For a lot of businesses, their holiday season sales make up about 20 percent of their annual sales. And, according to a report by NRF, even with the recent pandemic, the total holiday sales generated per year have not declined.
It’s clear that consumers have built lasting habits of splurging during holiday times, especially during commercial holidays like Black Friday. This is something companies can take advantage of.
Email, in particular, is a common choice for launching holiday marketing campaigns, which is most likely due to the high returns companies can get. With a lot riding on one shopping season per year, it’s critical to come up with the best strategies for your holiday campaigns to ensure that you stand out. for instance, for Black Friday, you can create eye-catching Black Friday posters, put them in an email, and send it out to your customers.
Fortunately, we’ve compiled a list of email campaign strategies that are sure to lead to a successful holiday business season.
1. Make your subject lines hard to resist
To make your emails effective, you need to grab the attention of your consumers immediately. An email campaign will be useless if you recipients won’t bother opening the email in the first place.
You can use specific words that people mostly think about during the holiday season to really grab their attention.
For a more sales-driven subject line, you can use the words “hot deal,” “discount,” “free shipping,” “promotion,” and other related words. Time can also be used to compel them to open the email. Words such as “limited-time,” “last minute,” “exclusive,” “order now,” and “today only.”
You could also go for a subject line that’s more relevant to the season such as “12 deals of Christmas,” “Good cheer,” and “Season’s Greetings.” For a more heartfelt one, adding words expressing gratitude and appreciation can work too.
Personalizing your subject lines also increases the chances of your recipients opening the email. You can even use emojis to make it feel a bit more casual and friendly!
2. Use segmentation to send holiday emails
An email that’s targeted and personalized to your buyer will have a higher engagement rate than the generic holiday emails that most people get. To effectively tailor your emails according to your consumer’s interests and buying patterns, you can try segmenting your contacts.
You can segment your shoppers according to:
- Year round or seasonal shoppers
Shoppers who only interact with your company during holiday season have a different relationship with you compared to customers who are loyal to your business throughout the year. It’s important to take their needs and motivations into consideration so you can properly tailor your email content to them.
- Interests
Separate your consumers into different groups based on the purchases they’ve made or the different sections they’ve visited in your website. This way, you can customize your email with something that they’ll love.
- Avid coupon users
Identifying which of your customers frequently use coupon codes can help you engage properly with your shoppers who are sensitive to the price. Additionally, this can help you avoid offering discounts to customers who are more than willing and capable of paying in full.
3. Use marketing automation to your advantage
Marketing automation can definitely do wonders for your holiday email marketing. There are a few automation strategies you can use for your email campaigns.
One of these is an abandoned cart automation. During the competitive holiday season, abandoned carts happen a lot more frequently. Sending your shoppers emails to remind them of their abandoned carts can greatly help to secure sales.
You’ll also most likely gain new subscribers during the holidays. To maximize on this engagement, setting up a welcome email containing a special discount can help convince shoppers to purchase products from your company.
Give your customers a holiday gift guide
It’s common for people to experience the ‘holiday gift anxiety’ where they start stressing over what to give for their loved ones. Companies can relieve customers of their decision paralysis by adding gift guides to their email lists. This also makes your subscribers feel heard and acknowledged, convincing them to continue patronizing your business.
You can also send multiple gift guides, each one tailored to a specific type of shopper. For instance, you can make different gift guides according to:
- Relationships (gifts for husband, parents, friends, acquaintances, etc.)
- Age groups (gifts for children, teen, adults, seniors)
- Price point (gifts under or over a specific price)
- Interests or hobbies (gifts for people who love reading, knitting, hiking, etc.)
- Type of product (gifts for people who prefer electronics, clothes, etc.)
5. Launch last-minute holiday deals
A lot of shoppers do most of their shopping close to the actual holiday. This means that promotions for holiday themed products should continue up until the actual holiday itself to cater to those last-minute shoppers.
You can use this to your advantage and promote attractive last-minute deals in your email campaigns, especially for in-person locations.
Final Words
When you’re able to create an effective email campaign, your chances of boosting your sales during the holidays will skyrocket. It can difficult out first to figure out exactly how to grab the attention of your shoppers and persuade them to purchase your product.
But once you’ve got it all figured out, you’ll be pumping out attractive and successful email campaigns in no time!