Black Friday email trends: it’s all about the gif in 2016

Black Friday is coming up at the end of next week and companies are gearing up for a busy shopping day. This year, we’ve been keeping tabs on what is going to be the design trend for Black Friday emails. What we can see from our hours of pinning over on Pinterest research is that yes, this year is all about the gif.

The appreciation we deserve for all the time we spent curating these gifs. via GIPHY

Whether it’s animated, stop motion or a looped video, it’s all trendy for your Black Friday emails. Now, if you’re not ahead of the design-curve and want to add a gif to your Black Friday email campaigns then look no further. We’ve scrupulously combed through all of the pins on Pinterest and put together our favorites right here.

Start getting people excited during other holiday events

Next week is a pretty big week as far as celebrations go due to the all-American tradition of Thanksgiving on Thursday. What’s great about this Black Friday email gif is that it first wishes their subscribers a Happy Thanksgiving but it also takes the chance to remind people (and get them curious) about their Black Friday sale.

Related: How to get more email subscribers to follow you on social media

Reveal the offer in the gif

Instead of using a gif as an image replacement, these gifs reveal shopper saving within the gif itself. It’s visually appealing but also requires the reader to pay a little more attention to your content. The only negative to this tactic is that you must be sure to use alternative tags on your images. Without them, readers with blocked image content won’t be able to see what the gif contains and will likely stop reading or (more likely) delete it.

Related: 5 free design resources to get you through your holiday season campaigns

Add a sense of urgency

Gifs that work really well are ones that can urge the reader to take action. One way to do this in a Black Friday email is to reinforce the short lifespan of sales and deals on offer.

Give Black Friday email subscribers mid-sale reminders

Even if readers haven’t engaged with your mailing before Black Friday there is always ample opportunity to remind them of good offers after the sale has started. Some of these examples mention the great deals on offer but some don’t yet they still spike curiosity.

Want more gifs?

Check out our inspiration from last year that’s got gifs but also other design ideas. Read it here »