How to Create a Holiday Email Campaign: 10 Best Christmas Marketing Strategies and Ready Practical Solutions

'Tis the season to be jolly and spread a whole load of Christmas cheer everywhere! In marketing terms--- it’s time for you to launch your holiday campaign. But why do you need one, you ask?

• Well for starters, it's the Holiday season with Christmas and New Years’ right around the corner, so it’s literally the best time to attract your customers, old but especially the new. There are specific customers whom you can draw only during the holiday season.



• Festive promotion, regardless of your product, industry, or target market, has the potential to generate significant revenue for your company.



• Demand and willingness to buy are higher than average. More consumers are eagerly looking to buy throughout the festive season, making marketing tasks considerably smoother.



• Campaigns have a set timeframe. Holidays are focused on a specific time window, producing a sense of urgency that encourages buyers to buy.

Everyone will tell you Christmas still is the most profitable holiday for the eCommerce industry. Except for 2008, when the economy was in a slump, holiday sales have climbed every year since 2002. Last to last year, merchants were anxious that the pandemic would reduce 2020 Christmas sales, as it did in 2008. Ironically, the results were completely the opposite and you might even say unthinkable and very unexpected.

So don’t be a grinch and get ready with your glitters and craft papers to work on a holiday email marketing campaign that will blow the mind off of your clientele.

Ho Ho Ho..Hold your cup of hot cocoa while you read further because I will tell you some tricks that will get your campaign that number one spot on the Christmas campaign list. Some of the best Christmas email marketing strategies ever!

1. he joy of the holidays is contagious. A great sales approach is using emotion-driven holiday marketing initiatives to capitalize on your consumers' festive mood.
   


2. Putting a face to your brand. By spreading some holiday cheer to your customers, you may make your marketing feel more personal, which helps establish the trust necessary for retaining loyal clients.
   


3. Strengthening and developing new consumer relationships at the end-of-year season is ideal for relationship marketing. You might very well, for example, acknowledge your loyal customers for their support over the last year by giving them a free surprise or an exclusive discount.
   

Now that we know which strategies can get the best out of holiday email marketing campaigns, here are a few ways you can implement those strategies in your Christmas emails to win over your clientele’s attention and heart.

Subject lines are the real deals of email marketing. They are real gems that can help make or break the deal, in this case, help you make a sale or not.

Make them irresistible, shiny, and value-adding. Let your customers know exactly what you are offering through the few words of your subject lines. People often choose to open an email based on those few words, so be clever and spark a little Holiday cheer in those few letters. You may also include a catchy phrase and holiday’s name as an alternative and attractive subject line.

Look at the following email that came with the subject line:

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Giving you those holiday vibes, right?

Here are some ideas to get you started with Christmassy subject lines.

People on your email list share many things in common like geographical areas, transaction records, lead status, and other characteristics. By segmenting your email list and meticulously categorizing each contact, you can better design your holiday email marketing campaigns to cater to your subscribers’ interests and individual needs.

Consider the following scenario: you have a set of contacts, and some of them have expressed interest in your products and services, while others have not. Based on their conduct, you can determine who is a qualified lead and who isn't and construct segments appropriately. The eligible leads can then receive coupon-based emails, while the nurturing series can continue for the remainder of your customer base.

When sending an email over the Christmas season, consider factors such as contact choices, avoiding spamming components, and not crowding contact mailboxes, among other things.

Engagement and interaction are determined mostly by the content and structure of your emails. Go all-in with the Christmas spirit, deck your emails with boughs of creativity and content.

It's critical not to overlook the importance of free shipping. According to a survey conducted in 2019 by Deloitte, when customers were asked which holiday promotional offers appeal to them the most, free shipping came in second behind price cuts.

Consider holding a time-limited clearance sale on free shipping to create a sense of excitement. To avoid dissatisfied customers, verify whether your delivery timings are clearly stated in your advertisement. Send them a clear idea of this free shipping in your email.

2020 was a challenging year for everyone, but it was especially difficult for many. Even in these trying circumstances, we can all find reasons to be thankful. One of the factors for a company's success is customer loyalty, customer retention, and happiness.

Your Christmas emails can be a great way of showing gratitude and telling your audience how their support helped you make it to 2021.

Load your campaign with holiday-themed limited edition products to assist visitors and help them locate exactly what they're looking for. The decision-making process might be slowed by too many options or a broad product variety, so instead make them a separate holiday-themed category far easier to choose from.

Even if your products don’t fall under Christmas-related items you can focus on Christmas colors or patterns for your products. It’s just enough to make your customers know it’s a seasonal deal they got to buy before the holiday ends. Add a few images and links in your email and you’re good to go.

Christmas is essentially about presents. Whether they like to admit it or not, everyone loves receiving gifts, so focus on giving your audience a gift. How? Here are a few options for you to try-

1. Try suggesting items for themselves instead of recommending items that they can buy for their friends and family. Everyone deserves to be spoiled for Christmas, just a little bit.
   


2. Give them a “Just for YOU” special discount coupon that they can redeem while purchasing from your store for the holiday season. People love to feel important, so make them feel special and cared for.
   


3. Offer generous discounts that are profitable for you and your customers. Everyone loves a good discount and would surely appreciate it if the Christmas charm that they had been eyeing in for too long but couldn’t indulge in, is offered at a hefty discount.
   


4. Or offer smaller discounts if that’s all you can offer at the moment. After all, it's not about how big the gift is but about the thoughts and love we put into giving. If your marketing, product, and quality are up to the mark, they will buy it regardless of the amount of discount you offer.
   

Tell them they are receiving a special gift, maybe insert a GIF of a gift opening followed by the special discount offers.

Christmas is the time for receiving presents, yes but what about those who have no one that they can receive presents from? People are more willing to give at this time of year, so utilize it to make a difference. Give your customers the option of choosing from different charities and donating whatever they wish to if they wish to. Of course, monetary help is the easiest and quickest way, but sometimes your customers might want a different alternative.

Design other methods, for example, provide them a certain point that can be encashed for store credits if they donate so and so the amount of money to a charity of their choice. Or a discount voucher if they have successfully donated to a number of charities. Out of all the tricks, this one is the best since it’s a win for all, you get to sell your products and earn a good reputation, your customers feel satisfied with the good they did and most importantly in this small effort, people who need help, get help.

As Edwin Osgood Grover said, "Santa Claus is anyone who loves another and seeks to make them happy; who gives himself by thought or word or deed in every gift that he bestows."

The holiday season can be very stressful for some for all the right reasons. You have to meet your whole family, pick gifts for everyone and those gifts got to be gifts that they actually like. Blow off that confusion for your customers by sending them a free gift guide. A guide that will really help them with all kinds of Christmas gifts. Make sure to include their pet too. You can even send numerous gift suggestions, each tailored to a specific customer.

You may, for example, curate gift guides based on certain criteria such as ‘Last-minute gift ideas for the procrastinating shopper’ or ‘10 gifts your mother will adore’ or ‘Christmas treats for your dog that he’s gonna love you for’. Never forget the pets.

The most important guideline you must follow is data quality: Using an email validation tool to clean your email address lists on a regular basis can find obsolete or invalid email addresses and delete them before your Christmas campaign. You can authenticate each newly obtained email address in real time using real-time email address verification, preventing mistakes and bogus accounts from causing more undesired hard bounces.


Review your database on a frequent basis: Unengaged subscribers should be reviewed and removed. Uninterested individuals might cause difficulties, so delete them from your list if they haven't read any of your emails in the last three months to avoid spam complaints and hard bounces.

Be the early bird and start planning your campaign as early as possible. It's critical to plan and tease out your Christmas email marketing strategy so that your customers are aware of the deals they can expect. By preparing long in advance, you can first produce the several pieces of content necessary to maximize conversions and examine and implement previous data and tactics that resulted in a higher number of conversions.

Whichever methods you use, make it loud and clear in your emails. Remember it’s a way to attract customers, so don’t hold back anything, reveal all that’s on the table. Slay your sleigh (your emails) with the right tips and tricks.

Now that you know it all it’s time to be the best Santa Claus in the Christmas email marketing town!