#1 - The 'Slightly' Late BFCM Run Down

Greetings, and welcome to our first edition of the Chronos newsletter.

In this newsletter, you’re mainly going to be hearing from myself (the other Joshua), Mira, as well as Miles.

We’ll be talking about all things email, what we’re seeing with client campaigns, as well as (maybe) spilling some tea about how it’s like to work at Chronos.

Basically, we’ll be your eyes and ears of what’s going on in the space, bringing you up to date info, and not some dated strategy that expired months ago.

A short introduction about myself. I’m Joshua Foo, a Senior Retention Marketing Manager at Chronos. 

I’ve been with the team for nearly 4 years, managing a team of up to 9 marketing executives, 15 accounts and 35 services. Some of the brands I’ve worked with include Truly Beauty, Prism+, Swee Lee, Organifi, you get the idea…

A random fun fact before I start the ‘lesson proper’ - I’m a hugeeeee fan of fashion. I’m talking keeping up with the latest trends, checking out try-on hauls, and spending my day-offs shopping (it’s all about the layers baby).

Also, I think I’m on my 37th binge-watch of Friends. 

‘Could I be anymore obssesed’ (IYKYK)

Now let’s talk about how the team preps for BFCM.

I know we’re about 10 days from the actual day. Your campaigns SHOULD already be running and the $ should be coming in, BUT I thought it may be useful to give you the high level, so you can implement some last minute changes, or prep for Christmas.

List Utilization

List utilization is an internal metric our team uses. In essence, it’s the number of subscribers we’re actively mailing out of the entire list. It’s not ‘the more the better’ though - it’s a thin line you have to thread, mixing your engaged and disengaged, like riding a unicycle across a tightrope.

BFCM is a time where you like to broadcast to more people than usual. This includes multiple re-engagement efforts, whether in the form of a VIP early sale, or even to your disengaged segments. 

Goal here is to identify how many more profiles we’re able to reach, and thus (hopefully) convert, whilst still maintaining healthy deliverability

Here’s an example of how we track it:

Eg: Warming up unengaged list of subs
Include - Churn or Lapsed Segment, Seasonal Shoppers, Canceled Subscriptions, No purchases
Exclude - Disengaged last 365 days/2 years

2) BFCM Pop-Ups

Think your potential customer has the attention span of a goldfish? Well that attention span is EVEN SHORTER in BFCM.

That’s why we don’t beat around the bush with pop-ups.

We acknowledge that they’re likely there because of BFCM, and tease them with a special gift/discount to hop onto the list. And aim to convert after.

Short. Punchy. To the Point. 

P.S. If it’s a special offer, you typically want to create a new list + work on a new customer acquisition flow to nurture these leads differently. Remember, they’re here for one goal, and one goal only.

3) Sending Cadence 

For SMS, we send 1 SMS a few hours before BFCM starts, as well as 1 SMS every other day during BFCM

For emails, we do 1 HTML email daily during BFCM, and 2 retargets daily (splitting between non-openers and non-buyers).

4) DO NOT TEST

If I had a dollar for every brand and agency that did this during BFCM, I would be a multi-millionaire, and not a slave Strategist over at Chronos.

Please. BFCM is NOT THE TIME to be testing new things. It’s about putting your best foot forward, and taking what has already been proven and working to rake in as much $ as possible.

The word testing should not even cross your mind during this period. 

5) Overall benchmarks; aim here

They say to shoot for the stars, and you’ll land amongst the moon (or wait, was it the other way round?).

Welcome Flow
> 50% open rates
~10% click rates
Higher than (your) average CVRs

It’s the worst kept secret. Your customers are in peak buying mode. So leverage this to make your numbers go up.

Cart Recovery Flow
> 50% open rates
>10% click rates
10%+ conversion for entire flow

Browse Recovery Flow
>50% open rates
~5% click rates
~2% place order rates

6) Want to do a ‘surprise sale extension’? Maybe reconsider

I know, who doesn’t like more $ right?

But we’re seeing so many of those now, that it feels like customers are starting to dislike them.

Ultimately, it’s up to you, but we’re starting to do less of these.

Also, over-communicate your discounts, deadlines, and shipping times to your customers. They’ll love you for it.

7) Design Inspirations You Can Draw From

I could keep going, but they say that seven is the magic number, so…

I’ll leave you with a couple of BFCM designs that you can draw inspiration from:

And that’s a wrap! 

Episode one of our first newsletter, no pressure right? 😅

I love to hear what you thought, what you’re currently working on, as well as how we could make this even better (just hit the reply button!).

Hope you’re already having an awesome BFCM 🍻

J