The Perfect Sale Email Campaign Series

Planning for an upcoming sale? Be sure to have your email strategy locked in. For best results, we recommend sending more than one email. Depending on the duration of the sale, we also recommend sending at least one follow up email. Extending the sale for one day can even make a huge difference in total conversions! We broke it down into steps we believe create the best route to take when bringing your customers a sale!  

See below for Milked Media’s tried and true sale email campaign series:  

1. Early Access to VIPs (if applicable)

This should include all details of the sale and emphasize that the recipients are getting access before everyone else! Be sure to thank them for their loyalty! To up the ante, create a sense of urgency and state when early access will end, opening up the sale (and selling-out products) to the rest of your audience.

Send only to your top customers. Identify these by your loyalty program, or by creating the following segment of email subscribers:

• Placed Order is at least (2-3) over all time

• OR Revenue is at least (2-3x AOV) over all time

• AND Person is not suppressed for email

2. Initial Sale Email

Announce the start of your sale with a captivating hero image and all of the deets—promotion(s), discount code(s) and duration! Include a product row or two if you’d like to suggest items to shop, but it’s best to keep each sale email fairly short and sweet.

Send to the following segments: :

• Engaged once over all time

• Repeat Buyers

• Potential Purchasers

3. Sale Reminder

Remind customers of your sale with a sense of urgency in the subject line. For example, “Time is running out,” “Shop 20% off while you can”, etc. Keep the body of the email similar to Email 1, always including all sale details. Though we suggest keeping the content minimal, you can always test out a gif header image to increase Click Rate.

Send to the following segments (excluding purchasers from the send time & day of Email 1):

• Engaged once over all time

• Repeat Buyers

• Potential Purchasers

4. Last Chance

Sense of urgency is the name of the game for the final email of this series. “Sale ends tonight” is a great example of a subject line and/or phrase to utilize within the copy of the email. Let your customers know this is their last chance to take advantage of the amazing deal you’re giving them–especially if another sale like this won’t happen again soon.

Send to the following segments (excluding purchasers from the send time & day of previous email):

• Engaged once over all time

• Repeat Buyers

• Potential Purchasers

5. Sale Extended

Though it will be a surprise to your customers, this is still something that should be strategized. If you opt in to extend a sale, we recommend using brief and attention grabbing copy. “Surprise!” and “20% off for one more day” are great places to start. 

Send to the following segments (excluding purchasers from the send time & day of previous sale email):

• Engaged once over all time

• Repeat Buyers

• Potential Purchasers

Pro tip: This could also apply to your SMS strategy!

Depending on your brand’s AOV, the actual sales you can run are endless. A few of our favorite “sale staples” are BOGO, tiered discounts based on spend/# of products purchased, discounting specific categories of products, and an extra discount on a sale collection (aka “Sale on Sale”).

Mixing the right promotion, a thorough email series, and an effective paid social ads strategy makes for the perfect sale. Decide which tactics work best for your brand and enjoy the revenue, brand awareness & loyalty to come!

READY TO TALK ABOUT an email strategy for your BRAND?