Jimmy Kim says Thanksgiving emails should skip the hard sell. Instead, offer VIP early access to Black Friday deals or just say thanks. Send mid-morning while people cook or late evening after dinner, never during the 2-5 PM meal window. Make the relationship the point, not the discount.
What do you believe like is the right kind of Thanksgiving email? What does that look like?
That's a great question. I'm sure the listeners would love this. It has to be a light touch, a soft hook, maybe early access link to your BFCM offer for my VIPs, or maybe we're grateful for you to be our customer message with a small token, not like a hard sales push. And the timing matters here. Mid-morning is a good time when people are in food prep mode, but not yet at the table, or like late evening because most people are eating their dinners at like 2, 3 PM on Thanksgiving. So like an evening time after dinner when they're scrolling their phones or watching football, important. Just you want to avoid that real dinner time, which I think in Thanksgiving is like 2 to 5 PM. I feel like that's like dinner time.
And then one more is don't make the email about the deal. You need to focus on the relationship with the deal kind of being the secondary aspect.
The framing is super important. That alone separates you from 99% of the brands in the inbox that day. So do it. That's a hot take, but I think that more people are starting to catch on to this one. So let's just say we called it first out there.
