Do you want to learn how to launch a holiday email marketing campaign? If so, you’re in the right place!
There’s no question that the holidays are an excellent time for brands to connect with customers, skyrocket sales, and build brand loyalty. But if you want to see all the benefits, you need to do everything you can to create a valuable, memorable experience for your audience.
In many cases, this starts with an email.
But with so many emails during this time, you need a smart email marketing campaign if you want to stand out and drive people to your website.
In this A-to-Z guide, we explain the key parts of any successful holiday email campaign. Our detailed guide covers everything you need to know to send click-worthy holiday emails.
Let’s dive in!
A-Z Guide for Launching Your Email Campaign
A – Audience Segmentation
First, you need to make sure you’re reaching the right people. If your messages don’t resonate with subscribers, they don’t really have a reason to visit your site.
Audience segmentation boils down to one idea: dividing your target audience into different groups based on their behavior, needs, and pain points. It’s important to have audience segments because it will help you create unique campaigns for each group of subscribers.
Creating segments—like loyal customers, first-time buyers, and those who left items in their carts—helps to send messages that fit their needs and makes them more relevant and engaging.
B – Branding
If you want to build trust and get people to open your emails, you need to use a consistent brand identity, even with festive emails.
It’s okay to use colors that correspond to the holidays, but you’ll also want to use brand colors and fonts when you’re designing your campaign. Seeing a familiar logo or color scheme is a great way to get people to read your emails.
You should also use the same brand voice you use in all of your other emails. People can sense when someone (or, in this case, some businesses) is being fake just to drive sales. You never want people to feel this way, which is why consistent branding, including your voice, is so important.
Below, you can see Starbucks nailing the branding in their holiday email:
C – Content Calendar
You will 100% want to develop a content calendar for your holiday marketing strategy. It’s a good idea to include the times and dates of email campaigns, blog posts, social media content, live streams, and any other content you’re planning for the month.
Planning ahead is vital for keeping track of important dates so you are not rushing at the very last minute. It will also help you cross-promote your campaigns. This means you’ll know when to send what—be it holiday deals, gift guides, or even reminders.
D – Design
Your holiday email should be simple, easy to understand, and engaging. The best way to capture this is through your design.
A cluttered, hard-to-read email will drive people away, while a warm, welcoming holiday message will have the ultimate effect.
We suggest selecting colors and icons fitting for the season, like snowflakes or warm colors. You’ll also want to include black space between messages and images so readers have time to process what you’re trying to say.
E – Automated Emails
As you may know, automation can perform repetitive tasks on a set schedule and send timely, relevant messages depending on customer actions.
With this in mind, you’ll want to automate most, if not all, of your campaigns. Consider using automation for welcome emails, cart abandonment reminders, Black Friday emails, or even a thank-you email after making a purchase to keep things running smoothly.
Automation takes a once-tedious step out of your holiday email campaigns, which means you have more time to focus on results and making sure everything is running smoothly.
F – Frequency
Sending emails at the right frequency is very important for getting people to engage with your brand.
Too many emails can overwhelm subscribers and encourage them to hit “unsubscribe.” On the other hand, not sending enough can cause them to forget about your brand before they’ve ever made a purchase.
Neither situation is ideal, so it’s up to you to find the sweet spot.
For example, you could start by sending 1-2 emails a week so you can see how people respond. One thing to mention is that sending multiple emails per day should rarely happen. In this situation, only during peak periods, like Black Friday.
Here’s what others said about how often they send out emails to their audience:
G – Goals
Always remember to set your campaign goals from the start. When you know what you want to do with each seasonal campaign, it’s much easier to measure the results.
Do you want to increase sales, raise brand awareness, get more website visits, or do something else?
When you have clear goals, it’s much easier to choose content and helpful calls-to-action (CTAs). The end result is a more focused campaign that gets people to take the next step, whatever that may be for your business.
