It's the time of year when everyone enjoys family celebrations, food...
And, of course, shopping!
That's why brands of all sorts, including yours, can benefit from the merry and bright season's great opportunities.
So how can you make use of these opportunities to drive more traffic and boost sales and transform customers into raving fans?
Why not spread Holiday cheer through holiday email marketing
In this blog, let me count the ways holiday season emails can benefit your ecommerce business.
I will also give you some vital tips and tricks you can implement for a successful Holiday email marketing campaign.
So let's get started!
Why Should You Use Holiday Email Marketing?
1. Email marketing is a simple, cost-effective way of engaging your audience with unique, branded, content. It should captivate and keep the customers interested
2. The platform is excellent for distributing content and promoting products.
Also, it's ideal for acquiring new customers, retaining existing ones, and building brands.
3. When it comes to ROI or return on investment, email marketing continues to be unbeatable. Email's return on investment is significantly higher than that of all other types of marketing. And that includes social media and paid search.
4. You can use it to reach out to your customers with personalized messages. And it should be warm and make them feel excited about the upcoming holidays.
5. It will also help you capture more leads by gently encouraging them to think of your brand when they shop for the holidays.
Furthermore, if done right, holiday emails can:
- Boost average order value.
- Bring awareness to products that you truly want to promote.
- Make the most of the holiday season to maximize conversions.
- Increase profits and sales?
Do you want to know some secrets? Here are:
Email Marketing Secrets For Holiday Success
1. Get Customers To Buy Now
According to Forbes, buying on the basis of discounts has become an essential holiday shopping habit.
And more brands, even the big brands are breaking their 'no sale rule'. Thus, resulting in instant buy.
This type of sale and "instant buy" are best promoted through email.
In addition, customers are more likely to purchase when they feel an urgency.
So keeping your promotions exciting is vital.
You can integrate a "Buy Now" button into your emails so you can take your site visitors to the shopping cart.
This simplifies the purchasing process while satisfying your customers during their holiday shopping.
Another secret is to...
2. Get In Front Of Customers At The Right Time With The Right Message
There's no doubt, customers are more distracted than ever. So, it's important to communicate with them when they are listening.
Look at your customer insights and metrics to learn when they are most active. Know which emails receive the most opens and clicks.
And analyze your previous holiday email communications to find commonalities. Such as day and time sent or general messages.
And then send targeted emails based on that information.
Now, let's look at the...
Emails You Need To Optimize For The Holidays
1. Welcome Email
Welcome emails are important marketing tools, as they are known to have high open rates.
And, an email with a "Holiday Season's Greetings" will help initiate the personal connection with your customers.
This in turn will impact their lifetime customer value (CLV).
Also, this can be used to attract customers back to your ecommerce store via invitations for special offers, loyalty programs, and product updates.
To optimize your welcome emails, you can follow these quick tips:
- You should send it immediately, the moment they made their first purchase with you.
- Give the recipient a reason to interact with your email. Special offers and discount codes can help.
- Encourage your customers to engage. You can, for instance, recommend products with a "continue shopping" button to direct them to your store.
- Your logo should be prominent at the top of your emails to ensure your customers know who is writing them.
- It would be beneficial if you can offer tracked shipping with real-time updates or provide customers with estimated shipping times.
Another type of email you need to optimize is...
2. Promotional Email
Let your holiday shoppers know what promotions you will run during the holiday season.
Consider including these elements in your promotional emails:
- Contact information for customer service
- Provide gift card services.
- Complete delivery and shipping information -including ETA
- See if gift wrapping will be a nice idea.
Another type is...
3. Abandoned Cart Emails
I am very sure you don't want an abandoned cart.
Because it's an indication that the customer's shopping experience was unsatisfactory.
Here are three common reasons people abandon their shopping carts during the holidays:
- Out-of-stock
- Shipping Costs
- Other stores offer better deals
If you want to address these needs, it's essential that you send them instant abandoned cart emails.
Do you know that Debutify offers over 50+ Add-Ons to help you recover abandoned carts?
To help you further in your Holiday email marketing campaign, let me give you some holiday email marketing ideas.
7 Tips For A Successful Holiday Email Marketing Campaign
1. Take A Look At The Latest Trends
Trends in email marketing over the years include:
Holiday-Centered Themes
Put your customers in the holiday mood with themed content.
But don't forget to keep it consistent with your brand.
An email from Starbucks included this Holiday themed promotional image which I love:
Content That Is Optimized For Mobile
Here, you simply have to get to the basics:
• Your store site must be compatible with mobile devices.
• Use images that are high-quality and compressed for fast loading.
• Engaging content that grabs your customers' attention and keeps them engaged.
• You should include call-to-actions (CTAs) that compel customers
and online visitors to visit your store.
Then, we have...
Win-Back Emails
The purpose of the win-back email campaign is to reconnect with those customers who previously visited your store, but have not purchased.
