The holidays and the end-of-year festive season are fast approaching. Department stores have decorated their windows in holiday colors and in shopping centers, Santa Claus has long lines of children waiting in front of him. You have a choice to make for your brand: seize the opportunity to adjust your marketing or let it pass by. You know that, whatever your strategy, customer engagement happens through several channels. You also know that email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter, so it is important not to take it lightly.
Here are 6 important points for successful email campaigns for the upcoming holidays:
1. Segmentation
According to the DMA, marketers saw their revenue increase by 760% thanks to well-segmented email campaigns. Let’s start with basic segmentation: separating active subscribers from inactive ones. This not only allows you to achieve the best deliverability but also to target them with two different messages. A simple email subject line, tailored to the inactive segment, that seems personal and sincere, such as “We missed you”, can even re-engage them. Once you have done this simple segmentation, you can go further by using age, gender, past searches and purchase history.
2. Personalization
A key element in the success of your email campaigns remains personalization. This can be done simply by putting the recipient’s first name in the email subject line or in the body of the email. Personalization can be even more sophisticated by re-targeting the customer with content similar to their previous purchases or searches. Emails with a personalized subject line are opened 26% more than others.
As a reminder, always keep an eye on your results (and reports) to see what works with your audience. If you get better results with a personalized email subject line, adopt this strategy for all your future emails.
3. Re-engagement
During the holiday season, set up a re-engagement campaign for inactive subscribers in preparation for the January sales period. This campaign will allow you to validate your inactive subscribers’ information in order to update your database. Once the information has been updated, you can divide the segment into several parts and start your email campaigns.
We suggest sending an email similar to the one sent to your list of active subscribers, with only a different subject line and introduction paragraph. This requires only minor changes to personalize your emails according to your segments. Several weeks after launching your re-engagement campaigns, you should normally have contacts moving from the inactive segment to the active one, just in time for your sales campaigns.
4. Resend emails
Another tactic for your Christmas campaigns is to resend an email to those who did not open your first email. If you send one email per day, wait 6-8 hours before running a search for subscribers who did not open the email.
Create a segment of contacts who did not open your email and resend the same email, with a different subject line and hook. All the content of the email can be exactly the same and you should reach the audience that chooses to open their emails later.
5. A/B Testing
A key element in the success of your marketing emails is A/B testing. Following a “test & learn” approach, it is possible to continually improve your most important KPIs such as open rates and click-through rates. This strategy proves particularly worthwhile during the busy end-of-year period, and you should rely on it to boost customer engagement.
The simplest A/B test is the email subject line. You simply send two separate emails to a group of active subscribers and then send the email that performed better to the rest of the group 2-4 hours later. This strategy is relevant and can be carried out with every email campaign if you wish.
Once you have A/B tested your email subject lines, try changing the content. You can test static content vs GIFs or any other type of content. Remember to always isolate your A/B tests by keeping the other content variables identical to ensure a fair comparison.
6. Mobile optimization
Make sure your emails are responsive! According to the Movablelnk’s Consumer Device Preference Report, in the first quarter of 2017, 73% are opened and read on smartphones and 27% on desktop. With more than half of emails opened and read on mobile, a non-responsive design will significantly increase the unsubscribe rate and discourage the consumer from interacting with your brand. Make sure you offer the best user experience to your customers to maintain your click and conversion rates during the Christmas period. With an ROI of $38 for every $1 spent, email continues to be the most effective marketing tool.
With these 6 tips for setting up your end-of-year email campaigns, success is guaranteed!
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