Holiday Email Marketing Strategy
The holidays are supposed to be filled with happiness, laughter and joy. A story business owners like to tell us all too often is that everything is going swimmingly, filled with all the merriment you could ask for until it hits a point where you can no longer ignore that task on the to-do.
That task? Create your holiday email campaigns!
Before the overwhelm sets in, take a look at our Eight Email Marketing Strategies that will set you up for your most successful holiday season yet. From us to you, Merry Christmas.
Your ‘How-To’ Guide: Holiday Email Campaigns
To kick things off, look back at your past results because these will help inform your future strategy by showing you what worked and what needs improvement. Be sure you’re comparing apples with apples and if that’s not possible it will at least give you a read on your bench marks.
1. Create subject lines that get your emails opened AND clicked
Subject lines are the first hurdle to overcome since they play an important role as to whether your subscriber chooses to open your email or delete it.
Using words relevant to the holiday season while ensuring they’re still on brand is a great start. Take a look at some of these cues for inspiration -
Sales focused: Promotion, discount, savings, free shipping, deal
Time focused: Limited-time, today-only, exclusive, order now
Holiday: Get gifting, 12 Deals of Christmas, spread some holiday cheer
Personalisation: Include the recipients name to increase open rates by 26%.
Emotionally focused: Your support, appreciation, thank you, because of you, for you only.
Top it all off with an emoji. We recommend using emoji’s only if they’re on-brand for you - you don’t want to surprise your subscribers with sudden use of emojis if your brand is more straighty-180. To determine whether emoji’s resonate, run a number of A/B tests with and without and compare results. Emoji’s have been proven to increase open rates by 45%, so use them well and use them sparingly.
2. Promote Boxing Day sales early
Boxing Day is one of the largest retail days of the year. Period. Trends over recent years show typical one-day sale events are now running across multiple days or even weeks. If you’re an e-commerce brand you need to stay competitive whether you like it or not and you will reap the benefit of running extended promotions to capatialise on time of high consumer spend. So consider extending your promotions and use email to convey your sale message supported by a variety of different themes and angles - keep it interesting, not repetitive!
Something to make a note of, is customers who shop from your for the first time on BFCM are likely to visit your website upwards of 40+ days prior to investigating what they want to purchase. This gives a huge opportunity to promote sales as early as possible to give customers enough time to prepare to shop from you.
For example, many Boxing Day sales start on Christmas Day to capture those who perhaps missed out on recent sale events or maybe they didn’t get what they wanted for Christmas and want to treat themselves. Give them enough time to prepare and target them wisely, and you’re almost guaranteed a sale.
3. Send a holiday gift guide
The gifting period can be stressful. Not knowing what to buy for loved ones is a key reason many leave their shopping until the last minute. Brands have the opportunity to speak directly to this problem by sharing curated gift guides to their email lists, relieving subscribes of freezing up in the decision making process.
There is huge potential for brands to email multiple gift guides for many different types of shoppers but make sure you do it early in December to avoid the disappointment of shipping cut offs!
Some ideas -
Price based: Gifts under $100
Relationship-based: Gifts for her, him, brother, teacher, clients etc.
Hobbies based: Gifts for the adventurer, the stay-at-home-type etc.
Age: Gifts for toddlers, teens etc.
Product category: Clothes, accessories, electronics etc.
Tip: Compliment this gift guide by sharing it as a ‘guide’ on your Instagram account!
4. Utilise last minute deals
Last year a record number of shoppers left their gift shopping to the final two weeks before Christmas. This means brands need to promote their sales right up until the holidays to cater to this group of shoppers.
Last-minute shopping comes with stressors such as shipping delays. In saying this, brands should promote last-minute sales with reference to where products can be purchased in-person, i.e. stockists.
If you’re a pure play e-commerce, our favourite last-minute gifting suggestion is an e-gift card. Delivered instantly to them or the recipient and the crisis is averted!
5. Remove online gift-giving worries
The pandemic got the masses comfortable with online shopping though with is, there are some consumer concerns to be aware of during peak sale times. The top two we found were;
Will my gift arrive on time?
Will this be easy to exchange or return?
An easy way to combat these worries is to be crystal clear about your shipping cut offs (per country) in your email comms. State what your shipping times are (with delays) and what your returns/exchange policy is (has it been extended? Does the gift recipient need proof of purchase etc.).
The more you can be transparent around with these, the better. It will also prevent a massive onslaught of contact to your customer service team during an already busy time!
6. Send click-through traffic to a page dedicated to sales
Make your emails work for you and send your subscribers directly to where they can find the product or sale mentioned in your email. This could look like;
Product imagery linking directly to the product (please don’t link off to a category, this is super frustrating!)
Call to action button text, e.g. ‘Shop Gifts at 50% off’ that lead to a curated sale page
Do not send people to your website homepage unless it makes sense to. That is asking for an instant loss. You don’t want your subscriber to have to do any heavy lifting to make the most of what you’re offering. Match your sales page to the creative in the email to limit confusion if you have multiple offers going at once.
7. Send post-holiday emails
Post-holiday emails are crucial for capturing repeat customers. We recommend;
Engaging subscribers who joined your list for a holiday promotion and nurture them to become lifelong customers.
Show your long-term subscribers their regular email communications are returning, and heavy sale comms are easing.
While capturing holiday sales is great in the short-term, it’s the repeat customers who will stick around past this during the year and will build profitability into your business. Repeat customers are far more likely to convert than first-time visitors. This means more sales with less of your time and budget spent on marketing to them - sounds good to us!
Over all, value your repeat customers and loyal subscribers. They will be the ones after the holiday rush wanting to keep up to update with your brand. This is a key time to drive home your brand values and brand purpose. If you have the budget we recommend rolling out a brand campaign at the beginning of the year to remind customers why they chose to shop with you and what makes you better than your competitors.
8. Give some TLC to value-based consumers with alternative holidays
While the big-ticket sale days are great, modern consumers are in touch with excess consumerism, and BFCM / Boxing Day sales don’t always resonate with their personal values of being mindful. This is a trend that has been accelerated by the pandemic in the midst to cut back on fast fashion and over consumerism favouring support for local businesses instead.
This customer segment is more likely to respond to value-based shopping experiences such as ‘support small business’ or ‘give locally’. Small or locally-owned brands can stand out from the masses during peak holiday sales by simply opting out of major sales. We often see these brands apply the strategy of running promotions outside these windows of popular sale periods instead. The key to success here is to use value-based emotional messaging.
We hope this guide has you well on your way to sending more relevant emails that connect and boost sales during the holiday period.
Tip: Planning is everything, and content is king, so don’t wait around and expect a last-minute job will get you where you want to be.
So where to from here? We’ve got you, get in touch for a chat today -