3 Email Campaigns to Optimize for the Holidays

With the holiday season approaching, you’re probably in the early stages of getting your new campaigns ready. Since consumers doing their holiday shopping earlier each year, you want to have your new campaigns ready to go by the early fall to make an impact. 

But, spending your time focusing on new campaigns doesn’t mean you should ignore the existing campaigns you have. That’s right, your current welcome, loyalty, and abandoned cart campaigns can (and should) all be optimized for the holiday season too.

Here are three key campaigns to optimize for the holidays.

Welcome emails

It’s never a bad idea to start your optimization with your welcome emails. After all, these tend to have higher open rates than most of your other emails, so you might as well capitalize on it! Plus a good welcome email is a great introduction to your brand, so make it memorable.

Swapping out your conventional graphics and photos for winter imagery is a good start if you don’t want to go fully holiday-themed with your design.

However, what’s most important is hitting key messaging. That can include sharing holiday-themed posts and gift guides you’ve made on your site. Also, consider highlighting a featured or recommended product in your welcome email, especially one with positive ratings and reviews.

Here’s one way to approach this. In your new welcome email, highlight key dates for shipping and sales. This way, your new readers know exactly when they should buy to get their items shipped in time for the holiday season.

As you move through the season, add updates. With real-time moment-of-open emails, you can make these changes without worrying about totally pausing or changing your campaigns.

Loyalty emails

Unfortunately, for many brands, it’s way too easy to forget about your loyalty and VIP members. It’s way more common than you realize for a potential customer to sign up for a loyalty program and then never hear from the brand via email again.

That’s the last thing we want to do.

VIP and loyalty program members are people who are primed to buy from you again and again. They’re more likely to spread love about your brand through word-of-mouth and user-generated content, and they tend to spend more when they buy.

You do not want to ignore them.

Update your loyalty campaigns to give members holiday-themed content and rewards. Some examples include offering free shipping to reward members, having a special loyalty program holiday gift guide, and giving extra points on purchases made during the holiday season.

Use the holiday season to thank your most loyal customers by giving them something to engage them to take action and buy.

Abandoned cart emails

The sad truth is the vast majority of people who hit your site don’t complete a purchase. But, it’s easier to get those who have left something in their cart to convert than you think. So it’s critical to have a solid abandoned cart campaign up and running year-round.

During the holiday season, however, it’s even more important. Retailers and eCommerce brands depend on revenue from the holiday season to keep things running the rest of the year.

You don’t want to miss out on any opportunities to convert potential customers to buyers, especially when you’re likely facing stiff competition from other brands.

In this case, you want to focus on how you can compete during the holidays and promote that in your abandoned cart emails. There are a couple of paths you can take. If you can swing it, consider offering some shipping bonus. That could be free shipping during a specific period or faster shipping for the same price. Turn your emails dynamic by use real-time notifications on inventory updates, so your customer will see if something is running out, which might make them act now.

Keep the holidays top of mind

Even though the holiday season might seem far off, it’s not that far from the mind of your customers. As the weather turns and they start thinking about the holidays, make sure you’re optimizing your campaigns to keep up and stay on brand. Being aware of and focusing on the holidays at the same time as your customers can pay off in a big way.