With Christmas just around the corner, most of the world will be scheduling travel and parties, with a bit of shopping and vacation time thrown into the mix. All things considered, it’s a festive time that men and women across the globe look forward to every year.
For those of us in the Internet marketing world, however, the holidays mean something different. Although the holidays may be our favorite time of the year too, there is a lot of work to be done to ensure profit potential. With the holidays brings the mad rush of customers meaning it tends to be the busiest part of the year, with lots of last-minute projects and changes to make to campaigns.
This is especially true when it comes to email marketing – often the main marketing tool used by businesses during the Christmas season. This is largely a result of email marketing being the most effective tactic for increasing sales during the holidays.
With that in mind, here are a few of our best tips for organizing your email marketing so you can make the most of the sales and marketing opportunities to come in the weeks ahead:
- Develop your content and offers ahead of time
Your holiday email marketing campaign should have a very intentional set of goals and related offers. Decide on these early so you can pair them with the right subject lines, calls to action, and even photos or articles. Coordinating your effort from start to finish is a great way to boost response rates.
- Clean your opt-in lists
High bounce rates and unsubscribe ratios hurt the overall effectiveness of your campaigns, and can even affect email delivery. Take advantage of the testing features that major email list-cleaning providers like ListWise provide to ensure that the names on your list are valid. And at the same time, optimize your social and blogging campaigns to attract new subscribers.
- Engage early and often
Creating customer loyalty is one of the driving forces behind using email marketing and social media in the first place. You want to stay ‘top-of-mind’, so when someone is in need of your product or service, you’re the first one they seek out. One of the best ways to ignite engagement is to use a social media promotion. By using a simple tool like Wildfire to run a holiday contest prior to your big email campaigns, you have the added bonus of being one step ahead of your competitors during the holiday season.
- Incentivize the action you want
The best way to get consumers to take action is with the added bonus of an incentive. However, it pays to be wary of the incentive you use for your target audience – make sure it is something both relatable to your product and the customer. Discounts and two-for-one offers work well for commodities, while exclusive content and special access works well when you have long sale cycles and complex products.
- Study past holiday email campaigns
Each year might bring a new campaign, but that doesn't mean you can't learn lessons from the past. Study previous email marketing offers, and the results, to see if there are trends you can recognize, or ideas you can capitalize on.
Because it's fast, cost-effective, and highly targeted, email marketing can be your top sales tool this holiday season. But, if you want to take advantage of the opportunities, the time to start laying the groundwork for a successful campaign is right now. So, make the most of these tips and find a few extra things to be happy about this holiday season.