It’s that time of year.
No, I’m not talking about putting up holiday lights before Thanksgiving.
I’m talking about planning your holiday email campaigns.
During the 2017 holiday season, email had the highest conversion rate (4.29%), followed by search (3.04%), direct mail (2.39%), and social (1.81%).
Email is still the most effective channel when it comes to online marketing.
Here are 5 tips to make sure your holiday email campaigns are opened, read, and acted upon:
1. Develop Good Headlines
When you have a great product or service, it’s easy to come up with content for your email campaign.
Most people start writing the email and then slap on a headline.
This is backward.
Once you’ve determined your subject matter, brainstorm several headlines.
Next, use a headline analyzer tool like AMI or Coschedule to see how your headline might appeal to your audience.
We often spend 30 or more minutes crafting a headline for every campaign email we send.
Good headlines are the foundation of a successful email campaign.
Remember This: No one buys from an email they didn’t open.
2. Be Yourself
When you have a solid brand strategy, your customers are drawn to your brand’s personality.
They relate to it. They get you. They want more of you.
Promotional emails during the holiday season are an opportunity to be creative, but don’t let creativity confuse your customers.
If your brand is fun, stay fun. If your brand is high-end, don’t use cheap gimmicks or silly offers just to get a sale.
Keep your brand voice in check and don’t try to copycat what other people are doing. Your customers will see right through that.
Be yourself and stay true to your brand’s personality.
Your customers will love you for it.
And in return, they’ll buy more.
3. Stay On Brand
Tis the season to be tempted.
With creativity swirling all around, you might consider changing your email template to seasonal colors.
This is not a bad thing but proceed with caution.
Use colors that complement your own brand colors, fonts, and logo.
Pre-made templates are not a good fit for an established brand. Even though pre-made templates look professional, they will be slightly different than your brand guidelines.
Your goal in converting more sales is to give your audience a smooth, uniform experience with your brand.
Leading a customer from one style in an email to a landing page on your site with different fonts and colors may have them wondering if they ended up on the right page.
Brand confusion will cost you.
For best results, let your brand strategist put together some designs for you using your brand guidelines and voice.
4. Focus on a Single Offer
It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the year-end buying frenzy.
Everyone is out purchasing gifts, so why not show them everything you’ve got in your email?
Maybe they will see something they like.
Have you ever window shopped your email?
Me neither.
When it comes to email marketing, less is better.
Your customers are not leisurely strolling through their emails looking for things to buy.
They’re scanning headlines, trying to match what you’re offering with the holiday shopping list in their pocket.
Keep your offer simple and concentrate on a single product or service.
Your content will become laser focused and so will your headline.
Too many choices induce decision fatigue in your customer.
By removing the overwhelm of choice, your customer can make a quick purchase decision and check another item off their shopping list.
5. Have A Strategy
Nothing is less-effective in email marketing than emails that are rushed off without any thought behind them.
You’ve probably received thousands of these unplanned emails by now.
Most of them probably went unopened right into your trash bin because the subject line was an afterthought that didn’t appeal to you.
Planning should entail more than an item on your to-do list that reads “Send a promotional email on Black Friday”.
Your strategy should include teaser emails that lead up to the big day. Your campaign should provide some element of mystery and involve some urgency. It should have a purpose.
Clients who’ve been through our GET CLEAR Workshop know their customer’s preferences and buying habits.
They know the best time of the day to send an email, what messaging works best and even which product or service to send to an individual customer.
Now that’s strategy!
You do have a strategy, right?
If not, contact us and let’s map out a game plan to boost your holiday sales.