The holiday season is almost upon us again, so here are some email marketing tactics you can use to tempt customers and drive up sales.
Both online and offline businesses see a surge in sales during the holiday season. This is a great opportunity for businesses to increase their profits.
If you want your holiday sales season to be successful, you’ll need a strong email marketing plan. Emails help you connect with your fans and attract new customers with exclusive promotions and rewards programs.
Need inspiration? Here are a few ways to make your holiday email marketing campaigns sparkle:
1. Send targeted holiday emails with segmentation
A holiday email that is specifically targeted to the recipient generates more engagement than a generic email that is sent to a large group of people.
Segment your holiday email lists by:
- Interest:Â Group subscribers based on previous purchases or website interactions.
- Year-round vs seasonal shoppers:Â Year-round customers have different needs than holiday shoppers. Reward the first group with a loyalty program. Entice the second with discounts and promotions.
- Coupon lovers: Target only price-sensitive customers with coupon codes. This way, you don’t miss out on customers who are willing to buy full price.
2. Run automated holiday email campaigns
Email automation can help you send the right messages to the right people at the right time.
This is especially important during the busy holiday season.
Here are a few email automation strategies to get the most from your holiday emails:
- Set up abandoned cart automation workflows. Send abandoned cart emails to secure sales during the holidays.
- Target warm leads using lead scoring. Send emails to leads who are likely to buy. Email marketing tools like Sendinblue track user behavior. You can then create lead scoring based on this data.
- Use a seasonal welcome email. Target new subscribers over the holidays. Send a welcome email with a special discount or holiday theme.
For example, an email could alert the customer that the item they viewed is on sale on Black Friday. The “reveal new price” button could encourage the subscriber to click and find out how much the item is now on sale for.
3. Send personalized holiday email campaigns
Email is easy to personalize, which makes it more engaging for subscribers than other channels.
Adding a first name to the subject line is a great way to increase engagement. You can also send campaigns based on customer behavior, like purchase history. Doing this allows you to create more targeted and relevant content, which can lead to higher conversion rates. Best, [Your Name]
Email personalization is a great way to make your campaign stand out from the competition. By using email personalization, you can capture your subscribers’ attention and drive sales this holiday season.
If you want your holiday email marketing campaign to be successful, you need to personalize it.
If you create content that is tailored to what your subscribers want, they will be more likely to remember your brand and it will result in a higher return on investment.
The best way to make sure your holiday emails are successful is to customize them based on the behavioral data you have. If you don’t have any behavioral data, ask your subscribers what they want or what they expect to see in your holiday emails.
It’s important to keep your triggered emails updated, especially around holiday seasons. If someone signs up to get your emails during the holidays, you don’t want to send them a regular welcome template. Make sure your new subscribers don’t miss out on holiday deals and promotions by keeping your triggered emails up-to-date.
4. Spruce up your holiday email subject lines
Subject lines that are eye-catching and engaging are more likely to get opened. FOMO, or fear of missing out, is a great way to get people’s attention. Adding an emoji or two can also help. Personalizing the subject line with the recipient’s name is another great way to increase the likelihood of them opening it.
5. Share holiday gift guides
This holiday season, take on the role of Santa and give your customers some gift ideas that will really get them excited. By creating a holiday gift guide, you can show your customers that you know what they want and that you’re committed to helping them find the perfect gifts for their loved ones. Plus, a gift guide is a great way to promote your own products and services. So get creative and start spreading some holiday cheer!
Putting your products in a central location will inspire holiday shoppers, as they will be able to see them and may have trouble coming up with ideas for Christmas gifts otherwise.
If you want to provide your customers with a value-added holiday experience, consider sending out a holiday gift guide. This will help take some of the stress out of their holiday shopping experience.
6. Run campaigns on lesser known holidays
To stand out from the competition during holiday email marketing, try running campaigns on lesser known holidays.
Holiday campaigns can help engage customers and make businesses stand out.
7. Promote holiday sales early
You should start promoting Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales early, rather than waiting until the last minute to send out your campaigns.
Make sure your subscribers know about your holiday offers in advance so they don’t miss out. Use countdowns to build anticipation.
Use limited-time deals and early bird specials to create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to buy now. Make sure to stick to a schedule so your campaign doesn’t become overwhelming.
You should start small and gradually increase your efforts as the holidays get closer. A good rule to follow is to not increase your email frequency more than three times what it was for the year up to that point.
If you don’t want your emails to look like spam, which can cause people to unsubscribe, you need to change something.
8. Send post-holiday email campaigns
Once the holidays are over, don’t stop your email marketing strategy. Send a post-holiday email campaign to keep your holiday customers around.
After the holidays are over, follow up with your customers with a post-purchase email campaign. This will encourage them to make future orders. Or, you could share a fun promotion like the one below that was sent after Christmas.
9. Boost sales with mobile-friendly holiday emails
More and more people are shopping on their mobile devices these days. Mobile shopping surged during the Covid-19 pandemic and is likely to continue to be popular in the future.
