This article has been contributed by Kevin George.

Have you started planning for your holiday email campaigns yet?

If not, now is the RIGHT time to do it.

With an ROI of $51 for every $1 spent, email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels. If done correctly, this marketing strategy has the power to yield maximum conversions for your business.

The holiday season presents a huge opportunity to boost sales via email marketing. This is particularly valuable if you need to make up a revenue deficit from the first three quarters.

To help you out with this, here are some actionable tips and tricks that will make your holidays merrier – and more lucrative.

The Foundation of Holiday Emails in 2021

1. Strategize Your Email Campaigns for The Big Days

PLAN EARLY – that’s the key to building successful holiday campaigns. Ideally, start contemplating your holiday email marketing strategy in September so that you can execute it effectively.

Also, remember that your subscribers are going to receive hundreds of marketing emails during the holiday season. Therefore, you’ll need to design unique emails that cut through the noise and help you stand out.

Another reason to plan early is the possibility of a resource crunch during the holiday season. Don’t let lack of resources lead to blunders in your email campaigns.

2. Use Segmentation to Send Out Relevant Holiday Emails

Make sure you send relevant emails to each segment of your audience. For instance, you could tailor your offers to the types of discounts that each of your customers prefer – some may frequently be tempted by “% off” discounts whereas others may like “$ off” sales.

Depending on the emails you have planned, you’ll need to segment your subscribers based on factors such as age, sex, location and the kind of products they have purchased in the past. This will help you send hyper-personalized emails with offers that each customer will be most interested in.

This will also help you send more inclusive emails that take care of the cultural differences of “holidays”. For instance: Hanukkah and Christmas are two festivals that fall in December but are celebrated by people of different faiths. You must respect these religious differences and send emails accordingly.

3. Have A Backup Plan in Place

The likelihood of mistakes significantly increases during holidays because of the huge number of emails sent. Keeping this possibility in mind, it’s worth having a backup plan in place in the form of an apology email. Technical glitches can also arise during these days and you must keep track of these inadvertent situations to address them on time.

All these three points set the foundation for holiday emails.

2021 Holiday Email Marketing Guide – 12 Tips and Tricks

Now that you know the basic foundation for holiday emails. Let’s move on to specific tips and tricks that will enhance the email experience for your subscribers.

1. Subject Lines Come First

Whenever you sit to create a holiday email, think of an engaging subject line that will lure your subscribers in and at the same time, convey the purpose of the email. For example, if your email contains a holiday gift guide, let your readers know that’s what’s inside in the subject line and add an inventive, appealing spin.

Here’s an example to get you started. See how the email subject line, “Are You Ready For The Holidays”, and copy are perfectly in sync?

Here are some tips for holiday email subject lines:

• Use emojis that match the holiday vibe. You can include emoticons like the party emoji, gift icon, Santa Claus, pumpkin or turkey to signify different occasions like Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving Day.
• Try asking a question to your subscribers. It’s a good idea to draft a subject line that asks them whether they are looking for last-minute gifts or free shipping. After all, 79% of customers love free shipping, according to a report by Walker Sands.

• Add power words like “hottest deals”, “discounts”, “sale” and “same-day shipping” in your subject lines. You can also create a sense of urgency with phrases like “limited time offer”, “hurry” and “valid only while stocks last”.
• Experiment with the power of holiday puns. For example: “spooky peek” and “boo-tiful” are nice puns for your Halloween emails.
• Personalize your subject lines with the subscriber’s name and past interaction with the brand.
• Needless to say, keep your subject lines short and interesting enough to make subscribers curious and get them to open the email.
• Try tools like Phrasee to draft artificially intelligent subject lines and get higher open rates.

2. Next, Switch Your Focus to The Email Copy (And The Way You Present It)

Your email copy must match the mood of the holidays and exude festive vibes. It must reflect celebrations and cheer. Since your subscribers are already inundated with too many emails, don’t wear them down with long copies or a wall of text. Get to the point and try to be as succinct as possible.

As in the subject line, use words related to holiday cheer. “Merry”, “Santa Claus”, “reindeer”, “pumpkin”, “turkey” and of course “sale” are all such words that you can use in your email copy.

Another important point to keep in mind is the selection of fonts. For example, if you are sending out a Christmas or Thanksgiving email, cursive fonts can instantly generate holiday vibes and add some character to your email. Muttropolis have used a cursive font for “Thanksgiving” in their email below.

3. Make Your Holiday Emails Visually Appealing

Holidays are a lot about how you ‘show’ and less about how you ‘tell’. You must include relevant visuals that strike the right chord with subscribers and give them a reason to purchase from you.

