How to Get the Most out of Email Marketing for the Holidays

https://pixabay.com/en/woman-adult-people-indoors-house-3368245/

The holiday season is a busy time for email marketers. You know your competitors are going to be promoting their services heavily this time of year. To ensure customers don’t forget about your brand when making holiday gift purchases, you need to optimize your campaigns. Beyond best practices like segmenting lists, personalizing subject lines, and verifying email addresses, these tips will help you stand out from the competition.

 Highlight Your Best Qualities
 Are there aspects of your business that make you potentially more appealing to customers than the competition? It might be your pricing, your reputation among former customers, or any other differentiator that sets you apart. Don’t assume all your email subscribers will be familiar with these qualities. After all, some of them may be relatively new to your brand. Stand out among the competition during the holidays by using emails to highlight these unique traits.

 Design the Email Properly
 Obviously, you want your emails to be eye-catching. Customers are more likely to remember an email that has an appealing and brand-appropriate design. That said, it’s also worth noting that most people now read emails on mobile devices. Your emails’ design should be organized for a small screen format. That means avoiding large blocks of text and using formatting elements to make it more scannable for readers.

 Offer Rewards
 Surveys indicate 87% of customers like to engage with brands that offer rewards programs. Promoting yours via email during the holiday season is a smart way to boost sales from customers who’ve remained loyal to your business for months or years. 

Offer Personalized Recommendations
 Consumers have expressed a desire for greater personalization from brands. They want you to offer services tailored to their specific interests and needs. That’s why segmenting your email list into smaller segments helps to boost open rates. This tactic is also important during the holidays. While you might assume your followers are only going to be buying items for loved ones this time of year, it’s also likely they may buy “self gifts.” By segmenting your list, you can recommend products specific users may be interested in.

 Plan Discounts
 Don’t market your business during the holidays without offering some form of promotional discount. It’s a common practice among brands this time of year, and is thus likely to be a customer expectation. It’s also important to plan which types of discounts you want to offer ahead of time. Research promotions that have yielded major sales in the past to determine which work best for your business.

 Plan a Journey
 A holiday email campaign should guide a customer through a journey. You can’t assume the average follower will make a purchase after reading a single email about a new product they may be interested in. Your campaign should be structured so that a series of emails thoroughly explains the benefits of a product, service, or discount over time.

 Most importantly, plan as soon as possible. You may not be reading this during the holidays, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start applying these tips right away. Planning your campaign ahead of time will make it easier to design one that stands out during the busiest marketing season of the year.