Holiday email campaigns are a great way to generate interest during what is the busiest shopping season of the year. Most businesses make a huge deal of money during the holiday season, and you can capitalize on those profits by creating email campaigns that target your past loyal customers. Here are just a few ways that you can seriously improve your holiday email campaigns:

  1. Start your re-engagement efforts early. If you have a high number of inactive subscribers on your list, as many businesses do, before the holiday season has actually started is the best time to make sure that your audience is as engaged as possible. The more engaged they are, the more likely they are respond to your future emails. The best way to do this is with a great coupon code or other offer that makes placing an order very attractive. Other suggestions to step up engagement include offering free samples (companies like Sephora use free samples with great effect), dollar or percentage discounts, or free gifts.

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  1. Target certain segments of your audience. Every audience has segments. For example, if you are a clothing retailer, you probably have some segments that buy only clothes for women, clothes for teenagers, for men, etc. These segments will be looking for marketing emails that are more tailored to their interests. Someone who has only ever bought clothes for women will not be interested in a marketing email that details a special on men’s pants. Look at the information you have about your customers and their buying habits, and separate your list into specific segments that are likely to be interested in certain types of marketing emails.
  1. Learn to turn cart abandonment into a purchase. The best way to do this is to set up an automatic email that is sent out when your customers have put something in their carts but have since abandoned it. When they leave your website without purchasing something they have put in their carts, this should trigger an email that reminds them to come back and make that purchase. Especially if that email includes some sort of coupon code or other incentive for coming back and making that purchase, as much as 30% of your audience is going to respond to it and actually make a purchase.
[easy-tweet tweet=”Emails with an incentive show response rates as high as 30%. #OpportunityAwaits” via=”no” usehashtags=”no”]
  1. Making sure your landing pages are optimized. Landing pages are a great way to present your customers with customized information when they access your website. Having landing pages that are geared specifically to the holiday season make it easy for people who are looking for gifts to feel comfortable and at home purchasing from you. This can be done through a holiday-themed design, calls to action that are related to the season, copy that reflects holiday shopping desires, and more. Make sure that the landing page is also very easy to navigate and that the information that that customers is likely to be looking for is readily accessible.
  1. Combine social media with email marketing. Directing your customers to not only make a purchase, butsocial media marketing to also connect with you on social media can up engagement and can provide those customers with the social proof they need in order to make a purchase. Especially those that are interested in reading reviews from previous customers before they buy something, will take advantage of the opportunity to connect with you on social media and to see what others have said about you on those pages. Make sure that your social media marketing campaigns are going at full tilt and that you have your Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping specials up and well publicized as you direct people to those social media pages.
  1. Look at last year’s data. If you want to know what specifically your brand can do better this holiday season, it’s time to look at your success and failure last holiday season. If you still have the data about how effective your emails were, about your click rates, conversions, and return on investment, you can see where you might have let things slip and where you were successful. This gives you the ability to build on your successes and shore up your failures, so that this year’s holiday email campaigns are even stronger than ever.

Looking at your past data will also tell you the best day of the week and time of the day to send out your emails.

When is your target audience likely to have the time, energy, and desire to engage with your emails? Be sure to consider each segment individually and to craft emails specifically for each segment, instead of sending out one blanket email to everyone on your list.

Now it’s your turn – What techniques have you found to help improve your email marketing success?

Holiday email campaigns are a great way to generate interest during what is the busiest shopping season of the year. Most businesses make a huge deal of money during the holiday season, and you can capitalize on those profits by creating email campaigns that target your past loyal customers. Here are just a few ways that you can seriously improve your holiday email campaigns:

  1. Start your re-engagement efforts early. If you have a high number of inactive subscribers on your list, as many businesses do, before the holiday season has actually started is the best time to make sure that your audience is as engaged as possible. The more engaged they are, the more likely they are respond to your future emails. The best way to do this is with a great coupon code or other offer that makes placing an order very attractive. Other suggestions to step up engagement include offering free samples (companies like Sephora use free samples with great effect), dollar or percentage discounts, or free gifts.

website design in sarasota

  1. Target certain segments of your audience. Every audience has segments. For example, if you are a clothing retailer, you probably have some segments that buy only clothes for women, clothes for teenagers, for men, etc. These segments will be looking for marketing emails that are more tailored to their interests. Someone who has only ever bought clothes for women will not be interested in a marketing email that details a special on men’s pants. Look at the information you have about your customers and their buying habits, and separate your list into specific segments that are likely to be interested in certain types of marketing emails.
  1. Learn to turn cart abandonment into a purchase. The best way to do this is to set up an automatic email that is sent out when your customers have put something in their carts but have since abandoned it. When they leave your website without purchasing something they have put in their carts, this should trigger an email that reminds them to come back and make that purchase. Especially if that email includes some sort of coupon code or other incentive for coming back and making that purchase, as much as 30% of your audience is going to respond to it and actually make a purchase.
[easy-tweet tweet=”Emails with an incentive show response rates as high as 30%. #OpportunityAwaits” via=”no” usehashtags=”no”]
  1. Making sure your landing pages are optimized. Landing pages are a great way to present your customers with customized information when they access your website. Having landing pages that are geared specifically to the holiday season make it easy for people who are looking for gifts to feel comfortable and at home purchasing from you. This can be done through a holiday-themed design, calls to action that are related to the season, copy that reflects holiday shopping desires, and more. Make sure that the landing page is also very easy to navigate and that the information that that customers is likely to be looking for is readily accessible.
  1. Combine social media with email marketing. Directing your customers to not only make a purchase, butsocial media marketing to also connect with you on social media can up engagement and can provide those customers with the social proof they need in order to make a purchase. Especially those that are interested in reading reviews from previous customers before they buy something, will take advantage of the opportunity to connect with you on social media and to see what others have said about you on those pages. Make sure that your social media marketing campaigns are going at full tilt and that you have your Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping specials up and well publicized as you direct people to those social media pages.
  1. Look at last year’s data. If you want to know what specifically your brand can do better this holiday season, it’s time to look at your success and failure last holiday season. If you still have the data about how effective your emails were, about your click rates, conversions, and return on investment, you can see where you might have let things slip and where you were successful. This gives you the ability to build on your successes and shore up your failures, so that this year’s holiday email campaigns are even stronger than ever.

Looking at your past data will also tell you the best day of the week and time of the day to send out your emails.

When is your target audience likely to have the time, energy, and desire to engage with your emails? Be sure to consider each segment individually and to craft emails specifically for each segment, instead of sending out one blanket email to everyone on your list.

Now it’s your turn – What techniques have you found to help improve your email marketing success?

Published on November 17, 2015

About the Author: Ashley Bardonaro

Ashley Bardonaro is a Content Writer & Strategist at Aginto. Her main focus and passion is creating amazing content that is accurate, up-to-date, and (most importantly) educational to business owners. Follow her on Twitter.