BFCM Do’s and Don’ts For 2026

Hey it’s Max from The Inbox Newsletter.

Black Friday is 16 days away… and most brands are either already dialed in or scrambling to pull it together.

So today I want to run through 8 do’s and don’ts for Black Friday that we’re following so you can audit your plan against them. Want to make sure you’re not leaving money on the table during the biggest sale week of the year 😉 

Let’s get into it!

DON’T wait until Black Friday to actually launch your Black Friday offer.

The brands that crush Black Friday have had something out for weeks already.

Early early access, early access, VIP previews… there’s always a reason to get the sale in front of subscribers before the official launch, and every day you wait is a day your competitors are warming up your list for you.

Get something live early and ride the urgency all the way through.

You should have an offer live right now (in my opinion).

We’re seeing incredible early numbers for our brands.

DO run warm-up content in the weeks leading up to the actual sale.

The brands that always have the biggest Black Friday launches are the ones that spent the weeks before conditioning their list to expect it.

Waitlist sends, “something’s coming” teasers, behind-the-scenes looks at the new products dropping… all of it builds anticipation so that by the time the actual offer goes live, your subscribers are already primed to buy.

Treat the weeks before Black Friday as the on-ramp, not the quiet before the storm.

If you don’t have an offer live, start doing this.

DON’T send to just your engaged list.

The biggest mistake I see during BFCM is brands sticking to their 30-day engaged segment the whole week because they’re scared of deliverability tanking.

Which doesn’t make sense because BFCM is the one time of year where your dormant subscribers actually want to hear from you… the offers are strong enough to pull back subscribers who’ve been quiet for months.

Send to your whole list for most of your sends during BFCM week. You’ll recover more revenue than you’ll lose on deliverability and gain it all back after the season anyway.

DO update your pop-up forms to have the Black Friday offers in them.

You’re about to see the most site traffic you’ll get all year, so this is the window where every new subscriber should be hitting a BFCM-specific pop-up and dropping into a welcome email that leads with the sale.

This is one of the easiest BFCM wins and we use Alia across pretty much every brand we run for this exact reason… you can swap pop-up forms in and out for BFCM in minutes and roll them back the second the sale ends.

Highly highly recommend them.

DON’T worry about over-sending during BFCM week.

During the actual Black Friday / Cyber Monday push, we’re sending 2-4 emails and 1-2 SMS per day across our brands.

Which sounds crazy if you’re used to a normal cadence, but your subscribers expect the volume during this week and the brands that undersend are the ones that quietly bleed revenue every year.

Push the volume!!!

DON’T go heavy on graphic-based emails during this period.

Your design team is already slammed and the data just doesn’t back up spending the time… plain text-based emails crush during BFCM because the inbox is already overloaded with branded graphic sends.

And when you do send a graphic email, keep it dead simple. A hero with the offer front and center and one big button is honestly all you need.

Save your team’s energy for the sends that actually matter.

And funny enough… the text based emails often perform the best.

DO resend the same email with a different subject line and preview text.

This one is going to save your creative execution during the busiest week of the year.

Nobody on your list is tracking whether you sent the same email twice, and the resend will hit every subscriber who missed the first send without you having to write anything new.

For us the rule is simple: if the first send converted, the resend will too.

DO simplify your graphic emails to just the offer and the CTA.

BFCM isn’t the time for long storytelling emails. Subscribers are here for the offer and you need to hand it to them fast.

Which is why the best-performing BFCM graphic emails are dead simple… a bold hero section that clearly spells out the offer, a single big CTA above the fold, and maybe a few featured products underneath.

For us the rule is: make the offer the hero, keep the copy minimal, and let the design do the talking.

And that’s the full list!

Audit your BFCM calendar against these 8 and dial in anything that’s missing before the week kicks off.

BTW, I share insights like this every single day in my private community which you can find here.

Email Inspiration Of The Day

Brand:
OTR

Email Design:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O8tfcvngCPXlqyt256wQch3tQSiGKZn0/view?usp=drive_link

Notes:
Am I the only one who loves memes for hero design? If your brand is playful, worth to test out!

Reply to this email if you have any questions or further content you want covered.

Cheers,

Max Sturtevant | Well Copy

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