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Q4...one number and a letter that has heart racing at retailers everywhere... There are lot of great sources to help you with your Christmas and year-end email efforts. In this post I have summarised what I see as the best of the bunch to help your planning & preparation, strategies & tactics, and email design.
(Be sure to read through to the end for some quick bonus tips, too.)
Useful articles and white papers:
Email marketing holiday planning calendar from ExactTarget and a checklist from Silverpop:
[slideshare id=24996872&doc=emailmarketingholidaycalendar-130806132952-phpapp02&w=500]
[slideshare id=5390145&doc=holidayemailmarketingchecklist-101008004627-phpapp01&w=500]
A selection of ideas, examples and screenshots:
Ideas for those who are not retailers:
The nine types of holiday emails (from Slide 9) from AWeber:
[slideshare id=10399458&doc=nov11meetuppres-111130090011-phpapp02&w=500&startSlide=9]
Christmas and holiday email design collections and galleries:
Enhancing existing templates with seasonal and gift-giving elements:
Customer data and test results obtained in the gift-giving season might not be applicable to the rest of the year. I am more likely to be shopping based on other people's preferences and interests (i.e. for gifts), rather than my own. So beware of simply feeding my Q4 data into your analyses, campaign planning and personalisation engines.
Most advice on Christmas and holiday email marketing includes reviewing last year's efforts for actionable insight. So take notes as the season progresses and use the New Year to evaluate your campaigns while everything is still fresh in your mind. For example:
UK Internet users, for example, made 84 million visits to retail websites on Christmas Eve in 2012, highlighting the role online continues to play even when shipping deadlines have passed. As Christmas nears:
Christmas and holiday email isn't just about sending dedicated seasonal promotions. Add festive design elements and promotions to those "set and forget" email messages, too. For example:
But don't forget to switch them back again once the holiday season is over!
By Mark Brownlow
Mark Brownlow is a former email copywriter and publisher of the retired Email Marketing Reports site. He now works as a lecturer and writer. Connect with him via Lost Opinions.
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