Community Manager

Building the BFCM Flow Map: A Template to Steal

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A few weeks ago, we talked about why you need a flow map before writing copy. Now let's actually build one.

Keep it simple: a table with the flow name, whether it's live or needs an update, what needs to change for BFCM, and who owns fixing it. List every flow that could fire during your sale window — welcome series, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase, win-back, even your review request flow if it goes out fast after delivery.

For each one, ask: does the messaging still make sense if someone enters this flow during Black Friday week? A win-back flow offering "10% to come back" looks strange next to a storewide 40% off banner. Either pause it, or update the offer to match.

Assign an owner and a deadline to each row. The brands that pull this off cleanly aren't smarter, they just did this exercise a month before the chaos instead of during it.

We've got about a month before Black Friday. That's enough time to fix every flow on this list if you start today.

Share your flow list in the comments — tell us which one you're least confident about.

D

Dalia Ahmed Copywriter

Contributor IV

One thing that's easy to overlook when preparing flows for BFCM is updating the creative along with the offers and timing.

For example, a welcome email might still promise a smaller evergreen discount than the storewide BFCM offer, or an abandoned cart email might still feature a summer lifestyle image in the middle of a holiday campaign.

For each flow on the map, I'd keep track of:

Which emails have offers, dates or promotional messaging embedded in images, since those need updated creative rather than just a text edit.
Whether you're creating a separate BFCM version or editing the original, so it's easy to switch back once the sale ends.
Who's responsible for designing the updated versions and when they're due. Ideally, creative should be ready at least a week before the flow changes go live.

The flow I'd be least confident about is browse abandonment. It's easy to overlook when mapping out campaign activity, but it can trigger frequently during peak shopping weeks.

I'm a copywriter at Marz Media, a design studio that works with email agencies, so I tend to look at these maps from the creative side.

zrashdanAuthor

Community Manager

Hey Dalia! I love this feedback!! Couldn’t agree more on being more conscious of your flows and think about how you might be able to optimize them for major holidays or sales seasons.

As it relates to browse abandonment flow I hear ya! I think that and the cart abandonment flow can often be tricky because how they trigger and the frequency they being sent especially during BFCM.

Ziad Rashdan

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