Make Flash Sales A Regular Part Of Your Marketing With Real-Time Updates In Email

A lot of brands rely on email to promote sales and to pretty good effect. But, chances are you still miss a bunch of your readers in the process. One or two emails promoting a flash sale can grab some attention, but it’s not always guaranteed to really move the needle.

And then what happens if you need to make a change to the sale? You might not have the time or bandwidth to generate a new email and get it out to your list when you need to.

What you want to do is find a way to make your sales stand out and reach your customers with the most up-to-date real-time information. 

One way to fix that is through flash sales. Here’s what you need to know about them.

What are flash sales?

A flash sale is when a brand offers a big promotion or discount for a short period of time. Usually, flash sales are held online and have limited product availability. 

You might use a flash sale to clear out some old inventory to make room for a new shipment or sell out of season items. The big draw of a flash sale is the discount and the time limit. It’s almost perfectly suited to tap into your customer’s FOMO, fear of missing out. 

A flash sale is one of those instances where if a customer doesn’t buy, they won’t be able to again; the product is gone.

Good examples of flash sales include Black Friday and Cyber Monday. These both provide limited windows to offer deep discounts on products. Once the day passes, the deal is gone. But flash sales can be as little as few hours too.

Research also shows that customers respond to flash sales. A study showed that flash sale emails had transaction rates that were 59% higher than usual emails during similar periods. 

Ways to showcase your flash sale

Are you sold on flash sales yet? Ready to try one out on your own? Good.

Right now is the perfect time to start making flash sales a regular part of your marketing efforts. They are easy to highlight and promote in your emails. The best way to do that is through a modular email system that features dynamic content blocks. 

As you can see, there are a number of places you can include sale information in your email, from notification banners to various content blocks. Plus, with different content blocks, you can personalize the messages customers see and in what emails they see flash sale information.

With an email like this, you have a variety of opportunities to promote your flash sale — even in emails not dedicated to the sale. 

Notification banners

For example, you can promote the deal using a notification banner at the top of any email you send during the event. 

From newsletters to package tracking updates, using notification banners always ensures your customers are getting updates on what’s happening with your sale event.

Countdown timers

What makes dynamic content special is you can use live-images to give your customers real-time moment-of-open updates to your sale as it’s going on. 

Use countdown timers to tick down the hours left in your sale. Rather than seeing a static image, your customers will get a real-time countdown every time they open their emails. It helps make sure they see only the most accurate timing information. 

Real-time updates

With dynamic email content, you can actually update the information on your sale, including offers and inventory, in real-time — even if you are in the middle of your sale. 

You can also make tweaks and updates to the copy on your emails. If you know that you’re down to the last few items in stock, you can change the messages your customers see based on that information. 

Dive into flash sales

With dynamic content blocks and live images, you have the ability to turn any flash sale into something special. When your customers get updates on the sale every time they open their emails, it helps provide a better overall customer experience. 

Not to mention, all that visibility makes it very easy for your customers to decide not to miss out and buy.