The Only Cyber Monday Email I Actually Read

“You know it’s Cyber Monday when I have 41 emails in my Promotions Inbox”

–FranchiseHelp’s own Lauren Evans at 9:45 AM on Cyber Monday 2015.

Last year, I wrote an article entitled I got 7 sales emails on Thanksgiving. Here’s what I learned. I’m starting to think that the holiday season is a really good time to evaluate other company’s email strategies. It’s just so much easier to determine exactly it is the company is trying to get you to do. Content marketing and branding seem to give way to direct response and strong CTAs.

But back to this year and Lauren’s exclamation. I think it’s a given that everyone is going to get a lot of email on Cyber Monday. It wasn’t that that caught my attention. Rather, I was completely baffled by the fact that she had received 41 emails before 10AM! Logically, it makes sense. Cyber Monday is a single day event, so why wouldn’t you want to run your marketing as early in the day as possible to take advantage of the entire day. However, that logic is blind to one of the most overlooked part of email strategy – competition.

The relation to franchising is pretty obvious. If you design an email strategy based on the idea that the potential franchise is only considering opening your concept, you’re missing the boat. A savvy entrepreneur is going to consider numerous concepts, so your franchise better stand out.

But back to Cyber Monday. As I said in the title of the article, I only read a single Cyber Monday email. Here it is:

From:Bonobos Date: Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 7:00 PM Subject: A late-night offer.

Upon first glance, this Bonobos email is just like any of the other emails that you and I received on Monday. It’s a deal with a coupon code. However, I will almost guarantee you that this email was super effective for them. Why? They took advantage of the competition. The email was sent at 7PM with the subject line “A late-night offer.” As Lauren first pointed out, almost all of the Cyber Monday emails she got were first thing in the morning. Bonobo’s won share of mind against the competition by taking an uncompetitive time slot!

Once again, it’s a friendly reminder that marketing innovation is about taking chances. It’s not about doing what everyone else is doing. It’s about doing something different and measuring the results. Complacency is the enemy. Congrats Bonobos on an awesome Cyber Monday email campaign.