Capture Holiday Business

Email marketing could be the best gift you could give yourself this season.

With the holiday season approaching, you’re probably getting ready to launch an aggressive email campaign. You’re not the only one.

According to the recent “Online Retail Holiday Readiness Report” released by WebTrends, an online solutions provider, e-commerce businesses rank email marketing as “the most important demand-generation activity for holiday success.” In fact, the biggest increase in marketing for the holidays (52 percent) will be in email marketing.

To take advantage of this holiday tool, businesses are starting their campaigns earlier this year. Sixty-two percent of multichannel retailers say that they will begin promotions by November 4, according to BizRate’s “2006 eHoliday Mood Survey.” To help you compete, we’ve outlined a few tips that can help you survive and thrive this holiday season.

Timing is Everything
Let’s face it. Every other e-commerce business will be leveraging the power of email marketing this season, which means that your email will be just one of many emails in your customer’s inbox. Send your email at a time when they’ll most likely open and read it, and at a time that’s least intrusive during the holidays.

“During the holiday season, a lot of marketers tend to step up their frequency,” says Stefan Pollard, director of consulting services for EmailLabs, an email marketing software and services provider. “If you do that, and customers aren’t expecting it, they could unsubscribe from your list. The unexpected change in frequency is usually where the biggest disconnect is.”

Pollard recommends checking your published policy for the timing frequency you’ve promised your customers. “And watch your metrics around unsubscribe and spam complaints and, if you see an increase in those metrics in conjunction with an increase in frequency, you should pull back.”

Do You Say “Free”?
Once upon a time, an offer of free shipping was an unbeatable strategy for generating holiday orders. Recently, though, according to the WebTrends survey, it has dropped in popularity, with only 45 percent of online retailers reporting that they will use it as a promotional strategy this holiday season.

“If you’re offering free shipping,” Pollard says, “it’s probably not the most compelling offer anymore. So, I wouldn’t use it as the key strategy for driving business. Instead, look at other offers that were successful throughout the year and use them to create a sense of urgency. If something like a three-day event has proven to be more compelling to your customer base, then use it and, of course, remind your customers that you also offer free shipping.”

Tailor Your Messaging
“Segmentation of your customer list is always a great strategy,” Pollard says. “If you have a previous buying history, it’s a great way to feature offers for ‘preferred shoppers’ or returning customers and remind them that they have purchased from you before.”

For those customers who have not opened or clicked through in recent months, Pollard recommends segmenting out those customers from your email list. “You should try sending one or two campaigns to them to see if anybody in that audience is even still interested. And focus on the people who have been actively opening and clicking on your messages.”

Pay Attention to Creative
You may be thinking about taking images from your direct mail promotions and using them in your email promotions. Think again. With more and more email clients programmed to block graphics as anti-spam measures, it’s important to plan your email creative carefully.

“You need to make sure that the first two or three sentences in your graphical template are actually text,” Pollard says. “And that they’re compelling, have the offer in them, and that they either get people to click through to see the message online or right-click to enable images.”

“Your most important offer information should be designed to be in the top left-hand corner of the email, because as the real estate shrinks, especially with email clients like AOL, people don’t scroll over to make sure that the most important piece of your message is displayed.”

Include Calls to Action
Obviously, you want your customer to place an order now. So, be sure to include numerous calls to action in your promotional emails. “Don’t just rely on ‘Click Here’ in small text,” Pollard says. “You should have multiple ways for customers to act and say it in multiple ways. And always make sure the action is clear and that you want your customer to do it now.”

Monitor Metrics
Paying careful attention to metrics is the key to success. Yet, “most small e-commerce businesses only look at positive results,” Pollard says, “things like open and click-through rates, and number of orders generated. They forget to look at the other metrics like bounce and unsubscribe rates. But, this time of year it’s really important to monitor those.”

After all, there is a lot of volume arriving in your customer’s inboxes during the holiday season, so you must do everything you can to make sure that your messages are getting delivered and stand out from the crowd.

Remember Those Subject Lines
A subject line can make or break an email campaign. Yet, many online marketers consider the subject line only as an afterthought once the campaign is developed. You’ll find some important dos and don’ts for your subject lines below.

Back to Top Email Printer Friendly View

RATE THIS ARTICLE
Rate it:

Overall Rating: Good