While social media and PR have become the primary tools of promoting and building awareness, email still remains the most effective way to sell your product. According to one market study, in 2014, email accounted as the second highest driver of traffic behind organic search and ahead of social media. Moreover, it constituted for 27.4% of online sales during the holiday season. With the holiday season nearing, why not switch to a holiday theme campaign and increase your transaction rate? In this post, you’ll find four holiday email marketing tips to create compelling holiday campaigns and make the most of this holiday season.
ANNOUNCE EXCLUSIVE SEASONAL SALES
Segment your customers from an order of high-value customers to average value customers and announce seasonal sales via segmented email blasts. Give high-value customers i.e. “big-spenders” early access to your sale on items that they’re more likely to purchase. Tailor the email message and make sure you emphasize on the exclusivity of the sales they’re getting their hands on.
While we’re focusing on giving the ultimate customer experience, let’s not forget those who’ve had a bad experience with your brand in the past. Create a separate email list of customers who’ve had a sour experience and give them early access to promotions.
You can also announce exclusive seasonal sales to your customers in a more concrete way. A good email marketing company will advise you to start planning holiday campaigns by August while the most popular time for launching holiday campaigns is after Halloween. You can make holiday campaigns more effective by going cross-platform via social media. Alongside, you can integrate teasers on upcoming holiday specials before Halloween or partner with a brand for cross-promotion to increase engagement for holiday promotions.
OPTIMIZE YOUR EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
Investing your time in crafting perfect emails can help you increase your sales and engagement on holiday email marketing by leaps and bounds. All you need to do is – write an effective email copy, design with mobile in mind, and considerately place your call-to-actions.
The next step is self-explanatory. You need to keep testing this campaigns to ensure you don’t trigger any spam filter.
Now, jump to the most important step that involved scheduling your email blasts ahead of time and setting up automation as per your holiday promotion schedule so you have plenty of time left to monitor your results between two campaigns. Well-planned, automated campaigns can help you make sure that segmented email blasts have key messages to cut through the clutter of holiday emails.
BE MOBILE-FRIENDLY
Online shopping is here to stay, and one cannot afford to miss what it has to offer. Purchases via mobile devices have drastically increased in past several years. A recent survey on Email Marketing noted that compelling subject lines is one of the main reasons behind higher click and take rates on mobile email marketing. Moreover, a majority (41 percent) said promotional holiday email marketing messages have more impact on holiday purchases than regular promotional emails.
Use a mobile-friendly template for holiday emails so they look good on smartphones and tablets, and recipients can easily interact with your site. Furthermore, you may follow suit of the many hundred retailers who’re selling their products by running e-commerce apps and encourage shoppers to use it. That way, you can maximize your reach and sales potential too.
SEGMENT YOUR EMAIL LIST
You can take a step further this holiday season by segmenting your customers and sending more targeted emails. If you operate in multiple locations, you can use geographic segmenting to create personalized emails to ensure good email deliverability. If you’re sending a series of holiday email blasts, you can segment your email list based on customer activity or engagement and tailor content accordingly. Don’t get tempted to send the same email to everyone on your list. If you have a list of inactive recipients, take professional help from a good email marketing company on a clean email list.
By following email marketing best practices in this post and planning effective email campaigns, you’ll have the power to improve your ROI with email marketing.