Retail Ready for the Holidays

Tips for Successful Email Marketing Campaigns

If you are a retailer then you know how hectic and competitive direct marketing campaigns and offers to consumers can be during the holiday season. According to analyst firm Forrester, US Consumers will spend $33 billion during the 2007 holiday season and online spending will increase 21% over 2006. To help you prepare for the busiest time of the year, we’ve compiled some ideas to get you thinking and acting now so you can start building more mindshare (and wallet share) with shoppers. Although most of these tips are aimed at driving traffic for retailers, either online or in stores, the concepts can be adapted to just about any industry.

Here are some things to consider for building your holiday email marketing campaigns:

Calendar Out Your Activities

Consider the starting and ending points in your seasonal offers and break down your campaigns into 3 areas:

Phase 1

Early Bird Specials: Drive revenue earlier in the season and reach out to your loyal shoppers, or anyone that purchased from you during the same period last year. You can count on these customers to build momentum and maximize revenue opportunities early. You also want to reward these loyal shoppers by providing them something in return. Early bird offers may include: extra 10% off, free gift with purchase while supplies last, or buy two get one free on certain products. Remember that you are more likely to have the merchandise on hand earlier in the season to accommodate these types of offers for customers. If you wait until mid December, you may find it more challenging to fulfill requests.

2007 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, NRF/BIG Research

Phase 2

Mid-Season Favorites: According to Shop.org 4 out of 11 of the largest revenue days for the holiday season occurred December 12th through December 16th last year. During this phase you are right in the thick of competition for getting your message in front of your customers. When free shipping upgrades become standard, what offers will help you stand out? Creating emails that specialize in promotions by price range or by recipient can be viewed as timesavers and worth opening. Shoppers are feeling the frenzy and they are in need of ideas to simplify their purchasing decisions. If you are concerned you are hitting your list too often, try sending a postcard with a special promo code to break through the email clutter.

Heading toward your final phase of the season, pay attention and communicate some important dates for meeting stated service levels. Email your shoppers to let them know the last day you can accept orders and still guarantee delivery for a specific holiday.

Phase 3

Last Minute Deals: Reach out to procrastinators with guaranteed deliveries, free shipping or gift-wrapping options. This is the point in the season that you want to evaluate your inventory and promote items that will be more difficult to sell after the New Year. You may also want to begin promoting your return policy on sale or clearance items. Gift cards or gift certificates always make a great last minute offer to drive traffic to store locations or online.

Managing Email and Order Flow:

80% of your clicks come within one day of an email campaign being sent. Bearing this response statistic in mind, you can project when you want to potentially reach out to your recipients again. Or you may want to segment your list if your fulfillment and operations department needs to stagger the demand and processing of orders.

Guarantee Shipping

Decide on the date when you’ll guarantee shipping before a holiday. Call your shipper to see when they’re guaranteeing delivery, then pad this by a day or two so you won’t have negative customer service issues in the event that a shipment isn’t made on time. Use this date in your email marketing campaigns, as it gets closer to the looming deadline.

Retail Locations

If you’re staying open late to capitalize on the suggestion above, make sure you heavily market this option in your emails. If you have the online resources, you could allow customers to purchase online and then pick up in store.

Include Forward to a Friend Link

It’s often times forgotten, but you might pick up a few new customers from your current loyal ones just by asking for their referral.

Host Your Emails on a Web Page

There is going to be so much email flying around the next few months you might see an increase in recipients’ spam filters stripping out images. If you include a link that says “Click Here to View This Email in a Browser” any recipients that are having issues can view your email as a web page.

Another solution is to be mindful of the alternative text you give your images, this is the text that pops up when your image is either moused over or not displayed. For example, an alt tag for an image of a holiday gift basket might be “Holiday Gift Baskets under $30” - so that your recipients still understand the offer and are enticed to click to view the hosted version of the email or click to accept the images.

It’s not too early to get your holiday schedule nailed down. It will be one less thing you have to think about. Now there will be one less than a million!

Subject Lines for the Holidays

Subject lines are arguably the most important part of an email marketing campaign. It’s the equivalent of the “outer envelope” of a direct mail campaign. If it doesn’t catch the eye of your recipient and doesn’t convey the right message, then you’ve lost a potential sale.

Here is a listing of some generic subject lines you can use as a starting point for your own business. First let’s start off with the basics...

Subject Line 101 – The Basics

• Stick to 40-50 characters - Most email readers have the default set so that anything beyond 40 characters in the subject line will not display.
• Don’t repeat your from label; it’s a waste of space. Remember, you’ve got only 40 characters to grab their attention.
• Don’t use all caps – Not only is this akin to screaming at your recipient, email readers may filter it into the junk folder.
• Don’t overuse punctuation – Because this technique is often used by spammers, excessive use of punctuation can be filtered.
• Don’t abuse the word “Free” – See above.

Subject Line Examples:

Help Needed!

• FREE SHIPPING + The Gifting Event: Great gifts for everyone AND YOU!
  Too many caps, too long, too much punctuation, weird spacing.
• Your Holiday Offer is Here + Men’s Outerwear
  There is no offer.

Real Subject Lines We Like!

• {FIRST_NAME}, 2 days to enjoy holiday cards on us
• Handmade French Truffles 2006
• Remember, Save 20% Site-wide at Frontgate.com
• Full-size authentic arcade games-just like you remember

Generic Subject Lines We Like

• Buy one, get two widgets
• Gift baskets under $45
• Gifts under $20 No S and H
• Holiday Daily: widgets under $20
• Customer faves under $30
• [Gift Certificate] $25 egift sent immediately
• Buy before Nov 30 get 20% off
• Order by 12/22 for on time holiday delivery
• Buy a widget 10% goes to a cancer cure
• Stocking Stuffer Alert-Get a $5 gift card with purchase
• Invitation: Wine in-store Saturday the 22nd
• Last minute shoppers: Open until 9pm

Subject Lines for Salons or Day Spas for the Holidays

• Get Party-Ready Now - $35 for Mani/Pedi
• Holiday Rejuvenate - Spiced Scented Massage
• Last minute shoppers: $35 Mani/Pedi day (this is for a gift certificate)
• $20-$50 Gift baskets in stock

Subject Lines for Restaurants for the Holidays

• Have {COMPANY_NAME}’s holiday party with us
• Appetizers for you and 9 friends on us
• Last minute: Give a $50 gift card this season
• Take a shopping break, come in for a drink
• Bring this coupon in for a free appetizer with purchase
• Shop at Sally’s and get a drink at Harry’s

Subject Lines for Wineries

• Book now - 10 dates left for holiday parties
• Wine clubs: The gift that gives all year long
• Trio of wine under $50 with gift pack and card
• 40% holiday discount for wine club members
• Discounts and Free S&H for wine members
• 2005 Cab with our gift of Riedel wine glasses

Take the time to really think about your subject line. Even better? Before you send your email campaign, why not take a smaller part of your list and test TWO subject lines sending two different emails. Since most of your response is going to come within a day, you’ll be able to tell what your winning subject line is.

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