H – Holiday Theme
A holiday theme makes your emails feel engaging and relevant. It makes sense; people want to see things that align with what’s happening in the world around them.
If you use seasonal pictures and special calls to action (like “Grab Your Gift Now!”), you’re more likely to spark the holiday spirit and get people to engage with your emails.
The most important thing to remember is to make sure your holiday theme fits with your brand for a memorable but seasonal look.
I – Incentives
Special offers, such as discounts or free gifts, are excellent incentives that are perfect for driving customers to take action.
With that in mind, consider offering “Buy One, Get One Free” offers, special discounts for new subscribers, or even a small gift with every purchase to build more interest.
Another effective strategy is to host a social media contest where your audience has a chance to win a prize, like a product or gift card for your site. With a little planning and an eye-catching prize, it’s possible to use a giveaway to grow your email list during the holiday season.
J – Journey Mapping
If you know where your customers are in the buying process, you’re in a much better position to send them useful content.
For example, if someone looks at your holiday gift guides, you might want to consider sending them a discount on gifted orders. Similarly, if someone just joined your email list during the holiday shopping season, an exclusive discount could prompt them to take the next step.
Think carefully about where each group of customers is in your sales funnel as you’re developing your campaign and what you can do to take them to the next phase.
K – Keywords
If your emails are archived online or on your website blog, including specific keywords can help people find them, which can drive a surprising amount of traffic.
Our advice is to choose keywords associated with holidays and your products that people might search for when they’re on your site. This isn’t the most common practice, but there’s no doubt some value to it, depending on your industry and audience size.
L – Landing Pages
Next, it’s a really good idea to create landing pages for your holiday emails.
Since landing pages usually contain important information about the product, discount, or event you’re promoting, it’s easy to see why they are so important.
As a general rule, each campaign should have a designated landing page. You can choose to make these pages public on your site or restrict access to subscribers who click the link in your email. If you’re offered a special discount for subscribers only, this is the way to go.
M – Mobile Optimization
It’s estimated that 41% of all emails are read on smartphones, with the general consensus being that this trend will grow over the next several years.
With that in mind, always make sure your emails look good on mobile devices. You’ll want to use a readable font, big, clickable buttons, and a single-column design so your emails are super easy to read, regardless of how people choose to engage with your messages.
N – Newsletter Signup
We’ve already mentioned that the holiday season is a great time to grow your list. So, be sure to use this opportunity to get more signups.
You’ll want to encourage people to sign up for emails through social media and your website. A simple incentive and call-to-action could turn someone who just discovered your business into a subscriber. Before long, there’s a good chance they’ll become a paying customer.
O – Offer Value
If you want people to act on your holiday emails, you need to offer them something valuable in return. This could mean a discount on their order, a gift guide, or access to an exclusive event.
But simply offering something of value doesn’t always cut it. We suggest focusing on the benefits of what you’re offering in your holiday emails. For example, a social media marketing guru might encourage subscribers to sign up for their live webinar so they can get their first 1000 followers.
Ultimately, holiday shoppers want to see what makes your offer special. Point out benefits like quality, rarity, or exclusivity to help customers see why they should choose you over everyone else.
P – Personalization
Personalized emails help people connect and increase sales. If you’re wondering how effective they are, consider this: 80% of shoppers say they’re more likely to buy from a business that personalizes their experience.
So it’s a good idea to use the subscriber’s name, suggest products they bought before, or give offers based on where they are. These seemingly simple personalization strategies show customers that you care about them and their needs, which makes it more likely they become loyal customers.
Q – Quality Content
If you want to win over your email subscribers, it’s very important that the content you share is of good quality, relevant, and made for them based on their needs and pain points.
Instead of sending cookie-cutter emails, write in a way that connects to what your audience likes and needs during the holidays—be it a gift guide or holiday ideas; good content makes them understand how your brand will improve their lives.
