The summer is over!  The kids are back in school!  Football season is here!  What does this mean?  Now is the time to plan your email marketing campaigns for the upcoming holiday season.

Before businesses decorate their stores and websites they send out emails promoting their holiday deals to their subscribers.  They send lots out of emails.  Research shows last year more than 4,700 emails from more than 100 top online businesses were sent during the fourth quarter, and companies released daily reports on strategies, tactics and trends via email. Based on this information, Emercury.net wants to produce a roadmap to the email holiday season, so companies can better formulate their campaigns this year.

Emercury.net can assist you with flyer, newsletter, and banner creation; when to begin your campaign; how much to increase your email volume; which days to send on; and how to stand out in the inbox during the holidays. Last year nearly 90% of major online businesses increased their email volume during the holiday season, with retailers boosting their send frequency by 43% on average compared to the pre-holiday period.

Standing out in the inbox during the holiday season is tough.  Formulating the right subject lines during the holidays is critical.  Emercury.net can offer you numerous examples of subject lines to employ during the various phases of the holiday season, and help you devise your subject lines for the crucial November and December months.

Remember, 2009 has flown by so far, and sooner than you know it, the holiday season will be here.  So gain an advantage on your competitors by starting your holiday email campaign planning now.  Here are some steps to help get you started:

1. Ask your team to start brainstorming creative ideas for email campaigns now. Involving your whole team in the brainstorming process will help you to develop the best, most effective campaign.  You may choose to do just one holiday campaign, or a series of emails leading up to the holiday season.  This will depend on your call to action and audience.  And do not forget what expectations you have set with your subscribers.  If they are used to only receiving a monthly newsletter from your company, do not overwhelm them with daily/weekly holiday promotional emails.  It is important to stay consistent with what your subscribers already receive, but with a holiday flair.
2. Develop your schedule. If you are doing a series of emails, when should they start?  How often should they be sent?  What is the last day you want to send an email before the holidays?  Once you have the launch date in mind, work backwards.  To meet that launch date, when does creative need to be finalized and approved?  When should email campaign testing begin to leave enough time for internal review and edits?  What date should your subscriber database be pulled and uploaded into your email platform?
3. Plan the email creative and subject line. The subject line is often a last-minute decision, but it should not be!  Planning and strategy should go into the subject line, as this is the main influencer of whether your subscribers open your email or not.  Make sure your subject line is eye-catching enough to make your email stand out.  During the holiday season, people’s email inboxes are cluttered, so it is important that your email is noticed.  The subject line should be enticing and make your recipient want to read more.
4. Work with your email service provider to ensure your sending reputation is in good standing. You can have the best subject line, creative, and timing, but if your IP reputation is poor, nobody will see your impressively crafted email.  Take time before the holidays to test your email deliverability and work on any issues that arise.  Your ESP should be more than happy to work on this in detail with you.  After all, your success during the holiday season (and throughout the year) is your ESP’s success!

*Did You Know — Last year Cyber Monday was the most popular day of the year to send retail emails, with 70% of retailers sending at least one email on that day.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 9:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.