Consumers are receptive around the Christmas period. Use that receptiveness intelligently.
Every year, Christmas marketing strategies change. As reported by Marketing Land, it’s important to ensure that your Christmas strategies are informed, current and effective.
But Christmas email marketing campaigns aren’t being used in the effective ways that they could. Across Q4 in 2018:
Average open rates for holiday-themed emails were 10.5%, whereas average click rates were 1% – both falling short of non-themed emails from the same period (12.6% average open rate and 1.1% click rate).
It’s therefore clear that brands can – and should – improve upon how they engage over the Christmas period. But how can they do it?
Here are some top email marketing tips to make Christmas a lucrative one for your brand:
Seasonal sentiment
Christmas is a perfect time to focus on togetherness, love and family values. Throughout this period, marketing centred around sentiment works effectively. At any other time of year, this approach might be ineffective. But at Christmas, consumers are more open and earnest.
You can share stories which highlight the charity drives your brand is involved in. Or how your brand likes to help out in the local community.
Another effective approach is to help subscribers prep for Christmas via tips around themes such as travel, tradition, gifting and decorating.
Tell your brand story
Christmas is a great time to differentiate your brand from the rest. Drive home the story of your brand by talking about who you are – and what your relationship is to your customers.
Make sure your brand stands out, and focus on human interactions. Don’t be purely sales-driven:
- Make a new year’s resolution: concentrate on philanthropy or areas of improvement. You could, for example, strive to improve upon the timeliness of deliveries. Show your human side by pledging to improve upon how you deal with your customers
- Thank your customers! A quick thank you email can really mean a lot. If customers know you value their custom, they’re much more likely to keep engaging. You could even throw in a gift card to your really loyal customers.
- Tell the story of your customers: you could perhaps send a ‘year in review’ email to each of your customers, to highlight the journey they’ve been on with you in 2019.
It’s important that all email marketing – especially around Christmas – is authentic, genuine and relevant:
Authentic and relevant messages personalized to holiday shoppers will help foster customer loyalty and retention. Brands that fail to deliver on consumer needs risk falling behind and getting lost in a sea of promotions throughout the holiday season.
Make sure you’re thinking very carefully about your target market and assessing the messages they’ll want to receive around Christmas. Listen to you customers, think about what they want, and deliver those messages.
Consumers are receptive around the Christmas period. Use that receptiveness intelligently.