2020 has been a long year, but the holidays are almost among us and if you haven’t already, now is the time to look at three quick things you can do to ensure you are holiday-ready.
#1 Audit your automated campaigns
If you have automated campaigns, like abandon cart or post purchase, that have been running for a while, it’s probably time to take a look and see if they could use some sprucing up for the holidays. Since these campaigns are automated, they are often forgotten about from a QA standpoint.
Take the time now to ensure that all your automated campaigns are up to date. Does the timing need to change due to the holidays? Do all of the images still render and do they make sense, or should they be swapped out for something more seasonal? If there is an offer in the email, is that offer still valid? It’s important to pay attention to this during the holiday season since you may be offering even deeper discounts on your website for short periods of time.
If you do make changes to your automated campaigns for the holidays, be sure to also check back in on them after the holidays and make any needed adjustments.
#2 Make your email sign up more visible
During the holiday shopping season, you’ll likely have much more traffic to your website than usual. That makes this a great time to take advantage of that extra traffic and grow your email list organically.
Take a look at where you are asking for the opt-in on your website and see where there may be opportunity to add more. For example, if you only have a sign up in the header, look at adding some banner callouts to some of the more heavily visited pages. If you don’t have a lightbox pop-up and can add one for the holiday season, definitely make that a priority. Lightboxes are the fastest way we see our clients grow their lists. A best practice is to have the lightbox appear between 5-10 seconds after someone lands on your website and make sure there is a clear “No Thanks” or exit option for those that want to bypass it and keep browsing your site.
#3 Have fun with your emails
Inboxes get really noisy during the holidays, so it’s important that you do what you can to stand out in the crowd. There are many things you can try to capture the attention of your subscribers. Some easy things to try out are:
- Use subject lines that are different than what you’d normally send out.
- Incorporate personalization where you can—whether that’s the subject line, within the copy of the email, or by displaying products or services you know would be uniquely of interest to the contact.
- Use animation to draw attention to your emails. The animation can be as simple or as complex as you like, but the movement in your campaign should help capture the reader’s attention for more than a millisecond.
- Include imagery that invokes positive feelings of the holidays—whether it’s excitement, nostalgia, wonder or joy.
- Make sure your emails are mobile-ready. More and more people are checking their emails on the go, so if your email doesn’t render properly or is not optimized for mobile viewing, you’ll lose that potential customer. A quick audit of your templates should let you know if you need to make any tweaks ahead of the busy holiday season.
If you haven’t already started your holiday email planning, the time to start is NOW! Try to incorporate these 3 quick ideas into your plans. Be sure to measure the performance of your holiday sends and learn what ideas work and what may fall flat. Have questions about any of the above tips? Our experienced strategy team has helped hundreds of clients implement these, and they’d be happy to help you too.