In a world dominated by social media, email is still surprisingly the #1 channel for acquiring new leads. This week Dan and the Bees explore email campaign tactics and real-time messaging that will help amplify your Black Friday and Holiday sales this year!

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What's New?
At this point, we're all pretty used to social media always changing, sometimes for the better, and sometimes not so much.

Recently, we had the integration of the Facebook and Instagram messenger, and now Instagram is rolling out some significant API changes. You can read more on it here:

Major Instagram API Changes For Feed Plugins: Here is What You Can Do
Automation is Essential to Your Email Campaign Tactics
Marketing automation is incredibly powerful, focusing on delivering the holy trinity of the right message, right person, and right timing.

Automation makes email more effective and efficient. It can save a ridiculous amount of time and ensure that you don't miss out on opportunities you wouldn't otherwise have access to.

For example, if a customer abandons your shopping cart without making a purchase, you can trigger emails specific to that user and their experience.

Users abandon an average of 69% of carts. The good news is that almost half of abandoned cart emails are opened, and 50% of those people make a purchase.

Email automation is relatively easy to set up and is invaluable to your email marketing tactics.

The below image from Active Campaign shows the flow of email automation from a Black Friday landing page form and how it works.

This automation is triggered when a contact submits your Black Friday opt-in form. They are sent a thank you email with details about how to redeem their offer and then send an email with their discount on the sale day.

You can also:

* Set up A/B testing
* Track responses to collect more information
* Offer discounts strategically
* Create automated drip campaigns
* Personalize your customers' experiences
* Gather product feedback

The analytics you get from automation can drastically improve your leads' quality and quantity and help you adjust your tactics to serve your customer base better.
Combine Live Chat With Your Email Campaign Tactics
Email marketing is a proven method for building relationships with your customers. When combined with live chat, it can massively improve your conversion rates and enhance the overall customer experience.

When it comes to consumers' preference of support channels, live chat beats out email and phone, with 72% of consumers preferring it because of its immediacy.

There's no waiting in line or trying to navigate a ridiculous menu system, and most issues can be resolved within minutes or even less. What's not to love?

Live chat is great for getting visitors' attention, encouraging engagement, creating personalization, and answering basic sales and support questions.

If you don't have the time or a large enough team to have someone available all the time, chatbots are a great solution.