Recipes for Holiday Marketing Success
- Updated on: 2023-02-27
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'Tis the season for holiday shopping! For most online businesses, the Q4 holiday shopping season is their last chance to boost sales and revenue.
This year Adobe predicts online holiday sales will increase by 2.5%. This may not sound like a lot. However, Cyber Monday sales alone are expected to exceed 11 billion. With the right tactics in place, there is still a huge opportunity for marketers to reach (or exceed!) their yearly revenue targets and build on that momentum going into the new year.
Nowadays, shoppers are not just looking for products or services to buy. They expect a personalized, convenient experience from the moment they land on your site to the emails they receive in their inbox.
With higher expectations and so much at stake for marketers, we tapped email experts from dotdigital, Benchmark, The Insight Studio, icontact, Holistic Email Marketing, eFocus Marketing, Digioh, emailmonday & Everlytic to share some quick and easy recipes for holiday marketing success.
Here's what they had to say...
At Dotdigital, we believe the perfect recipe includes the following: Preparation. ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ - the old adage rings true. It’s a busy time, so do all you can in advance. Planning gives you a comprehensive, birds-eye view of the period. Include all of your marketing channels to spot gaps and see any areas that are misaligned or simply too busy. Your customers will be everywhere, and your messaging needs to be, too - and you want it to be consistent. Respect your customers. Inboxes are going to be fuller than ever, with everyone shouting about their biggest discounts. We’ve come a long way from batch and blast, so don’t go overboard, as your deliverability will suffer. Instead, use segmentation and personalization to send tailored, super-relevant content. Utilize zero- and first-party data (such as preference centers and behavioral data) to create content your customers want to receive. Tailoring your communications will result in happier customers, lower unsubscribe rates, and higher engagement. It’s a win-win. Connect with subscribers. One of the most important things about the holidays is connecting with loved ones, and this can extend to your marketing. Share a message of thanks and send good wishes to your email subscribers. This will authentically strengthen your customer-brand relationship. Plus, after weeks of promotional-heavy emails, a campaign of this nature is a breath of fresh air in your subscribers’ inboxes. This example from fashion retailer Kate Spade does a great job sharing a holiday message while staying on-brand. Plus, adding in a cheeky final push of its gift cards for the truly last-minute gift-givers among us—keeps it commercial without being overbearing. Maintain the momentum. Engagement needn’t fizzle out come January the first. A bit of smart planning can turn one-off purchasers into loyal customers for years to come. Ensure your onsite email capture is prominent, and incentivize email signup. Then have an engaging welcome program ready to capture new leads and customers, selling your brand story and USPs while they’re engaged. Highlight your social media channels, keeping your brand front of mind whilst they browse the web - even when they’re not actively shopping. Finally, capitalize on every opportunity by utilizing eRFM modelling to identify leads when they’re most likely to convert, and hit them with a relevant program.
What Are Your Subscribers Hungry For? Successful email programs are always ones that address the needs of your audience. The holidays typically make Q4 a big buying quarter, and it’s important to understand the pressures and expectations your audience is experiencing associated with the end of the year and the holiday season. For Benchmark Email and BenchmarkONE, a large group of our audience is comprised of eCommerce and small businesses. We know they’re embarking on an extremely busy season, and some may even see the majority of their yearly revenue in the next few months. This means they’ll want to be set up for success and have some momentum behind their marketing and sales efforts. However, finding the right tools to help them with their campaigns is a job in and of itself, and they could use some help. That’s why this year, we’ve partnered with other brands to offer savings on essential marketing tools. It’s promotions like these that not only help make the holiday season brighter but also ensure your audience engages with your brand in a meaningful way. So, if you’re looking for an effective, helpful email marketing tactic, I recommend offering your audience promotions or deals on things they could really use during the holidays. Below is the email promo we’ll be sending to our subscribers so they can take advantage of some great savings this holiday season:
Best Practices: The Main Ingredient For Every Successful Holiday Campaign Winter is coming! When Winter hits, you are in the throws of the 4th quarter. This means vacations, time with friends and family, and the ever-so-busy time of year for marketers! This is not the time to simply increase your email frequency to flood your subscribers’ inboxes. Rather, you should follow holiday email marketing best practices. The first item to discuss is frequency. Sure, this is an opportunity to send more emails, but let your subscribers know and give them the option to choose how many emails they want by using a survey or linking back to a profile page. Next, you may gain some subscribers during this time of year that are looking for gifts for others. Give them a warm welcome and a reason to stick around long-term! Even when the holidays are over, the party does not need to stop! Other holidays, such as Valentine’s Day and St. Patricks Day, will help you stay in the holiday marketing spirit. The most important item to mention is to double down on the value you offer in your emails. Carefully plan your content so that it is timely and relevant to your subscribers. Use segmentation and automation to help send the right message to the right people at the right time. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of the holidays and create your email content under pressure and with little time. Review your content carefully and use split testing to learn what content works best. Here are a couple of creative emails I enjoyed seeing around the holidays.