You may want to remind them why they were initially interested in your products.
For instance, bring back their interest in your products by offering a countdown timer.
With this, Debutify can help you set up a countdown timer to enhance your ecommerce store with its Cart Countdown Add-On.
Let's move on to the second tip...
2. Plan Ahead
By planning ahead, you're able to provide hints and details about your holiday email marketing strategy. This will help your customers know what to expect from you.
So, if you've experienced high conversions in the past, you can also use past content and marketing strategies. And create the content necessary for conversion optimization.
The next one is important...
3. Make Use Of Segmentation
The importance of customer segmentation on your email list cannot be overstated. Because it creates opportunities for cross-selling and upselling.
But... it does much more than that.
You can use these segmented lists for lead generation. Or you can even use them for social media marketing.
Sounds good, right?
So why don't you start segmenting your email list into various segments. So you can target and show appropriate products to your potential customers.
The following segments can be considered for your holiday email marketing:
- Demographics: age, location, income.
- VIP customers.
- Customers with high Average Order Value (AOV).
- High total transaction customers.
- Customers who haven't bought in the last 30, 60, and 90 days.
- Yet-to-purchase subscribers.
Let's get into the next tip...
4. Review The Past Campaigns
Without tracking past holiday email campaigns, you won't be able to reuse any successful strategies in your current campaign.
Review and be able to ask the following questions:
- What worked well in the past campaign and what didn't?
- In terms of opens, clicks, or sales, which email campaigns performed well?
Review your email data, and see if you can reuse a winning strategy such as:
- Design or layout
- Colors or esthetics
- Subscriber segments
- Subject lines
- Send times
Then, we arrive at...
5. Track Progress In The Present
When you analyze and gauge performance
Measuring performance against a measurable goal allows you to continuously assess your marketing's return of investment (ROI).
Questions that you have to answer:
- How are your holiday sales this year?
- Did they increase or decrease from last year?
Monitoring real-time performance will allow you to identify what is working and what isn't.
Also, if something isn't working out, ensure that you have a backup plan. Take note that for this one, you should be able to plan earlier.
The next tip is vital...
6. Make Your Call to Action (CTA) Stand Out
It is important to have a compelling Call to Action at the end of every holiday email.
You should make it convincing enough for your subscribers to take action, such as:
- Grab Offer
- Shop now
- Click Here
- Sign Up
- Check this out
These can all lead the subscriber to conversion by moving down the sales funnel.
We're down to the last tip...
7. Offer Deals People Can't Resist
Create great deals that your subscribers and potential customers cannot resist to maximize your sales.
The following holiday deals are particularly popular:
- Free shipping
- Cashbacks
- Discounts
Now, aren't these amazing?
I hope you learned something from these tips and as a bonus, I'd like to give you this...
What Kind Of Content Should You Create For Holiday Emails To Customers?
1. Holiday Season Gift Guide
You can showcase your high-performing products to your visitors and customers.
You can also create a digital gift guide that displays relevant products to specific audiences.
This can suggest cross-selling and upselling based on your potential customer's personal interests, price sensitivity, and demographic info.
Next up...
2. Holiday Offer
Send your holiday sales email with your holiday offer and wow your customers!
Provide your customers with special holiday offers they can't refuse.
Who can refuse an offer like this from Puma?
Moving on...the third one is effective
3. Contests
Here, the holiday contest should be the focus of your email rather than the sales
And a sense of urgency should be conveyed to motivate immediate action.
For example:
“3 days left until we pick a winner!” Or “The grand prize is up for grabs - don't miss it”
It can help you increase engagement and re-engage with your subscribers or potential customers.
Having a holiday-themed contest can increase sales, grow your email list, and boost your store site's traffic.
Remember, the contest should be time-bound and fun.
Last but not least...
4. Advent Calendar
Using an online advent calendar as a holiday email marketing idea can be innovative.
It's a great way to keep your customer engaged during the holiday season.
Also, this is intended to raise awareness about your products.
An online advent calendar can also showcase holiday-themed contests, polls, images, videos, and articles.
So what are you waiting for?
During the holiday season, show some love to your customers.
The holidays are a good time to thank your customers for their loyalty and patronage.
Also, this will help you build relationships with them.
Regardless of the strategies, you choose to implement...
make your messages memorable by keeping them straightforward and sincere.
Spread Ho. Ho. Ho-liday Season Email Cheer Using These 7 Email Marketing Tips!
I hope you learn and implement all these tips to have a productive and fun Holiday Season.
With these, it is clear that the holiday season can be lucrative, and your holiday email marketing can help you end the year with a big bang!
One more thing, let me tell you this...
You won't find a better way to celebrate the holidays than to incorporate themes from Debutify into your email marketing.
Debutify Theme enhances beyond the Holiday "look and feels" of your store — it also grows your revenue. With over 50+ Add-Ons, Debutify helps boost your conversions, drives your AOV, and skyrockets your profits.
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