Marketing Strategy for the Holidays: Ideas and Tips for Successful Emails

Take advantage of the holiday season to strengthen your relationship with your customers and be part of their Christmas planning.

In 2021, 61% of consumers started their Christmas shopping in November. October is just around the corner, avoid running, avoid the crowd… Get noticed. Be in the inbox of your customers and contacts before the high season!

1. Find the balance between promotional message and relational message

We believe that this year, even more than the previous years, people will be on the lookout for promotional offers for the holiday season. With inflation, budgets are more limited BUT the need to do good and to please is also present!

This is an opportunity to offer a little something or address a special offer to your most loyal customers.

Access to exclusive content, preview offers or a thank you message for their loyalty are attentions that will help build a strong relationship. This also helps to engage your contact and build loyalty to your brand. If your campaign is successful, your customers will share it or tell their friends about it.

You don't necessarily need a commercial objective to score points with your customers 😊

2. Create and dare new or unique designs to make your emails festive

Let your creativity flow when designing your campaigns. You won’t be the only company sending an email on the subject this year. To set you apart and inspire you, here are some ideas for the holiday season:

a. Share a personalized gift list

• Directory of products or services (with links to your store) by price or theme. This will encourage readers to scroll through the entire email and potentially visit and order from your site.
• Last-minute gift suggestions for latecomers.
• “Special family or friends” gift ideas for dinner invitations. This year, once again, we all hope to meet around a dinner to celebrate with friends and families!

b. Create a sense of urgency, start a countdown

Create an urgency to buy by reminding them that there are only X days/hours left before a specific moment.

c. Animate your email with videos and GIFs

These are two attractive content formats that will entice visitors to read your email.

d. Offer fun and interactive content

Develop an interactive gamification activity with your contacts by offering them the opportunity to take part in a contest or a survey, for example.

Deploy a promotional front calendar sent via email inviting customers to come and discover the offer and/or the message of the day… day after day.

e. Sending your warmest wishes

Personalize your digital greeting card with a photo of your team and personalize the email message.

4. And after the holidays?

The post-holidays is also a moment to anticipate and not to miss. Returns or exchanges of gifts that are unsuitable or have been ordered twice arrive. It’s also an opportunity to thank your customers for shopping with you during the holidays or to share some “post-holiday” tips. For example, recipe ideas for cooking leftovers.

The period is not quite over: stay tuned!

Implement your special end-of-year holiday email campaigns

In this article, we have given you some tips for a successful holiday email strategy. Now it’s your turn to create your campaign.

Find out how Dialog Insight and its teams specializing in relationship marketing can help you create, design and implement it. Contact us today.