Every brand knows that the holiday season is the busiest shopping time of the year, and is an opportunity for marketing campaigns to drive massive results.

But did you know that between Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, over 300 million emails are sent? And advertising costs during this time only skyrockets.

Given the steep competition and all those special offers customers are receiving in their inboxes, what are you going to do to stand out of the crowd? How are you going to win over customers amidst all the noise?

Two words: Customer Segmentation. 

If you aren’t segmenting your customer base properly, then you’re missing out on creating personalized experiences for your shoppers. And personalized experiences = higher conversions and better results.

This year, the data team behind Segments has put together the top 5 customer segments and marketing strategies to maximize your BFCM revenue and boost engagement. We’ll first go over the customer segments and why they’re important, then jump directly into actionable marketing strategies you can implement today on these specific segments.

Top 5 Customer Segments for BFCM 2022 Backed by Data Science

If you are already a Segments customer or decide to trial our app during BFCM, you’ll find these customer segments already pre-loaded into your dashboard ready to sync to your email platform and marketing channels. 

Segment #1: Customers who purchased within the last 30 days

According to our data analysis across millions of BFCM sales, 52% of BFCM revenue actually comes from returning customers – customers that have purchased from you in the past.

This segment is important because our research found that around most of these returning customers had actually made a purchase within 30 days before Black Friday.

Segment #2: Customers who purchased in the last 30-90 days

This customer segment is similar to the one above. The only difference is that now you’re targeting customers who purchased more than 1 month ago but no more than 3 months ago. 

The messaging here can be slightly different since more time has lapsed since this customer interacted with your brand.

Segment #3: Customers who purchased last BFCM

These are customers who made purchases during last year’s BFCM. This segment is important because it targets all the customers that you already know are interested in BFCM offers.

Here are some other suggestions to try if you wanted to segment these previous BFCM customers one level deeper (note: these 3 suggestions are not prebuilt segments in the Segments platform, but you can easily build these segments yourself):

• BFCM (Discount level)
  You can filter customers by the different discount codes you offered last year. This way, you know that you’ve already validated your discount amounts and can capture as much value as possible.
  
  
• BFCM (One Timers)
  Filter for one-time customers who bought during BFCM 2021. You know they have only purchased once, and that the first and last time they purchased was the last BFCM.
  
  
• BFCM (High Value MVPs)
  Filter for BFCM 2021 customers in the Segments Builder and set RFM to MVP, High Value, and High Spend new. These are customers who spent the most during BFCM 2021. You know they are big spenders, so you can 1) reward them for it, and 2) offer them bundled deals or higher price items.

Segment #4: Top 5-10% CLV customers

This segment is your top customers by Customer Lifetime Value – they are your MVPs! (note: Segments CLV is a 2-year forward-looking predictive calculation based on your customers' past purchase behavior).

The top 5-10% CLV customers are people who have already spent a lot with you and are predicted to spend even more in the future. They are most likely the people who say good things about you and you should reward them for it! 

Segment #5: High Retention Cohort Customers

High retention rate cohort customers are customers in a cohort with a high retention rate. If you’re unfamiliar with cohort analysis, it’s basically grouping customers into cohorts (in this case by month).

How we find this segment is by calculating the retention rates of all your first-time customers between January 2021 and October 2022. We then filtered customers by the top 3 months based on retention rate.In a nutshell, they are a group of customers that are calculated to have the highest retention rate.

BFCM 2022 Marketing Strategies and Tips

Remember, with Segments, you can sync all the customer segments mentioned above directly to your email marketing platform, SMS partner, and ad channels (Meta Facebook, Google, TikTok). Now, let’s onto the actual strategies.

Email and SMS marketing ideas and examples

Send advance notice “Save the Date” BFCM offers and tease your offers

‍Create an email or SMS campaign targeting these recent buyers. Let them know in a personalized way that BFCM deals are just around the corner. Make them feel rewarded for having already purchased from you recently –  include messaging that since they bought recently, they are a VIP group getting advanced notice of special deals.

Apple did a great job teasing their one-day only shopping sale with this “Save the Date” teaser.

Grant early access and make them feel special

‍Just like the strategy above, this makes your customers feel rewarded for already being your customer. Get them excited about their early access to your special offers.

tweeks cycles and deborah lippman both granted their previous customers early access to great deals.

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Offer tiered discount incentives

Check out this example from bridal brand Cocomelody. They sent out a “Save the Date” email offering tiered discount incentives depending on order size. This is a great way to increase customer spend and Average Order Value.

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Create multi-item bundles

Our data team found that BFCM on average has 35% higher Average Order Value (AOV). A multi-item bundling strategy may be a good idea as an offer type to generate higher order values and more revenue.

Tone It Up offers bundles at a discount, so customers feel like they are getting even more value!

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Add a mystery offer

Who doesn’t love a mystery gift. Offer the mystery gift as a tiered reward like Loot Crate. 

Or just straight up offer them a mystery gift as a bonus.

Throw in a bonus gift or gift set

Who doesn’t freebies. Incentivize customers to spend more to unlock free gifts.

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Share the love with the gift of giving

Maybe your customers are shopping for their friends or family. Create campaigns that highlight the giftable nature of your products, and send to recent (last 60-day) purchasers. 

For example, if a customer bought a specific product 45 days ago, suggest they buy the same item again as a gift. Include reviews or press clips about the product to make them feel good about their own purchase in addition to its suitability as a gift.

Nicki’s Diapers sent their customers a gift guide explaining which products are suitable for gifts.

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Advertising ideas and suggestions

Beyond just email marketing and SMS strategies, we’ve consulted with our advertising partners on their suggestions for BFCM 2022 advertising strategies.

Here’s a brief synopsis of their suggestions:

• Design lead generation campaigns for non-subscribers. Incentivize them to join your email list and receive early access to sales.
• Build traffic / brand awareness campaigns for subscribers letting them know about upcoming products & sales.
• Devise campaigns targeting keywords like “Black Friday deals x {your brand name}”.
• Create conversion campaigns target churned customers and entice them back before BFCM with a special offer and highlighting some happy customer reviews.
• Create lookalike audiences (1-2%) using High Spenders, MVPs, or Loyal Customers to prospect for similar customers and build your database.

Ready to have a massive BFCM 2022? Then use our 5 supercharged customer segments built by our data scientists and implement some of our suggested strategies. See the results for yourself. 

Don’t forget to also read our latest 2022 BFCM data deep dive, where we cover our findings and insights from analyzing millions of BFCM orders. 

Not a Segments customer? We’re offering a special 30 day extended trial! You will have 2x the amount of time to start sending highly targeted personalized marketing campaigns. This is a limited time only for new signups only.

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