To help brands capture, rather than miss, this opportunity, our CRM experts have broken down the most common lifecycle marketing mistakes and how to fix them. The goal: turning seasonal sales moments like BFCM into long-term, compounding growth that lasts well beyond the holidays.
Common Mistakes & How to Fix Them
Discount strategies that lack focus
Mistake: Blanket sitewide offers might feel simple, but they ignore customer nuance, eat into margins, and train high-intent buyers to wait for the next promo. Without thoughtful execution, even a great deal can backfire.
Fix: Build layered, intentional offer architectures tied to behavior, value, and lifecycle stage:
- VIP early access: 24-hour private window with exclusive SKUs or deeper discounts.
- Spend tiers: “Spend $120, get 25% off. Spend $200, get 35% off.”
- Bundles: Best-seller trios priced to lift AOV without deep sitewide markdowns.
This transforms discounting into a profit-positive strategy instead of a margin drain.
Batch-and-blast emails to an entire list
Mistake: Sending every campaign to a full list damages deliverability, accelerates customer fatigue, and eliminates the relevance needed to convert. It’s a high-volume tactic with low strategic value, and often the most expensive way to generate diminishing returns. It also wastes the opportunity to speak more directly to customers who are actually ready to buy.
Fix: Segment intelligently and personalize with purpose. Build distinct journeys for loyal customers, new subscribers, window shoppers, churn risks, and holiday-only purchasers. Align tone, timing, and offer strategy to each segment’s intent, for example:
- Loyalists: early access + restock alerts
- Window shoppers: price-drop alerts on previously viewed items
- Churn risks: “What you missed while you were away” recaps with lightweight re-entry CTAs
Neglecting non-purchasers
Mistake: Browse sessions, abandoned carts, and low-intent engagements often reflect high underlying purchase intent. Most of the time these are the warmest leads heading into December and Q1.
Fix: Create structured follow-ups for browsers, abandoners, and “almost” buyers. Use tailored browse and cart triggers, “still deciding?” sequences with reviews or FAQs, gifting-oriented nudges in December, and Q1 re-engagement flows. These customers don’t need heavy discounting, they need friction removed and confidence reinforced.
Misusing or neglecting SMS
Mistake: Treating SMS like an afterthought or a on-size-fits-all megaphone by overusing it, duplicating email CTAs, or sending long, unfocused messages, leads to higher opt-outs, declining engagement, and reduced channel trust.
Fix: Use SMS for immediacy, intimacy, and critical decision points. Reserve it for early access alerts, deadline reminders, order updates, lightweight conversational flows, and zero-party data collection, for example:
- Early access SMS: “VIPs only → Shop early access before it goes live.”
- Urgency reminders: “Ends in 2 hours — your items might sell out.”
- Conversational flows:
- “Looking for gifts? Reply ‘YES’ for tailored picks.”
- “Want your size? Tell us your preferred fit.”
Repeating the same messages over and over
Mistake: With inboxes overflowing, repetition feels like white noise to customers. Sending the same creative or offer to no-open audiences accelerates engagement decay, increases spam filtering, and signals irrelevance.
Fix: Adapt messaging based on engagement and intent. Test creative and subject-line variants for no-opens, shift channels (email - SMS - push - onsite), swap value messaging for educational or social-proof content, and reroute customers into alternative flows when they partially engage.
Failing to warm up audiences
Mistake: Many brands enter the Sales Season cold, engaging customers for the first time only when discounts drop. This creates a steep uphill battle: low inbox placement, minimal brand recall, and audiences who haven’t been primed to care about offers. Without prior engagement, even strong promotions struggle to break through, and brands miss the chance to shape intent well before the noise of peak season hits.
Fix: Brands that consistently win during the Holiday period are already top-of-mind by the time discounts begin. If warm-up planning wasn’t in place ahead of BFCM, don’t panic! There’s still time to build momentum through strategic, value-forward messaging. Examples include:
- Re-engagement flows:
- “We picked these for you” curated product recommendations
- Brand-story emails reinforcing mission, craftsmanship, or founder-led messaging
- Soft CTAs like “Save your favorites” to restart browsing behavior
- Welcome series refreshes:
- A revised third touch focused on holiday-specific category education
- Early-access sign-up invitations for upcoming promos
- Social proof highlights (best-sellers, top gifts, rapid sellouts from last year)
- Priming content:
- Gift guides, lookbooks, or “What’s coming soon” teasers
- First-access waitlists
- Low-commitment engagement asks (wishlist creation, quiz completions, preference updates)
The goal is to get audiences opening, clicking, and re-engaging before discounts appear
Plan Follow-ups Now
Despite being a calendar mark year-round, BFCM isn’t the finish line, it’s merely the start of the Holiday sales season, and (hopefully) a customer’s lifetime loyalty to a brand (whether they purchased or not).
For those that did purchase, follow up with clear next steps: onboarding, cross-sells, loyalty hooks, and thoughtful timing that reflects the product they bought. For the “almosts,” set up triggered flows to catch and convert them post-BFCM (“Still thinking it over?”).
Pro-tip: Brands can use this customer segment to better understand their own messaging. A welcome series should speak to the customer’s entry point, with variations for first time customers buying during the sales season and returning customers. As a result, brands can compare that messaging to their “always on” welcome series.
Need Help Getting Ahead of Next Year’s BFCM?
If this year felt chaotic, resource-heavy, or reactive, you’re not alone. Many teams are already planning earlier and more holistically to stay competitive next season.
Whether you want to refine your current approach or rebuild your entire Holiday strategy, reach out to our expert team to help you get organized, intentional, and BFCM-ready long before next November.
