8 tips for effective seasonal email marketing

Seasonal email marketing is upon us again. Sure, summer is still in full swing, but for retailers now is the time to start thinking about the holidays. Your email marketing programs sit at the center of your holiday strategy. And while it’s a good idea to employ your smart tactics across the whole year, it’s never more important than during the run-up to Black Friday and beyond.

Seasonal email marketing tips

From Halloween to Black Friday, Cyber Monday to Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s, these landmark events provide a great opportunity for marketers to increase brand awareness and drive sales.

Here’s are our top tips for sales-driving seasonal email marketing:

1. Launch a competition to kick-start your seasonal email marketing

Competitions are great for data capture. Come up with a fantastic prize and encourage your recipients to give you certain details – such as preferences – when they enter. This data can then be used to better segment and target your seasonal email marketing in the future.

2. Remember your seasonal audience

Before launching straight into your seasonal email marketing, think very carefully about whether the event you’re promoting is likely to interest your recipients. If you’re a unisex brand and have a list made up of young men, running a ‘how to look glamorous at your Christmas party’ campaign won’t be particularly effective. Remember to always tailor the message as per the segment you’re targeting, including products and promotions that relate back to the characteristics of the audience.

3. Don’t be too contrived

Don’t just email for the sake of it. Make sure you have something relevant and valuable to say. We know it can be hard during the holidays to be unique, and not send promotion after promotion like everybody else. A great example is Beer Hawk’s yearly beer advent calendar. This gives them a reason to email, plus follow up with customers who purchased it the year before.

4. Plan your seasonal email marketing well in advance

It’s important to think about your emails far enough in advance to really make the most of the opportunity, rather than just a knee-jerk response that isn’t well thought through. Use this email marketing planner to structure and schedule your email programs, before the season gets too hectic.

5. Don’t forget the basics

It’s tempting just to let the event or season speak for itself, but don’t forget some of the basics of good email marketing, from split-testing to segmentation and targeting. Make sure you don’t miss our email essentials series to get you started.

6. Run time-based offers

Why not run a special discount or offer to coincide with the event or season? For example, in Ryman’s seasonal back-to-school campaign, the stationary brand offers free next-day delivery on orders over £30. The language is urgent but not pushy, highlighting the timely nature of the offer which covers the back-to-school period. What’s more, the brand uses product recommendations to highlight current bestsellers, showcasing customers those all-important must-buys for September.

7. Have something for everyone

Remember that not everyone is a fan of Halloween or Black Friday. Try and offer something for everyone or, even better, segment your list based on responses to previous campaigns. If a batch of recipients responded well to a Thanksgiving-related email in the past, then send them more of the same next time round.

8. Build a campaign-specific landing page

Maximize conversions once your recipients have clicked-through by putting together a campaign-specific landing page on your website. Whether it’s a VIP Black Friday sign-up or a seasonal promotional page, landing pages are great for driving customer action.

We hope these eight tips help you plan ahead for your seasonal email marketing this year.

Here are some additional resources to help:

• For some Halloween inspiration, check out this blog
• If it’s Black Friday you’re interested in, get a load of these 37 unmissable hacks
• And for wider holiday marketing, take a look at the five segments you should be targeting in the run-up to the big day

Happy holidays!