One of my copywriters asked me this morning: "Everything's gone down in November. What's going on?"
Is it because people are tired? Inboxes oversaturated? What is it?
It doesn't matter if you're e-commerce, B2B, or a charity.
November's when everything dips.
And there's a couple of reasons for it.
The first one is seasonal trends.
Black Friday is now consuming all of our attention. Whether you're in business or consumer (because people have lives outside their business roles), they're thinking about:
So the inbox is oversaturated with Black Friday deals. Everyone feels it's got to go on for three weeks instead of two days. Don't ask me why, but that's the way it is.
On top of that, you've got Thanksgiving, winter holidays, Bonfire Night, Christmas, New Year, etc.
Really, it's a fist fight from October onwards right through to January.
Keep on top of your unsubscribes and bounce rates
Can't emphasize this enough.
Check after every email send that they haven't suddenly gone up. That could mean you've got an IP sender problem. It could be that you're missing your target audience.
Check your new buyers
The people coming into your world.
That means keeping an eye on your welcome emails. Yes, I know your automations are supposed to be set and forget. But especially at this time of year, check who's coming through.
Because that has an impact on your conversion and sales rate. It also impacts whatever ads you're buying, whatever SEO you're doing, any collaborations you're doing.
So yes, always check your welcome funnel.
And yes, that means digging into the numbers.
Especially if you're in HubSpot or Klaviyo. What people tend to see is the aggregate. So if you've been running it for a year, you'll see the aggregate biggest stats. Which might actually be better than what you're seeing now this quarter.
Really dig into those reports.
And if need be, this is a good time to switch up and freshen your welcome.
The other side: abandoned carts and winbacks
If you're running an e-commerce shop, I expect you're already on this. You're checking these on a regular basis.
You are, aren't you?
But winbacks in particular is a really good time to focus. Because there's a lot of people that go: "Is there a discount? Can I get a better deal elsewhere?"
That's when they leave.
You run your abandoned cart. They still don't come back.
Don't necessarily neglect them.
As I said, it's a busy, busy time of year. And this is where really good segmentation comes in.
That's the art of putting your customers in buckets according to their actions, where you think they are, and what they need.
That really pays off.
Trying to do email blasts to your entire list probably aren't going to work.
However, target contacting people that are coming fresh into your world or just leaving your world? That will work. Because their actions mean you're already in their mind.
And that's what you're really after.
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Until next time!