How Retailers Can Start Planning Holiday Email Campaigns

According to the National Retail Federation, approximately 20% of annual revenue for most retailers comes in November and December. If that doesn’t open your eyes to the importance of this time of the year, nothing will.

To capitalize on that potential, retailers need to focus on more than hoping your customers will wander in for in-store sales and events. Email should play a key role in your holiday marketing strategy, and the time to start focusing on that is right now. 

If you haven’t been incorporating email marketing into your holiday strategy, you might be leaving money on the table. The good news is it isn’t too late to start focusing on it now for the 2021 holiday season. 

Here are a few ways retailers can start thinking about holiday email marketing. 

Focus on featured products

Take a look at your sales over the last year, and you’ll see that a handful of products sell way more than others. These popular products can (and should) get featured in your holiday email promotions. 

The data here can tell you a lot, especially about your customer’s behavior. Use that as a way to personalize featured products throughout your list. Plus, when you know what your customers have already bought, it makes it really easy to add “recommended” and “similar customers love” sections to your emails. 

Include social proof

While you’re creating those featured product emails, don’t forget to include social proof too. Social proof can come in the form of ratings and reviews left on your website, testimonials, and social media posts. When you have good ratings and reviews on your products, don’t hide them away. In fact, feature them heavily in your email promotions.

Consumers today put a ton of trust in the ratings and reviews of other similar customers. And, in most cases, the more recent your reviews, the better. Use real-time ratings and reviews so you’ll always feature the most recent testimonials from your happy customers.

Be a source of information and education

Holiday shopping is a stressful time, so anytime you can ease your customers’ pain, jump at it! Part of that is providing the information you know your customers need in your holiday emails. Here’s a great example of how to include product highlights with the Zembula platform:

This ratings and review box can be a customer’s dream. Think of all the ways you can add super helpful information about your products. Have size information, common questions, and product qualities. Make your emails a one-stop-shop for your customers to get all the information they need. It will keep you top of mind when it comes time to buy.

Create gift guides

Another way to make life easier for your customers is to create a holiday gift guide. Break your guide down into helpful segments such as price, type of gifts, and who they are for, for example. That makes it really easy for people to zero in on both their budget and who they are planning on buying for. 

A gift guide is another way to think about how you can segment and personalize your list. A quick look at your data, such as your customer’s buying history can help you determine what products are popular based on their demographics. From there, personalize your emails so each customer gets the information that matters to them.

Don’t forget about your VIPs

Many retailers have some sort of loyalty or VIP program. You never want to forget about them, especially during the holiday season, since these customers are typically very loyal and primed to buy. Come up with a few special strategies to both make them feel loved and grab their attention. 

One example could be special in-store events for your VIP or loyalty members. Set aside special hours for their shopping, provide extra in-store service, or give them a coupon to use at their local store (using nearest location geo-targeting is great for this). Giving your very best and most loyal customers an extra reason to shop with you can help boost foot traffic to your store. 

Pull out all the stops

With so much potential revenue resting on the holiday season, you want to make sure you have a plan to get people buying both in-store and online. Create a holiday email marketing strategy that targets your customers and gives them personalized real-time information, so they have every chance to shop.