8 Tips to Boost Your Holiday Sales With Email Campaigns

The holiday season offers a prime opportunity for most businesses since it is the time of year when customers are actively looking for great deals. The period is marked by a significant spending hike, and you could see your sales shoot through the roof if you get your marketing strategy right. Email marketing is one of the most effective methods to ride this profitable wave.

Statistics show that more consumers open promotional emails during the holidays. However, in order to enjoy the desired effect, you need to put your best foot forward and plan effective email campaigns. Here are some tips to help you make the most of the holiday shopping peak:

1. Develop a Customer-Focused Strategy

One of the most fundamental marketing principles for the holiday season is to focus your approach on the customer. When you keep in mind that your customer is a real person with specific needs and emotions, then you will be able to reach their hearts with your campaign.

Put your customer at the center of your strategy, and make them feel valued. Tailor your approach to the spirit of the season by showing them how they can offer holiday cheer to their loved ones by buying your products as gifts. Avoid hard-sell content at all costs, and make your pitch short and engaging to show concern for their time.

2. Make Good Use of Updates

Boost your engagement with customers by providing timely updates, especially after a purchase. Many businesses ignore the fact that their communication with the customer should not end immediately after a sale. Customers who have already purchased from you are more likely to purchase again, as opposed to first-time shoppers. These customers should be at the top of your priority list.

Sending a shipping confirmation email message is the first step to creating a great brand impression. This helps to reduce the customer’s anxiety about product delivery and projects a positive image of a reliable brand. Confirmation emails have one of the highest open rates since they are mostly anticipated. They also provide the opportunity to recommend other products and turn a one-time buyer into a long-term customer.

3. Use Abandoned Cart Emails

Almost 70% of online customers abandon their shopping carts without completing a purchase. This could be the result of security concerns, technical issues, or just personal hesitation. This is a highly viable target group for an email marketing campaign since they already showed the desire to make a purchase. Reaching out to prospective customers in this group to offer them a timely reminder or the motivation they need to complete the purchase could just be the prompt they need to make a decision. It could also give you the opportunity to address any issues that may have resulted in the abandoned cart.

This strategy helps you increase customer conversion rates and cuts down on the cost of reaching out to new customers. These emails allow for a personalized approach that helps to build better customer relationships.

4. Focus on Mobile Compatibility

More shoppers are using mobile devices to access the internet. This makes it crucial to optimize your campaign using a responsive design. This means that your email template should be mobile-friendly. Most email marketing tools have an option to create a desktop and mobile version of the email campaign, or it will automatically create the mobile version. Benchmark email marketing software has great email templates that are responsive, so they will look great on mobile view as well. Also, remember that your email should be brief and concise so that it does not overwhelm the reader when viewed on mobile.

The subject line should also be brief and “seasonal.” The pre-header text is also important for mobile device users, as it lures them to open the email message and read on. Also, subject lines are shorter when viewed in mobile, so you don’t want some of your well-thought-out text so get cut off. Be sure to prominently highlight your call to action by placing it as close to the top as possible and making it easily clickable.

5. Make Segmentation Work for You

Customer demographics vary for most businesses. Business owners need to understand the preferences of the different groups and tailor email marketing approaches for each one. You might lose your customers if your content seems too general to appeal to any target audience specifically.

Email segmentation should be easy if you have the right tools. These tools will help you to keep track of your customers’ spending habits as well as the products they frequently browse. This way, it will be easy for you to highlight special offers and discounts that are more likely to appeal to them and increase conversion rates. SendinBlue is a great email marketing option with a wide range of segmentation tools.

6. Optimize Sign-Up Forms

The holiday season is a particularly good time to draw clients in. Take advantage of this with a sign-up form, one of the most important determining factors of conversion rates. Unless you go the extra mile on your website or email template, customers will simply look for the “exit” button and move on to other things.

A good sign-up form is one that is clear, easy to fill out, and doesn’t require the customer to include an excessive amount of irrelevant information. A voluntary opt-in feature makes it more likely that emails will be opened.

Use a seasonal theme to capture a reader’s interest and project a dynamic image of your brand. Offer them an incentive, such as a discount coupon, that they can redeem after signing up. If you choose to use a pop-up, try to ensure it is not intrusive. Pick the right moment to harvest its potential – it’s usually most effective when a user is about to leave the site. If you include a sign-up form, you can contact your prospect via email if they’ve left anything in their cart or to send them a discount.

7. Use Suggestions and Reminders

Make sure your email campaign focuses on the desired objective: to increase sales. A great way to achieve this is to direct your customer’s attention to products they are likely to be interested in. Make suggestions based on their previous purchases. Use email marketing reports to study your customers’ purchase trends. This information allows you to select products for your email campaign that will, without fail, appeal to them. Constant Contact has great analytics and reports to show how effective your email campaigns are.

Alert users to current sales in your store, or let them know when you have special offers that are close to expiring. These friendly reminders also let your customers know that you care. You can also remind them when their credit card is close to expiry date so that they do not miss out on sales.

8. Create New Prospects Using Social Media

Social media allows you to tap into a wide market of new prospects. Networking platforms allow you to go to places where your current clients hang out and get new contacts. You can use existing mailing lists to look for new customers who share common traits with existing customers. Look for frequent buyers or subscribers who have spent a relatively high amount of time on your platform. This data will help you target high-potential audiences with your email campaign. There is a good likelihood that the people you reach out to will convert.

Effective email campaigns for the holiday season don’t always revolve around creating a notable sales pitch. They should also focus on making customers feel unique and valued. This ensures that you do not just win them over for the holiday season, but that you turn them into year-round customers. Check out some of the best email marketing tools to help boost your sales this holiday season!