R – Reporting and Analytics
Watching how your campaign is doing is important for understanding what’s working and what isn’t. While it’s a good idea to do this in retrospect, we highly suggest monitoring your email analytics in real time so you can make adjustments as needed.
Important numbers to look at are open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. This information helps you make actionable improvements to your holiday campaigns based on tangible data.
S – Subject Lines
Your subject line is the first thing people see in your email, so you’re going to want to make it good.
A vast majority of people will ignore your email or, worse, mark it as spam if the subject line doesn’t resonate or if they don’t recognize the sender’s name.
This is the last thing you want to happen to your holiday emails. We suggest choosing subject lines that are a mix of honest, eye-catching, and valuable.
You’ll want to try A/B testing to experiment with different ideas, like adding emojis, making it sound urgent, or using the recipient’s name.
T – Timing
Timing can greatly affect how many people read your emails. When you’re setting up your automated campaigns, be sure to keep your audiences’ time zones in mind.
For example, if you’re in the U.S. and your primary audience is in the U.K., you’ll want to send emails in time zones that make sense to them, not you. Otherwise, your perfectly reasonable 6 pm email won’t show up at almost midnight!
Always consider your audience’s schedule and time zones if you want to get the best results. This is one of the easiest holiday email marketing mistakes to avoid.
U – Urgency
Creating a sense of urgency makes people act fast. This feeling, called FOMO, or fear of missing out, is more effective than you might realize. Research shows that a whopping 60% of people who buy because of FOMO do so within 24 hours of seeing the first ad.
You can spark FOMO within your audience with limited-time offers, low stock warnings, and countdowns. There are all good ways to create urgency and encourage your email subscribers to act fast.
V – Value Proposition
Your value proposition is why people choose to buy from your site. If you’re not offering anything unique or impactful, people simply don’t have a reason to stick around.
When promoting your value proposition in your email, point out the unique features of your products and why they are great gifts or will improve the subscriber’s life.
Offering a clear value is one of the best ways to make your offer stand out from others and build loyalty.
W – Website Integration
Connect your email campaigns with your website for a smooth customer experience. For example, make sure branding and messaging line up, links redirect to appropriate pages, and coupons work under different circumstances.
A connected journey from email to website helps make it easier and is a surefire way to improve conversion rates.
X – X-Factor
If you want to host a successful holiday email campaign, it’s so important to plan for the X-factor. In this case, an X-factor is something unexpected that can disrupt your plans and tarnish your otherwise customer experience.
Our advice is to plan for x-factors the best you can by keeping copies of your holiday emails, backing up your website, and making sure your security software is up to date before your campaigns are fully in motion.
Generally speaking, you’ll want to focus on adaptability and agility so you can continue to provide the best experience possible for your customers before, during, and after the holiday season, no matter what comes up along the way.
Y – Year-Round Engagement
Holiday campaigns generally bring new subscribers, so take a moment to think about the future. If you manage to capture and hold your audience’s attention, there’s a good chance you can keep them as customers all year.
You’ll want to keep them interested after the holidays with thank-you emails, special offers, or new seasonal newsletters to build a connection to your brand.
Z – Zero Tolerance
You need to have zero tolerance for spammy behavior or messages. If you don’t take this step, you could hurt your sender’s reputation and cause people to unsubscribe from your email list.
Best practices in this case include permission-based emails, respect for requests to unsubscribe, and an easy way to tweak and personalize their email settings.
Conclusion
There is no detail too small when it comes to creating a winning holiday email campaign—from start to finish.
We firmly believe everyone can use this A to Z guide to optimize each step of their email strategy. Ultimately, this will unlock new opportunities to grow your email list, connect with your audience, and take your business to the next level.
Now that you know what to look for, the only thing left to do is to get started!
Author Bio
Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner. With over 10 years of experience, he’s the leading WordPress expert in the industry. You can learn more about Syed and his portfolio of companies by following him on his social media networks.
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