Do Your Prep Work: Audit & Improve Processes for Lasting Impact—Beyond Q4 My favorite holiday tactic (besides carefully and strategically ramping up and then ramping down afterward) is ensuring that all touch points throughout the customer journey are being utilized for collection of permission. Yes, I know that this isn’t particularly ‘holiday’ sexy. But it’s incredibly important for your database growth. If you’re driving traffic during this period to your site and selling your products at a discount, then you most definitely want to maximize and make the most of your budget spent—not just in the short term, but in the long term as well. So, I recommend that you set up or audit and improve your existing programs and subscribe placements and procedures for Homepage Subscribe, Registration Process, Browse Abandon, Basket Abandon, Cart Abandon, and Purchase Process. We’ve helped our client, Cannadips, to be fully prepared for the upcoming holiday season with their Browse Abandonment Program, which sees results such as 73% Open Rate, 10% Click Rate and a 4.0% Placed Order rate.
As the holidays approach, email volume always spikes. Inbox sizes overflow and important messages get lost in the shuffle. To help you cut through the noise and deliver successful email campaigns this holiday season, we've put together five of our favorite recipes for email success. 1. The Classic Cookie Swap Nothing says holidays like a good old-fashioned cookie swap. Invite your subscribers to join in on the fun by sending them a recipe for their favorite cookies along with a list of ingredients. Then, encourage them to bake a batch and share it with a friend, neighbor, or colleague. Not only will your subscribers have fun baking and sharing their cookies, but they'll also be reminded of your brand every time they take a bite. 2. The Secret Santa Surprise Who doesn't love a good surprise? Send your subscribers a personal message letting them know that they've been selected to receive a special holiday gift from your brand. Then, include a coupon or promo code that they can use to redeem their gift. This is a great way to show your appreciation for your subscribers and encourage them to take advantage of your products or services. 3. The 12 Days of Christmas On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...a promotional email from a brand I love! Start off the holiday season by sending your subscribers 12 different offers, one for each day leading up to Christmas Day. This could be anything from discounts and free shipping to exclusive access to new products or services. Your subscribers will love getting festive emails from you all month long, and you'll love the boost in sales and engagement. 4. The New Year's Resolution Refresh Help your subscribers start the new year off on the right foot with a refreshing offer from your brand. Whether it's a discount on workout gear or a free trial of your latest wellness program, everyone can use a little motivation to stick to their New Year's resolutions. Plus, this is a great way to get people interested in your brand if they're not familiar with it yet. 5. The Post-Holiday Thank You After all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, take some time to send a simple thank-you message to your subscribers. They'll appreciate the gesture and help keep your brand top of mind as they start thinking about their goals for the new year. Plus, if you include an offer or coupon for future purchases, you may just turn them into lifelong fans! The holidays are always a busy time, but with careful planning and execution, you can deliver successful email campaigns that will engage and delight your subscribers. By following our favorite recipes for email success, you'll be sure to stand out in inboxes this holiday season!
Understand Your Audience & Use All the Tools At Your Disposal My recipe for holiday email marketing success is to understand your audience, how their behavior changes during this period, and how you can support, nurture, inspire and engage them throughout. As gift buying starts, consumers may be tempted by other products outside of their normal shopping landscape and need to be exposed to other products/services you provide. Depending on your business, provide gift-giving advice, such as choosing the right size/color clothing, returns policies, Christmas shipping dates and other relevant, helpful information to support and reassure the customer about a gift purchase with you. Use browse/email behavior, in-email polls/seasonal sign-up questions (etc.) to establish gift-buying potential and implement automated campaigns to follow up with this supportive information, inspiring the customer with product examples, tips, advice and more. Think about offering email Black Friday/gifting-specific opt-ins and deliver content relevant to not only what they’ve purchased during the year but also during previous holiday seasons (if the data is available). Consider previous holiday purchase behavior, like what they bought, how much they spent, and when they shopped. For example, are they last-minute shoppers who need a bigger push just before Christmas? Put your customer first, and your engagement and revenue will follow as you stand out in a personalized, intelligent way this festive season.
