnel into your upsell email sequence.

Tip # 5: Use Your Black Friday Emails to Drive Your Social Media Marketing Plan

The biggest mistake I see jewelry and creative product brands make during Black Friday and Cyber Monday is underselling their marketing.

I get it, you might be worried about bothering people with your emails, promotional content, social media posts, etc. But the most important thing you can do for your business is to create great online content and market the heck out of your Black Friday promotion.

Your email marketing should support your social media marketing strategy, and vice versa. 

One excellent way to do this is to create an offer that’s exclusive to your email list or VIP list. That way, you can create a posting schedule that drives customers to your email list and creates FOMO for those who don’t join.

Here’s an example of a social media post schedule that creates a sense of urgency and builds your email list:

• 2-3 Weeks in Advance: Start teasing your Black Friday promotion weeks in advance. Drop hints that there will be something special in it for your email list.
• The Week Of: The week of the promotion, announce what your email list will be getting when the promotion starts.
• The Day Before: Build urgency the day before the promotion for people to join the list.
• Hours Before: Right before the promotion starts, create a “last chance to get on the VIP list” post.
• Several Days After: In the days after Black Friday weekend, thank the people who participated, post some recaps from the event, and let anyone who didn’t join your list know they missed out.

Promotional content should always be padded with know, like, and trust content. That goes for both email and social media content.

If you’re promoting all the time, it will lose its impact. Most of your content should be geared toward guiding your customers along the buyer journey and building brand affinity that warms people up for important online shopping events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Tip #6: Start Building Your Email List and Never Stop

The number one point of failure in a Black Friday promotion is a lack of planning. Get people excited in advance, promote the heck out of your offer, and observe what your audience reacts to.

Building your audience before your event AND preparing your existing audience are both super important to pull off a successful online sales promotion.

Essentially, I’m saying you should start building your email list now and never stop. Growing your audience is a year-long endeavor that pays off big time every time you launch a sale.

All that being said, the lead up to Black Friday is an especially good time to be growing your email audience, because people are on the lookout for great deals on products they love.

There are so many fun and engaging ways to do this, and creative people like you are always coming up with new strategies for establishing your brand and getting people excited.

5 Ways to Build Your Email List Audience as a Small Jewelry Business

• Grassroots Marketing – there’s no shame in relying on your network of friends and family to start getting the word out.
• Referrals – create incentives for customers to refer people they know.
• Content Marketing – write SEO content that pertains to your customers’ interests.
• Paid Advertising – for when you have your Dream Client dialed in.
• Strategic Collaborations – cross-promotion partnerships with brands that are similar, but not direct competition.

And when it comes to your email list specifically, I’ve spent a lot of time covering how to create compelling email list lead magnets for jewelry brands. 

Tip #7: Don't Panic About Your Promotions

If the idea of planning out your entire Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday promotion feels daunting … don’t panic! 

We’ve got you covered with our Ultimate Holiday Sales Machine bundle, including a done-for-you Black Friday/Cyber Monday marketing calendar, email marketing urgency plan, and more: