Email Promotion Secrets to Crush Your 4th Quarter Sales Goals

It’s pumpkin spice latte season 🍁🍂🎃☕🍂🍁! And you know what that means – it’s the biggest sales season of the year for small businesses: 4th Quarter.

This time of year, your customers are not only opening their emails, they’re actively seeking out compelling offers and great deals. They’re primed to make quick purchasing decisions and in the mood to buy. 😎 💸

Yes, we’re talking about Black Friday, but we’re not just talking about Black Friday. And yes, offering discounts is the most common strategy, but it’s not the only strategy.

Whether you’re selling courses, offering services, or running a small online shop, there’s a Q4 email strategy with your name on it. 

We’ve been in the trenches testing Black Friday and Q4 email campaigns for 8 years now, and we’re laying it all out on the table – the good, the bad, and the surprising, to help you crush your year-end sales goals.

We’re also sharing a framework for planning your campaigns to help you make this your most successful 4th quarter yet.

But first, be sure to grab our free Email Sales Toolkit before we dive in to help you put it all into action. 👇

Now for some tea 🫖 …

Q4 Email Promotion Strategies: What Worked For Us and What Didn’t

Before we pull back the curtain, keep in mind that every business and every market is different. The big takeaway, of course, is that you have to test things out to know what will work for your business and your audience, but hopefully the following gives you some helpful insight. 

Successful Q4 & Black Friday Strategies 

🙌 New product launches
Absolute gangbusters. Introducing new products in the 4th quarter works so well for us, we often “hold products back” from launching until the timing is right. The seasonality of your business may be completely different, but we think this works for us because we have a pretty sophisticated business audience. They’re all about having the latest innovations, tools, and strategies. 

🥳“Black Friday Only” specials on products we don’t discount at any other time
Our audience goes wild for these. In fact, we suspect that people wait to purchase certain products until the holiday season knowing we usually have a special deal for our subscribers.

For us, the winning formula has definitely been exclusive deals not available any other time of year.

Q4 & Black Friday Strategies that Flopped

😭 Putting everything on sale
No bueno. We think it’s because there are just too many options to choose from and that’s overwhelming to our audience. We’ve always had better luck with focused offers and messaging. 

Also, we’ve come to learn that our audience (awesome business owners like you) are looking for strategic investments to level up without breaking the bank, not just stuff that appears to be “on clearance.”

😩 “Kitchen Sink” Bundles of our “deep-inventory” products

Meh. This looked good on paper and we were so excited about it, “Why not pull together a bunch of our products that we don’t promote as much? We could create a “theme” and position it around a specific topic or goal!” 

We worked hard on the messaging and we loved it, but it just didn’t fly. It just goes to show you that you never know until you try. 

If we had to guess, we think this didn’t work for us because people often buy a bundle so they can get that one really special thing – and we weren’t including any of our best sellers in the bundles.

🤯 Offering different deals every day during Black Friday week

Never again. This seemed clever to us at the time, but it was way too much effort for too little return – it just wasn’t focused enough and our audience got confused and frustrated. 

The same goes with offering multiple different products in the same email… we think it’s just too much mental work for people to process so they wind up not choosing anything at all.

The verdict? Focusing on creating one killer offer works better (for us, at least) than having multiple “pretty good” deals. That way you can make your messaging laser-focused on that one great offer which is a huge aspect of a successful promo. It also simplifies things for you and makes it much easier. 

I’ll say it one more time for good luck – what works for us might not work for you, you’ve got to give it a whirl and see how your audience responds to find your own magic formula.

Don’t Sleep on December – It Isn’t Just for Gift-Giving!

Here’s something that surprised us about December! We used to think it was all about gift-giving and not ideal for our business, but we tested December promos and it turned out to be one of our best months. (Always test your assumptions!) 

Remember the customer journey. It might feel like the marketing you’ve been doing all year long “isn’t working,” but many potential customers have been noticing and considering what you have to offer. The end of the year often provides the final push needed to make a decision. 

