The (Largely Invisible) Key to Holiday Email Marketing Success

Most retailers are in serious planning mode for their holiday season promotional campaigns. We’ll start to see a sprinkling of holiday email marketing campaigns in the weeks ahead—and then holiday messaging will get going in earnest on Halloween and the days following.

In light of the planning that’s currently going on, Vaida Pakulyte of Strands asked me and five other experts for our best advice for retailers starting to create their holiday season campaigns. Here’s my advice:

Retailers that keep their messaging clear and compelling will do very well this holiday season. Simplicity wins when it comes to holiday broadcast messaging.

But increasingly, the biggest winners are determined by which brands have the best triggered emails–especially browse and cart abandonment emails. Targeting subscribers who browse without purchasing and add products to their cart without purchasing, respectively, these emails are incredibly effective at generating conversions.

Going into the holiday season, I highly recommend that you launch even simple versions of these emails, if you don’t currently have them. And if you’re already created these emails, then:

1. Test them to make sure they still render and function as intended
2. Look for opportunities to improve them through A/B testing between now and the end of October
3. Consider adding seasonal imagery and messaging to make them more relevant to holiday shoppers
4. Consider setting these emails to launch more quickly after abandonment since purchase consideration cycles are much faster during the holiday season

>> Read all the advice on the Strands blog