Holiday Email Marketing: You Should Already Be Doing This

Holiday marketing isn’t the easiest. There is a lot of planning and preparation that goes into email marketing campaigns, especially around the holidays. When September hits you should start planning if you want to have a successful season. Before you know it, Halloween will be upon you, then Thanksgiving and it doesn’t slow down after that!

The holiday season presents a huge opportunity for marketers to connect with their audience and drive sales. Holiday sales in 2015 are expected to represent 19% of the retail industry’s annual sales of $3.2 trillion. Online sales are expected to increase as well. According to the Adobe Digital Index 2015 Holiday Shopping Predictions, this year’s Cyber Monday online sales will see a 12% year-over-year increase, climbing to a record $3 billion in one day.

In order to make the most of the holiday season, here are 5 tips that will help you have a merry marketing holiday:

 

1. First And Foremost, Start A Calendar

Here are some of the most important dates to remember surrounding the holidays:

Veterans Day – Wednesday, November 11

Thanksgiving – Thursday, November 26

Black Friday – Friday, November 27

Small Business Saturday – Saturday, November 28

Cyber Monday – Monday, November 30

Hanukkah – Begins Sunday, December 6

Green Monday – Monday, December 14

Free Shipping Day – Friday, December 18

Winter Solstice – Tuesday, December 22

Christmas Eve – Thursday, December 24

Christmas Day – Friday, December 25

Boxing Day – Saturday, December 26

Kwanzaa – Begins Saturday, December 26

New Year’s Eve – Thursday, December 31

New Year’s Day – Friday, January 1

 

2. Add Seasonal Content To Your Emails

Make your emails more relevant to holiday shoppers by adding seasonal imagery, headings and copy. If you’re in B2C you should always think about the great deals you can offer.

 

3. You Better Be Mobile Optimizing, Or You’re On The Naughty List

Ensuring your emails are mobile optimized is a given. During the holidays, people are even busier than normal. Being on the go means mobile optimization is imperative. Gmail now has 900 million users and 75% of Gmail users access their accounts on mobile devices. Keeping mobile top of mind will improve your lead generation and customer acquisition numbers.

 

Gmail now has 900 million users and 75% of them access their accounts on mobile devices. Click To Tweet

 

4. Think About Pausing Automation On Holiday Days

The risk as a business becomes more and more public is that something they say will offend someone. It’s best practice to ensure that your audience doesn’t feel victimized by your marketing. It’s a good idea to pause those emails that are pre-scheduled or automated until the holiday is over.

 

Pause those emails that may be pre-scheduled or automated until the holiday is over. Click To Tweet

 

5. Reaching For That Extra Boost, Might Be A Bad Idea

It can be tempting to reach for a holiday boost by emailing a bunch of your subscribers who haven’t engaged with you in a while, but resist the urge. The majority of subscribers who haven’t engaged in more than 2 years are most likely gone or they have changed jobs.

If you email a bunch of people you haven’t engaged with in a while, it risks you getting junked or blocked. One of the worst things that can happen to an email marketer.

Instead, try to identify the seasonal shoppers among your subscribers, those who were engaged and purchased during the holiday season but then quickly became silent afterward and haven’t engaged since. Those subscribers are much better candidates for re-engagement efforts going into Thanksgiving week.

 

Hopefully, you’ve already launched and started seeing success in your holiday email marketing. These times are busy for marketers (like most of the year) so if you can offer the community any tips please share them below.

Happy Holiday Marketing!