Holiday Email Campaigns: How to Rise Above the Chaos in the Inbox

The Holiday season is the most competitive time of the year. Every brand tries to get the maximum out of their email campaigns during these busy days. As the email volume increases, you have to invest extra time and effort to create impactful campaigns that convert. 

For better understanding, we have divided the topic into five distinct subheadings, namely content, design and development, deliverability, the X-factor, and things to avoid. 

Let’s discuss each one of them in further detail:

1. Content

As platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are getting more popular, your subscribers expect video content and visually rich emails in their inboxes. The Holiday season is a good time to experiment with these rich media elements and see how they work for your business. 

It is a good idea to check the competitors and derive some inspiration from their strategy. Track the past purchases and browsing history of your subscribers to target them with relevant content. 

Add social proof in your marketing emails as well as automated emails. Highlight your best-sellers, top-rated products, product testimonials, and company-centric testimonials in your Holiday emails. It will build confidence and encourage the users to purchase from you, especially during the season of giving. 

Besides promoting your discount offers, let the customers know how your product makes lives easier for them. Inform them about free shipping, easy returns, and gift wrapping policy. 

2. Design and development

More than 50% of online sales take place through mobile devices. But, that does not imply that you overlook desktops. You must design your email campaigns in such a way that it renders well across all devices and email clients.    

Incorporate Holiday elements in your email campaigns. Use bright colors like red, blue, and white to match the festive vibes. Just make sure that you keep an eye on the file sizes. Avoid using images over 1 MB to maintain optimum loading time and engagement rate.  

If you have a large subscriber base accessing emails through Gmail and an ESP supporting AMP technology, send out interactive AMP emails that work as a mailable microsite. You can also send out GIFs to make your emails visually aesthetic. 

An important design aspect is accessibility. Use suitable color contrast so that the important elements stand out. When using visuals, keep away from too flashy animations or GIFs flashing between 2 to 55 Hz as it can aggravate photosensitive epilepsy. Also, create Dark Mode compatible emails as most of your subscribers are accessing emails in dark mode settings. 

3. Deliverability

Clean the subscriber list before sending out Holiday email campaigns to ensure a good deliverability rate during the peak season. Warm up your domain at least two months prior to the Holidays. If needed, consult a reliable deliverability partner who can guide you through the process. 

You can also consider investing in an exclusive subdomain for the Holiday season. As send volumes are expected to reach an astronomical figure during the Holidays, a new subdomain would keep you away from the radar of ESPs and ISPs. 

Change the segmentation criteria to warrant proper data hygiene. Refrain from increasing the sending frequency overnight and send emails to active subscribers only. Many brands employ blast email campaigns during the Holiday season. That can be detrimental to your email deliverability and the sender's reputation. 

4. The X-factor

The holiday season is a good time to share your brand story and stand out from your competitors. Let your customers know how your products stand out from the pack. Target them with language and visuals that they can relate to. If needed, put the automated emails on hold or modify the trigger events. Your subscribers behave differently during the Holiday season. Recognize this aspect and adapt to your customer needs matching the Holiday season. 

5. Things to avoid

• Don’t resend your Holiday emails to non-openers automatically. With Apple’s MPP, open rates might be tracked inaccurately and redundant communications are the last thing your subscribers want to receive. 
• Don’t wait too long before planning the Holiday email strategy. Early fall is a good time to start conceptualizing your email campaigns. 
• Don’t miss out on sharing important information like order processing and shipping deadlines in the Holiday emails. 
• Don’t send text-heavy emails as people will be scanning through their emails instead of reading. 
• Don’t carry on with automated emails that include a wall of text. Revamp your automation strategy to align with the Holiday mood. For example: Include special sign-up offers to welcome the subscribers during the Holiday season. The Holiday season is perfect to re-engage the users and inspire them to buy from you again. 

Conclusion

Email Uplers got in touch with 10 industry stalwarts to understand how to slay your Holiday email game. To get actionable tips from the experts, head to the insightful infographic.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash