If your business is anything like ours here at VerticalResponse, you're pretty hectic from now until the end of the year. We've jotted down some ideas to get you thinking and acting now. By the way, some of this post is targeted at those business that sell retail and ship things, but you can apply most of this list to your business even if you don't.
Here are things you'll need to think about for each of your holiday email marketing campaigns:
1. Calendar Out Your Activities - Use the free Interactive Marketing Calendar (or that paper calendar that's on your desk). The Calendar Link is located in the top nav bar in your VR Account. You can easily input important tasks such as writing copy, upload images and launch, or just write them down. Either way get something tangible you can look at.
2. 80% of your clicks come within 1 day - It's a good rule of thumb so you may want to work this into your calendar as well. Then you can project how long you'll need before you want to potentially reach out to your recipients again.
3. Your Subject Line - I've said it before I'll say it again:
Don't repeat your from label in your subject line
Be smart about your first 40 characters, put the most important info up front
Check out this post for some super subject line tips
4. Guarantee Shipping - Decide on the date when you'll guarantee shipping before a holiday. Call your shipper to see when they're guaranteeing delivery then pad this so you won't have negative customer service issues in the case where a shipment isn't made. Use this date in your email marketing campaigns as it gets closer to the looming deadline.
5. Retail Locations - If you're staying open late to capitalize on #4 above, make sure you heavily market this in your emails.
A note to #4 & #5 above, gift cards rule! eMarketer published a report noting that gift card sales will rise 25% this year over last and that most people buy them in store, however a surprising 26% of gift cards will be bought online, so you may want to include that in your email marketing campaigns.
6. Include Forward to a Friend Link - It's many times forgotten, but you might pick up a few new customers from your current ones.
7. Host Your Emails on a Web Page - There is going to be so much email flying around the next few months you might see an increase in recipient's spam filters stripping out images (see previous post about this). If you include a link that says "Click Here to View This Email in a Browser" your recipients that are having issues can view your email as a web page. Just select it in the pulldown in Canvas or select the box in Wizard. Either way, we'll host it for free for you.
It's not too early to get your holiday schedule nailed down. It will be one less thing you have to think about. Now there will be one less than a million!
Comments