Whether it’s businesses looking to get their expenses in before the end of the year for tax purposes or people eager to start the new year with a bang, there’s just a built-in sense of urgency in the air and for the season that drives sales.

Capitalize on Your Customer’s “New Year, New Me” Mindset

As the year winds down, people start thinking about investing in themselves. That “new year, new me” mindset kicks in and they’re thinking about:

• Gaining new skills or knowledge

• Committing to personal or professional growth

• Getting organized and boosting productivity

• Improving their health and wellness

• Setting fresh goals and achieving them

Imagine the possibilities! 

This is perfect timing for just about any business to show up with something special to help your customers end this year strong or kick off a fresh, new year.

If you think running seasonal promotions isn’t for you, you really just need a good theme and you’re off to the races. 

How about… 

“Beat the New Year’s Rush” promo for a fitness or lifestyle businesses.

“New Skills for the New Year” promo for coaches or course creators.

“Winter Wellness” or “Holiday Stress Buster” packages for health and wellness professionals.

“2025 Goal-Setter” packages for coaches or planning/goal-setting digital products.

If you’re stumped for ideas because you have a tricky niche, why not ask ChatGPT to brainstorm some concepts with you? I’ll bet you’ll get a spark of inspiration you can run with. 

The Framework for a Killer Q4 Email Promotion

1. A Compelling Offer

This could be:

   • A significant discount on your most popular offering

   • An exclusive bundle

   • Early access to something new and exciting

   • A limited-time service package

👉Do you need to discount? Not necessarily. If you don’t want to make it cheap, make it special. Consider adding value in the form of exclusive, limited-time bonuses. 

2. A Dedicated Landing Page

Be sure to include: 

   • A clear description of your offer

   • A countdown timer (FOMO is real!) 

   • Testimonials if you have them

   • FAQs to address common objections

   • Clear, can’t-miss-it call-to-action buttons

3. An Email Sequence

Here’s what works for us:

   • (Optional): A teaser email a day or two before the promotion starts to build buzz and get people looking out for your announcement 

   • The big announcement email that includes what it is, the discount, and details about the deadline

   • 2-3 reminder emails highlighting different benefits and addressing objections

   • A last-chance email to create urgency a few hours before your promotion ends

Maximizing the Black Friday Weekend

If you’re running a 🗓️ Black Friday promotion (Fri, Nov 29, 2024), don’t forget that you also have:

🗓️ Small Business Saturday (Nov 30, 2024)

🗓️ Cyber Monday (Dec 2, 2024)

🗓️ Giving Tuesday (Dec 3, 2024)

This means you can stretch your promos out over multiple days. 

You can even throw in some surprising twists like a new bonus added or donate a percentage of your sales to a charity you love as part of Giving Tuesday. 

Your Q4 Email Marketing Action Plan

As you plan your Q4 email strategy, remember these key takeaways:

1. Focus on creating one irresistible offer rather than multiple mediocre ones.

2. Don’t underestimate December – it could be your best month.

3. Don’t wait until the last minute to gather up everything you need. You want to have fun with your promotions and not feel stressed out and hurried… 

And for that, we’ve got a gift for you! Grab our free Email Promotion Sales Kit here: 

Inside you’ll get:

• The 9 “must-do” strategies for effective email campaigns, including what to include in each email and how to boost conversion rates – without being salesy

• Use the planner to get a 10,000-foot-view of your next email promo, what you will offer, how many emails you need to hit your sales goals, and how to increase urgency

• Keep track of your sales so you can scale what’s working and repurpose your best promos for even more sales later on – with no extra effort!

• A 16-point checklist to keep handy for your next promo – these can make or break your sales and you don’t want to forget them!

Now, over to you… 

We’d love to hear what you’re thinking of trying this Q4. Leave us a comment and let us know: What’s your biggest question about running a Q4 promotion?

Let’s make this your best Q4 yet!