Planning for the Holidays: 10 Email Marketing Tips

The summer is the perfect time to get a head start on your marketing strategy for the holiday season, especially when it comes to your emails and newsletters.  Plan now so that come November, you'll know just how to reach your customers.  

Create a holiday-themed navigation in your email.  It gives you the chance to feature holiday gifts, shipping deadlines, and your holiday return policy.  Direct shoppers to your most important products and categories.

Give shoppers links to categories defined by price or gift recipient.  If they’re looking for gifts for the “Dad,” “Toddler” or “Runner” in their lives, they can easily browse your recommendations.  Also include a shop by price navigation so shoppers can easily find gifts within their price range, whether it’s high or low.

Offer shoppers gift recommendations.  Create a page to feature your top-rated products or your “Staff Picks.”

Create a catchy email footer where you can include important key promotions and holiday information, like shipping deadlines, wish lists, gift cards or customer service information. 

Don’t clutter your shoppers’ inboxes with over-frequent emails.  If you want to email shoppers twice within a short period of time, consider targeting the ones who opened your email but did not click through or people who clicked but did not purchase.  That way, your email list is more focused. 

Create an exciting promotion, like a countdown promotion or a flash sale to infuse energy into your site.  Some merchants even ask their shoppers to subscribe to a "Deal of the Day" email where they deeply discount one product a day.  Be sure to send the email at a time that your shoppers have enough time to open it and still participate in the sale. 

Encourage people to Like you on Facebook and follow you on Twitter by offering them Facebook- or Twitter-only discounts throughout the holidays. 

Create emails that encourage shoppers to sign up for mobile alerts, download your mobile app, or check out your mobile-optimized website so that you can more fully engage with them in real time during the active shopping season.

Send a holiday card.  It could just be a classy thank you note.  Some merchants also offer a holiday gift in the email card, like free shipping or a 30% discount. 

If you’re approaching a holiday shipping deadline, send shoppers an email telling them it’s their last day to buy.