MAILIGEN HOLIDAY EMAIL MARKETING

CHECKLIST

IntroductionHoliday season can be overwhelming - both for marketers and for customers. You

should take advantage of the great opportunities that email marketing presents for your business or organization. We have created this checklist to help you plan, design and execute excellent email campaigns from Thanksgiving until Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Tick or untick every checkbox right in this PDF document as you complete each of the steps. We believe this will be a practical guide for creating powerful campaigns with perfect timing, relevant content, and beautiful design.

Review last year’s results

Examining your campaigns and results from last year’s holiday season will help to review time frames and see what worked and what didn’t.

Look at the data from previous years and answer these questions:

1. Did you experience any major time crunches? Plan well in advance and build anticipation with a steady flow of email campaigns. Set up a multi-message campaign with unique discounts, promotions, and content that is adjusted to subscribers’ interactions with the previous messages.

2. Were certain days more successful than others? Try to analyze why some email campaigns generated more opens, clicks and conversions considering timing, subject line, and content.

3. Were some campaigns forwarded and shared more? Analyzing what was special about their content could give you a better understanding of what excites your customers.

4. Did any campaign have an unusually high unsubscribe rate? If yes, examine it carefully and find out what to avoid in the future.

Review your answers and data from previous holiday campaigns and plan this year’s strategy accordingly. This will keep you from experiencing the same problems you may have had before.

Make your subject line stand out

During the holidays, your customers’ inboxes are just as crowded as the mailboxes and shops. You need to craft your emails so that they attract attention among tens of other offers. It all starts with a subject line that needs to be exceptionally compelling. It is the first thing your subscribers will see and decide whether or not they will open your email. Choose the most succesful subject line with our Subject line testing tool.

Here are some ideas for crafting an eye-catching subject line:

Personalize it! Adding a person’s name in the subject line may increase email open rate by 29%. Also, make people believe the offer is exclusive to them, using phrases like “Just for you,” “Private invite,” etc.

Add an icon or emoji: Highlighting your subject line with a festive image - e.g. a Christmas tree, a snowflake or a star - can signifficantly increase your open rates.

Use action words: Engage your customers with phrases that invite to act right now, save money or get something valuable, e.g. “today-only,” “last minute,” “hot offer,” “open now,” etc.

Show that you care! Amidst thousands of impersonal sales offers your customer will appreciate if you show some emotion. Don’t be shy to thank them or offer your support already in the subject line.

Keep it short! Since more than half of the emails are opened on mobile (especially during the rush season), it is advisable to use subject lines with fewer than 50 characters.

Ask a question! Start a conversation with your customers, asking, e.g. “Got all Christmas gifts ready?” “What is your festive recipe for this year?” “How to afford all those gifts”?

Above all - be relevant!

Follow a well-planned email campaign strategy and deliver different content to various segments of your target audience. Address your active customers differently from the ones who are less engaged. Create segments based on the purchase history - create a compelling offer for clients who bought your product or service last year. Remove customers who have already purchased your offer this year to make sure they don’t receive a better offer on the same product right after.

You can also run follow-up campaigns targetted at those who have abandoned their shopping carts. Create an irresistible offer with a compelling subject line to engage non-openers and non-clickers of your email campaigns. Send Christmas gift suggestions based on your subscribers’ interests or wishlists they have created on your platform. Make use of Mailigen campaign management tools to run campaigns automatically!

Create a brilliant design

Holidays are the best time to get creative! Let your imagination fly and take your customers with you - insert gifs, greeting videos and amazing designs in your templates! Or do the opposite - keep it simple and convincing. Latest trends show that customers are attracted to large, inspiring hero images, paired with a clear CTA. This kind of conversion-centered design doesn’t allow for distraction or decision fatigue. Another useful example is a gift guide template that lets you showcase several products in an attractive way.

Single-column templates tend to perform best on mobile devices. Try to focus on a single message or offer and add a clear Call-To-Action. However, there is no single one-size-fits-all template and you should test your template for your specific target audience.

We have made the design work easier for you by creating many beautiful and responsive email templates (+new ones for this season!). Also, you can read our guest blog post about a Stellar Email Newsletter Design or order a template designed, especially for your business.

Be mobile-friendly

More and more often people view emails from a smartphone or tablet. If your emails are not optimized for mobile devices, this can be very harmful to your campaigns because many users will automatically delete a message if they cannot view it properly. When creating your holiday email campaigns, be sure they are mobile friendly. Tip: single-column templates usually perform best on mobile, but make sure you test each campaign several times to be positive.

Integrate with social media

If you are relying on email alone, you are not using all the potential of email marketing. Instead, you should integrate social media (e.g. upload email lists to Facebook and run promoted social media campaigns to those who have already subscribed to your list), content marketing, and paid advertising in all your campaigns to get the best possible results.

Allow opt-up and opt-down options

Not every customer is going to be excited about the surge of emails flooding their inboxes during the holiday season. To prevent people from unsubscribing, allow an opt-down option. Be sure to tell them your messaging will return to normal volumes soon. On the other hand, if you will be offering deals daily or more frequently, be sure to provide them with an opt-up option as well. Offering these options will show you care about your customers preferences and increase their trust with your brand.

Other useful tips

Keep an eye on your competitors - always research what other companies in your industry are doing for their holiday marketing - or did last year. Remember that many big companies already invested large sums of money in research and testing - get the best of their experience.

Run advent-type email campaigns. Surprise your recipients with offers, gifts and other extras once a week or even once a day by running an advent-type campaign. This will take a little extra time and planning but will level up recipient engagement.

Send an email offer and follow-up with a reminder SMS a few days later to make sure customers don’t miss your splendid offer.

Remember about the holiday spirit! This might be the loveliest time of the year. Do not hesitate to include some festive themes in your email design and copy to make your subscribers happy and create a stronger bond with them.

Send last-minute offers - in 2015 only 53% of shoppers had done all their shopping two weeks before Christmas. Target these customers with compelling and reassuring offers.

Why not have a post-holiday sale? Use the quiet time after New Year’s to offer great discounts to your subscribers while clearing your shelves for the new season.

Don’t forget about the landing page!

Make sure your CTA leads to an attractive landing page that matches your email offer or directly to the purchase page. The landing page will reassure subscribers that they’re in the right place while sending them to your home page or a random spot on your website could give them time to change their minds.

In order to create effective email campaigns, proper preparation and planning are essential. Planning in advance is especially critical for your holiday campaigns. Once the season hits, everything becomes rushed, the stakes are high, and you always want to be one step ahead. This is where our Email Marketing Planner Guide comes to the rescue!

Mailigen Planner Guide

This planner guide is a full campaign management service for all of your email marketing activities. While it is useful throughout the year, it is particularly helpful during the crazy holiday season as you can easily plan, implement and monitor your holiday campaigns in one organized platform. This guide will take you through five simple steps:

1. Plan and segment your target audience according to your business goals;2. Produce your message with client interests in mind; 3. Test your message following the best practices; 4. Deliver your message at the right time and place; and 5. Measure your campaigns and boost your results.

Mailigen is Europe’s leading email marketing automation software and services company. The SaaS offers email, mobile, social media marketing, and other managed services to customers in more than 100 countries worldwide. Mailigen brings international knowledge to local markets.

About us

Mailigen is known for its integration with e-commerce platforms such as Magento and Shopify, and innovative email marketing features such as Responsive Online Surveys, Email Inbox Preview and Subject Line Advisor. To find out more or start a 30-day free trial, please visit mailigen.com. Share your feedback with us - use hashtag #RiseAndTell

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