Everyone loves the feeling that comes from giving the absolute perfect gift. But not everyone knows exactly how to find the perfect gift. A dynamic and interactive gift guide quiz cuts the time it takes to search for a gift in half and helps shoppers find the perfect gift in one quick stop. When you design a gift guide quiz, you can ask questions like: Who are you shopping for? What is their age range? What is your budget? The answers to these questions help them find their gift and contribute to your ongoing zero-party data collection, so you can completely personalize their shopping experience going forward. Integrate their data with your ESP, Google Analytics, and many other tools so you can send shoppers personalized emails, cross-target them as they surf the web, and more. Digioh helps you design a completely custom and dynamic quiz. Your gift guide can lead shoppers to the perfect gift in under 8 questions and 5 short minutes. Many of our customers see great success with their product quiz when they place the first question into their email campaign. When subscribers answer the first question, they are directed to your site to finish the quiz. Include an “Add to Cart” button on the results page, encouraging shoppers to buy now Send customers a dynamic email showing them their product results and reminding them to secure that perfect gift Adding that first question of the guide in your email campaign is a great way to entice subscribers onto your site and through your guide We get super excited about product recommendation quizzes and gift guides because they are such powerful marketing tools! They help your shoppers find what they’re looking for, providing a great customer experience. And they help you both secure more revenue and build your zero-party data to use in future marketing campaigns.
Have Multiple Menus (or Plans) & Offer More Than a Good Deal For the Holiday season, it’s a good idea to plan your emails. Look at it as if that period is one big campaign or series. Having a plan is key. And if you are a high-volume ecommerce sender, be sure to have more than one plan. Have a plan A, B, and C – depending on your inventory, response rates and how well your campaigns are doing. Plus, a contingency plan in case “just everything goes wrong.” So multiple emails in a series are the starting point. Now try to break the mold with a different cadence and content than the rest of the year. That is what can give your holiday emails that extra charm and extra conversions. You can get more creative with one type of campaign I like—an advent calendar-style email series. It gives you a framework to offer a daily– counting down to an event. Unlock a new promotion with a specific deal every day. It is a good concept to spread out your content and offers and highlight each of them without diffusing the attention. Look at this example from DSW. They did a 30 days of BlackFriday campaign. It has a cool design and also callbacks / look forward with labels like “Going on now,” “Today’s wow,” and “Next up.” The three labels give you more wiggle room to have multiple days of promotion. And there is a video as well. Now you have to get creative to fill up every day and keep people engaged. Nobody said it has to be a full month, though ?????. You can do a week, ten days or whatever period makes the most sense. 7 holiday ideas to include more than “just deals:” Announce the calendar- combined with social User Generated Content. What do people want to see most on the calendar? Ask and share the results. Offer products specially made for the promotion during the sales days. If the products are new to your inventory, you can take RRP (Recommended Retail Pricing) Help with a gift guide to let your subscribers discover new products, get enthused and help them select the right products. Give a free digital giveaway with purchase. Digital products can be a big value compared to their costs which is great for retaining your margin. Organize a special day, offer or VIP evening at your Point of Sale (POS). If you have an integration with your marketing system, you can connect the online profile of your visitors and give them a customized in-store experience. Last Minute gift ideas – with free express shipping to make sure those gifts arrive on time. Work with partners and promote their products. This will also allow you to split the promotion costs or get more reach from them co-promoting you in return.
We’re heading steadily into the holiday season, and for marketers in a few industries, that means it’s time to bring out the big guns. Here are some holiday email marketing tips that stand the test of time: Keep it Short & Social Keep your emails short and eye-catching. Then back it all up on social media, because if there’s one thing people do more over the holidays, it’s scroll idly online. Check out how the Foschini Group did it for Black Friday. Email Gift Guides Send gift guides for women, men, kids, etc. If you know your reader’s buying history, location, and interests, you can even personalize this email guide using dynamic content. Send Coupon Codes As much as 85% of consumers are encouraged to purchase after receiving emails containing coupon codes, and 73% of consumers say that sales and discounts play a role in their holiday shopping decisions. This one’s a no-brainer. Call Readers to Action CTAs are critical in your holiday campaigns. Make sure yours is big, bold, and right at the top of your mailer so readers don’t miss it. Check out these tips for writing killer CTAs. Cater for Last-Minuters Online purchases rise until the last week before Christmas. Maximize this by offering coupons and discounts until the 18th. Then boost sales in the last week by offering speedy delivery options and pushing gift cards. After all, there are 72% more searches for gift cards the week before Christmas compared to the first week of December. Optimize Client Service Commit to providing exceptional customer service that guides buyers through the process, answers their questions, and make doing business with you as seamless as possible. Customers are more likely to return that way. Last words? Plan early, create calendars for your messaging, and automate as much as you can so you can free yourself to do strategic and creative work. And be prepared to adapt your plans in response to the market and the results you get.
Stay tuned. We'll be posting more No Bullshit Advice soon. Catch up on the entire series here: No Bullsh*t Advice From Email Experts.
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