10 Practical Email Marketing Tips to Nail the Holiday Season!
How effective is your email marketing game for the holidays? Are you expecting more sales this year through email marketing? No matter where you are in your email marketing journey, you can always level up and develop a killer email marketing campaign to leverage the holiday season ahead. How can one do that, you ask? Well, just follow these email marketing best practices and tips! Don’t sweat it. We have shortlisted the best email marketing tips you can implement this holiday season to turn even your best campaigns into money-making machines! Let’s jump right in.
1. The early bird catches the worm
The earlier you start, the easier the process gets. We suggest you begin preparing for your holiday campaign at least 40-60 days in advance. This goes for every holiday season! The early preparation puts you in the best position to test and optimize the campaigns for best results. Another reason we recommend that you prepare early is that many shoppers begin their online gift shopping way ahead of the holidays. After all, it takes time to choose the right gift for your loved ones!
2. Create pre-buzz email campaigns
You want to give prospects a glimpse of what will be on offer during the holiday season. Don’t underestimate the power of anticipation! You can create this by preparing pre-buzz email campaigns. Along with these, you’ll want to provide customers with early offers. This strategy works exceptionally well with on-the-fence buyers, since they’ll often jump at a chance to buy the products at a discounted price.
3. Develop a sense of urgency
The Fear-Of-Missing-Out (FOMO) during the holiday season is real. As a brand, you should capitalize on it by creating a sense of urgency through your emails. Share time-sensitive emails that offer discounts and the best deals on products buyers are looking for. More importantly, make it obvious that the deals are available only for a limited time. It’s now or never, people! The FOMO will kick in and buyers will make the purchase.
4. Create audience segments for better targeting
We know that third-party cookies are quickly phasing out. But, you still have the first-party customer data to use! Make sure you use the information to segment the audience while preparing email marketing campaigns. You should segment the audience based on factors like their age, gender, interests, purchase history, level on the funnel, purchase timings, recent activity on your site, and more. It is crucial that you prepare segment-specific campaigns for better results.
5. Ensure responsive design for emails
People tend to vacay during the holiday season. More often than not, they’ll be reading your emails on their personal devices, not at their workstations. Therefore, you should optimize the email design and content for mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops. The theme, design elements, and overall layout should load to perfection on all mobile devices. Ensure responsiveness without jeopardizing the quality of the email content.
6. Double down on automation
You do not want to send your holiday emails manually. After all, you may want a little downtime yourself at this time of year! Let automation do the work for you. In addition, you should also be running different email campaigns for different audience segments, which requires much more effort than a universal campaign. Therefore, we suggest you take advantage of email marketing automation solutions. Email marketing software allows brands to send relevant emails automatically based on the customers’ activities on your website or landing page.
7. Write compelling subject lines
The subject line is usually the first thing recipients will read when they receive your email. Make this quick interaction count. Draft compelling subject lines that encourage users to open your email and read through the content. Use powerful and emotional words to trigger a reaction and make the email sound irresistible.
8. Create helpful holiday shopping guides
Help customers make better purchasing decisions during the holidays. Your content can help relieve the holiday gift anxiety and automatically make you the go-to brand for holiday shopping. Create an interactive guide that helps men, women, kids, and others find the right product. We suggest you develop several product-buying guides for different types of shoppers and share them over email.
9. Drive traffic to a landing page
Once readers click on your email CTA, you should ensure they land on a specific landing page instead of your official website’s homepage. Your holiday email readers are more than likely interested in making a purchase, and if you drive them to your website’s homepage instead of a product-specific page, they could end up confused and frustrated. Driving them to a landing page will push them to preview the product, add it to their cart, and make a purchase. The driving idea is to cut down on the time and clicks it takes for a reader to convert.
10. Create post-holiday email campaigns
Nurture the leads and connections you have built throughout the holiday season by creating post-holiday email campaigns. Thank your customers for their support during the holidays and wish them well. This is an excellent way to remind them that they made purchases from your brand or have products left in their carts! Post-holiday email campaigns ensure that you are in it for the long game.
Final thoughts!
It’s never too late to start working on a special holiday email marketing campaign, especially if you do the fundamentals correctly. Holiday seasons come with excellent opportunities to grab massive market share. Don’t let it slip away! Most importantly, don’t forget to monitor and track the campaign performance. This will help you derive critical insights that will ensure success in holiday email marketing campaigns in the future. So, what are you waiting for? Get started with your own unique holiday email marketing campaign!
Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments. Also, don’t forget to check out other informative posts on the blog!