It’s a great time to try out different visual tricks like animated GIFs, cinemographs and videos in emails. You get a chance to reinvent new horizons in the world of visual email marketing.

Take a look at this beautiful cinemograph in Korres’ Black Friday email.

4. Reward Your Subscribers

Chances are, you already have an exclusive rewards program that incentivizes subscribers to make purchases in order to earn bonuses. You can use the holidays to expand your reward offers and encourage further purchases.

You may also have a referral program to encourage your existing customers to recommend your brand to people they know. Don’t forget to remind your customers about the program in your holiday emails This will not only increase your conversion rate but also help you grow your customer base via word-of-mouth.

5. Promote Your Social Media Channels

The holiday season is a great time to enhance your social media visibility and get more followers on these channels. A wonderful way of driving traffic on social media is by promoting holiday-specific hashtags in your emails and prompting people to post on social media. You can also host a giveaway to maximise the number of people who participate.

6. Send Last-Minute Deals For The Procrastinators

Not everyone will purchase Christmas gifts in November or early December. There will be so many people who will wait for the last minute to shop for their loved ones. To cater to such subscribers, offer a last-minute sale that will help them take care of their holiday preparations and get you instant conversions. You can even highlight same-day shipping and same-day delivery in these emails to increase the likelihood of conversions.

Here’s an email from Eat Better Meals, with the subject line “(URGENT) Last Chance to Order!”, which effectively creates urgency and encourages instant purchases.

7. Follow the Latest Email Design Trends

Make sure the latest design trends of the year do not skip your mind while you design the holiday email templates.

Brands are likely to use:

• bold typography
• dark mode compatibility
• monochrome layout
• pastel colors
• 3D images and
• animated illustrations.

8. Interactivity Is An Evergreen Tactic For Holiday Emails

Whether it’s a countdown, sliders, carousels, menus, accordions or hover effects, you can use any of these elements in your holiday emails. It will add to the visual oomph of your content while taking the subscriber experience to the next level.

Here’s an example from Adidas of a holiday email that contains a slider.

9. Harness The Power Of Automated Emails

Whenever a subscriber signs up to your email list, he or she expects a welcome email. It’s possible to set this up to be done automatically, with no involvement by you, with automation.

For the holiday season, you can revamp your automated email workflows to include Christmassy elements and holiday-specific offers. For example, if you get a new subscriber during the last quarter of the year, you can offer a higher discount (considering the holiday season), provided it does not eat into your profit margins.

In addition, don’t overlook the usefulness of other automated emails like cart abandonment emails, re-engagement emails and stock replenishment emails for eCommerce email marketing. Holidays have huge scope for re-engaging dormant subscribers and getting them to purchase from you. You can let them know of the products you have added since their last activity and new features they might be interested in. This will spark interest in the mind of the subscriber and ideally get them to engage with your brand.

You can also use artificial intelligence tools and Marketo’s lead scoring feature to send out the right emails based on interest level of subscribers.

10. Use Actionable and Visible CTAs

Look beyond the world of “Shop now” and “Buy now” when it comes to CTAs. Try using some interesting words that match the holiday mood.

Place the CTAs in such a way that the subscriber notices them and takes action. Use power verbs that look more appealing to drive the next action.

Take a look at this email by optimalprint. They have included a powerful CTA that prompts the recipient to “Create their gifts”.

11. Design Complementary Landing Pages For Your Emails

It’s no good to send out a discount offer in an email, then direct the reader to your website home page where they’ll need to search around for the offer. Instead, you need to have a relevant landing page that continues the story of your email.

For instance, on clicking the CTA from the email shown in the previous example, the reader is directed to the landing page shown below. This page perfectly matches the email and encourages the visitor to convert by using impactful imagery, social proof by Trustpilot and the brand’s USPs of fastest delivery and guaranteed customer satisfaction.

12. Don’t Forget About Lesser-Known Holidays

All brands are going to send emails for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and New Year. So if you want to stand out amidst this clutter of holiday emails, send out emails for smaller occasions like Columbus Day, Small Business Saturday and Giving Tuesday too.

Here are two examples to inspire you, sent by brands for Small Business Saturday and Giving Tuesday.

Signing Off

Emails can draw your subscribers’ attention and get them to take instant action if you do them right. They are just as busy as you are, and therefore you must design top-notch emails that provide genuine value for customers. Following the tips we’ve provided will set you up for a successful holiday season.

If you’re looking for more information on holiday email marketing, check out this interesting infographic created by the folks at Email Uplers.

_

About the author: Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest growing custom email design and coding companies. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.