3 Holiday Email Marketing Tips

The holiday season is well underway, with marketers competing for attention, engagement, and conversions (sales, signups, etc.). While many companies have their programs locked in at this point, it’s still a good time to think about a few holiday email marketing best practices. We’ll assume that some of the basics are already fairly well understood – like using holiday themes, copy, and graphics in your campaigns – and of course focusing on email compliance and proper email suppression list management. But, there are plenty of other items to keep in mind.

1 –  Keep and eye on the calendar

The holiday season provides a defined window of time for your email campaigns. But, because that opening is narrow, you need to optimize the number of campaigns you send out and the days/times you send them. Make sure you’re dialing in timing, based on when the major holidays fall during the week. You may want to consider mailing on weekdays that you normally avoid (Monday or Friday?) if the timing indicates that may be a more active day than normal, because of the holiday season frenzy. Consumer behavior changes during the holiday season, so look to take advantage of it by adjusting your campaign timing and tactics to accordingly.

2 – Don’t get too cute with your subject line

We all love a catchy, clever subject line. But, during the holidays, marketers sometimes go overboard. Emojis, exclamation points, dollar signs and other characters start popping up in our inboxes more and more often. Remember, there are reasons marketers don’t use a lot of these characters in subject lines throughout the year. One being that those emails can look ‘spammy’. On the plus side, some early stats suggest that the use of exclamation points in Black Friday-Cyber Monday campaigns dropped this year.

3 – Stay on brand

Obviously, using holiday related themes, copy, graphics, and offers makes sense during this time of year. Just remember to keep your brand image in mind at all times. Some brands lend themselves to more festive email campaigns and content. While others may be a bit more serious or there just isn’t an obvious holiday tie-in. Don’t force the issue by creating a holiday campaign that just doesn’t feel like your brand. While it may grab attention, it may not really connect with your audience.

Keep these holiday email marketing best practices in mind for the rest of your campaigns in 2018 – and it’s never too early to be thinking about next year!