With smartphone use being so widespread, many people open their emails on their phones. Therefore, the inbox is a great place to specifically target holiday shoppers. By using responsive email templates, you can easily send out emails that look great on mobile devices and potentially increase sales.
The mobile commerce industry has seen unpredictable growth in recent years.
App Annie’s State of Mobile 2019 report concluded that in 2018 mobile users spent 18 billion hours on shopping apps. The report also showed that on Cyber Monday $2 billion dollars were brought in, more than half of which came from mobile devices.
This is why it is essential that your marketing campaigns, including those for holidays, are designed to work well on mobile devices.
If you want to optimize your holiday email marketing for mobile devices, you might:
- Use responsive templates which is suitable for various screens while keeping the most necessary content visible
- Optimize images so that they look stunning and load fast as slow-loading content will drive mobile users away
- Write brief subject lines, or ensure the primary information is at the start, so recipients won’t be confused by missing information
To test your holiday email marketing strategies, check how it appears on mobile devices your shoppers are using.
10. Use holiday email templates
To engage customers during the holidays, try using a festive, eye-catching email design. This can involve playing around with your branding and adding holiday visuals.
11. Start planning before you think you should
If you want your holiday email marketing campaign to be successful, it is important to plan ahead and let your customers know what to expect.
If you have plans in advance, you can:
- Produce the different pieces of content necessary to enhance conversion rates
- Review content and strategies that resulted in high conversions before implementing them
- Make sure you are monitoring significant micro-and macro-conversion points for future data analysis
12. Concentrate on the customers, not an aggressive sales agenda
During the holiday season, it is common for marketers to send more emails than normal. It is important to remember that there is a real person who will receive your email communication.
This holiday season is a busy time for everyone, so don’t bombard them with hard-sell emails. Instead, take a practical, customer-centric approach that respects their time.
You should also find out what your subscribers want from you during the holidays rather than just trying to sell them things.
The holiday season is a time when you cannot just create copies that are sales-oriented and call it a day.
Your subscribers’ emotions are important to pay attention to because the gifts they purchase from you can help spread joy. Even a simple holiday greeting can help reinforce trust with your customers.
Email example: Happy Hanukkah from everyone here at AfterShokz! We hope you’re enjoying the holiday season and getting to spend time with family and friends. We’re so grateful to have such amazing customers like you. Thanks for making AfterShokz part of your holiday celebrations!
13. Segment your list
Breaking your list down into smaller groups is essential to make sure the message resonates with recipients, especially during the holidays when people are more emotional.
If you have information like what your subscribers browse on your site and what they have bought from you, segmenting does not seem like a very difficult task.
The more you understand about what your recipients like, the more you can divide them into groups and send messages that are suited to them during the holiday season. This will lead to conversions that are better and higher in quality.
Here are several efficient methods to segment your holiday email marketing:
Interests
You can break your subscribers down into groups according to what they have purchased in the past, or what sections of your site they have browsed.
Year-round vs seasonal customers
Customers who only buy from you during specific seasons have different needs than those who buy from you all year round. Think about what those needs are and adjust the frequency, content, and timing of your follow-up campaigns accordingly.
Coupon lovers
To efficiently engage your most price-sensitive customers, find out who often (or only) buys with coupon codes. In the same way, segmenting can help prevent providing discounts to subscribers who willingly purchase at full price.
14. Leverage marketing automation
If you want to improve your email open rates and customer engagement, you need to reach the right people with the right message at the right time. Email marketing automation can help you do this. For example, you can use automation to send holiday emails.
Build abandoned cart automation workflows
Abandoned cart emails are more important during the busy holiday season because they help you get sales that you otherwise might not.
Target warm prospects using lead scoring
Using information about how customers interact and behave, and scoring contacts according to their engagement, can create customer profiles that help to segment the customer base.
Send a seasonal welcome email
During the holiday season, you may get new subscribers signing up. You can create a customized welcome email with an exclusive discount or holiday theme to get more subscribers.
15. Combine interactivity and fallback
Cinematography, GIFs, and gamification will make your holiday messages more interesting and attractive.
Interactivity in emails is a tactic that engages the reader and excites them during the holiday season.
The content in your emails can be refreshed with a drop-down menu, slider, accordion, flip effect, or gamification.
Even though email clients have limited capability, it is important that you have a backup plan. You should also test more before sending out any emails.
16. Create a sense of urgency
In economics, it is understood that if the supply of a product declines, the demand for the product will increase. Therefore, it is important to create a sense of urgency in your holiday email marketing campaigns.
Add a timer or scarcity to your goods so that shoppers understand that the promotion will end soon. This will dramatically increase conversion rates.
When designing your Cyber Monday promotional materials, keep in mind that incorporating a sense of urgency will increase the likelihood of customers clicking through. For example, setting your Cyber Monday sale to expire at midnight will maximize the number of conversions.
Wrapping up
This season, make your holiday email marketing campaigns sparkle.
Email marketing is a great way to promote your online store, especially during the holiday season.
As a business owner, you should take the time to optimize important emails to create conversions and make sure your emails are responsive on mobile devices.
It’s a good idea to plan ahead for the holiday season and choose email marketing tools that will work best for your business.