Internet Marketing Calendar: Send 1st Holiday Email Campaign
November 7th
The holiday season can be tricky. Some consumers don’t like being pressed to shop too early, and others like to plan ahead. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday approaching, now is better than “too late” to start getting your holiday marketing into full its promotional mode.
Make a Professional Impact
Consider using an email service offering templates and simple tools to create emails that count. I personally use and recommend Constant Contact. The service allows me to focus on my message, creating clean crisp images of my products and setting up timers through the holiday season to manage my holiday email promotions.
Holiday Friendly Subject Lines
More than 28 percent of all emails in the U.S. are sent during the holiday season. This means consumers are going to hear from every company they have ever done business with, and yours needs to stand out as well as get your message across successfully. Choose your subject line carefully, and try to lean towards more of a personal greeting rather than a sales pitch approach. Email recipients make the decision to report emails as Spam or simply delete the email based solely on the subject lines. A Happy Holidays Message from YourBusinessNameHere stands a much better chance of delivery than Great Deals and Discounts through December!
Timing
7PM to 10PM catches consumers on their own time, and as a result they’re much more likely to take action on an email promotion. Reports from almost every area of online marketing from big retail chains to small businesses indicate this is the best time of day for maximum exposure.
When it comes to email, it is easy to ignore the time when you’re sending it to your subscribers. One would think that the recipient will be getting to their in box sooner or later, and the time of delivery is irrelevant. Statistics will indicate that is not the case. While consumer behavior is not uniform across all Internet users, prominent data mining web sites such as Google have gathered enough statistics to paint a picture that provides insight and a road map to a better delivery strategy. For the best insight, when using an email service you can easily look into your own statistics and get clear focus on the times your email campaigns have provided the best results.
7PM to 10PM catches consumers on their own time, and as a result they’re much more likely to take action on an email promotion. Reports from almost every area of online marketing from big retail chains to small businesses indicate this is the best time of day for maximum exposure. You can refer to statistics across multiple areas of focus and find that Internet users are very active during this time period. From Tweeting during their favorite television shows to sharing recipes with friends after dinner, online interactions have become regular evening activities for millions of people around the world.
Don’t Bury Your Key Messages
One of the most common mistakes email marketers make is to send out an email campaign that focuses on a gazillion different products and/or services. Bear in mind your recipients have a very short attention span and sending them an entire catalog will just cause them to close or delete your email faster. It is important to fight the desire to promote every product you have and pick just a few select or featured items to showcase, then provide a link to view more products. Grabbing your contacts’ attention on a few specific products with a call to action will result in a much better response rate.
Be Creative
We’re all creative practically every day in this industry, and the emails we send during the holidays should show off our talents beyond the barriers of apparel decoration. Holiday emails give you the opportunity to create and customize your own greeting cards, show off your best work and make your emails stand above the rest in your recipients in box.
Provide an Incentive
Doubleclick.com reports that a discount is often the most compelling factor leading to an immediate purchase after opening an email, so try to find value added services like free shipping to spice up your offers. Coupons are also a great way to encourage your recipients to not only take advantage of your offers, but share them with friends and family.
Social Friendly Content
In addition to including all of your business information and links to your web sites, include all of your social media links (Facebook, Twitter etc). Certainly throughout the holiday season you are keeping those accounts active with your promotions, and should your email recipient decide to follow you elsewhere and shop at a later date, you’ve provided them with a one click effort to do so.
