5 Excellent Holiday Email Marketing Tips to Use This Year

The holiday season is important for any retailer. The National Retail Federation found that holiday sales account for more than 20% of all retail sales. Statistics say that, in November and December 2018, holiday sales reached $707.5 billion.

If you haven’t launched your holiday email marketing campaign, now it’s time to start planning it. In this brief guide, you will learn how to use email marketing to build customer relationships and maximize sales during the winter holidays.

1. Test Everything You Do

You don’t need to wait for your holiday email campaigns to end to test their effectiveness. Instead, you should run assessments right from the start.

For starters, use split testing. For example, you could compare the effectiveness of two different subject lines by monitoring how they impact your clicks and open rates. The same applies to email design, call-to-action buttons, offers, and so forth. This is one of the most effective ways to see what tactics work for you and focus more on them in the future.

There are also many tools that let you monitor the performance of your campaigns. For starters, set the right metrics and measure them in real-time. Effective email marketing KPIs every marketer should track, especially during the holiday season, are:

• The click-through rate

• The conversion rate

• The bounce rate

• The email sharing rate

•  The list growth rate

• The return on investment

With many digital tools, from Google Analytics to MailChimp and Benchmark email, tracking these metrics is easy. If you’re using more than one tool to track your email marketing results or you want to compare these results to some other aspects of your holiday digital marketing campaign, then you automate them using reporting software. With tools like Reportz, you can combine the features from digital tools and track multiple metrics from a single dashboard, focusing on relevant data only.

2. Segment your Email List

There is no point in sending a generic email to everyone on your email list. One of the most effective ways to make your emails more relevant and increase conversions is to segment your email list. In other words, you want to classify your buyers based on their demographic data and purchasing habits and, in this way, send them highly targeted and personalized offers and content. Here are a few steps to take:

• Ask them what kind of products they want to buy. For example, if you’re selling food for pets, ask them whether they’re purchasing canine or feline food.

• Ask them for their preferences. What kind of notifications do they want to receive? Are these all news and deals, in-store sales and promotions, online sales, or maybe new products?

• Know their location. That’s why leads will subscribe to the right local email list and get relevant local notifications only.

3. Create a Holiday Gift Guide

A holiday gift guide is an amazing resource that shows your email subscribers the gifts that are relevant to them. There are numerous tactics for you to use. For example, you can create a guide for your email marketing campaign specifically or even publish the guide on your blog and then promote it via email.

When writing a guide, make sure you include different categories. The idea is to help customers find the right products effortlessly. For example, you can build your product categories based on your target audience’s age, product price, customers’ interests, etc. If you have created detailed and accurate buyer personas, it will be easier for you to determine your audiences’ needs and segment your products properly.

Now, there are a few simple steps to take when writing and designing your holiday gift guide. First, design a collage of your best products. You don’t even need to hire a graphic designer to do so for you. With the visual content creation tools like Canva or Pixlr, you can design a guide yourself. Above all, optimize your guide and make it user-friendly. It should be optimized for smaller screens, helping mobile users browse through the guide and find the right products in just a couple of taps.

4. Evoke Urgency

Your loyal fans are expecting your limited sales and offers impatiently. And, one of the best ways to generate buzz around your hottest product is to use urgency and evoke FOMO (fear of missing out). The idea behind this tactic is simple – no one likes to miss out on the best deals out there.

No matter if it’s a discount code, a free product, or free shipping, you should limit your offers. It’s important to highlight when the sale ends. To get the most out of this strategy, you should first promote early bird pricing for certain products. Next, create a strong CTA. Instead of dull messages like “Click here” or “Buy Now,” think up something more creative, such as “Treat Yourself” or “Get It In Time.” A countdown timer is also an amazing feature that will create urgency and get customers to finalize purchases faster.

5. Optimize your Subject Line

A subject line is the first thing your recipients see in their inboxes. And, to grab their attention and get them to open your holiday emails, you need to be creative. For starters, use power words, like “hot deal,” “appreciation,” “thank you,” “limited offer,” etc.

Next, you need to personalize your message, as such subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. For example, you could use a recipient’s name. Include an emoji, such as a snowman, a snowflake, a star, etc. to make your message friendlier and more personal. Finally, ask them a question, such as “Need gift ideas?” or “Want to order your favorite products and save up?” Questions are direct, benefit-oriented, and attention-grabbing and, as such, they will inspire customers to open your email and take the desired action.

Wrapping It Up

To rock your holiday email marketing campaign, you need to start on time. And, with these simple tactics, you will engage your leads and seal the deal faster. Sure, remember that, to be effective, your email marketing campaigns should go hand in hand with your UX design, content marketing, and on-site SEO tactics.

Hope this helps!