The festive of honoring the birth of Jesus is just around the corner. The jingling of bells and decorations is a clear indication of the kind of excitement that awaits people. All around the world, people will celebrate Christmas 2019 soon and the beginning of a New Year Celebration. And, of course, this cannot go without exchanging warm wishes.

Holidays are the best time to reach people and communicate with them. People are full of expectations and hopes for miracles and happiness to come or stay. According to Freshmail, email inbox till date stands as the most personal space online, and there prevails a five times higher chance of reaching your target audience via email compared to any other social media channels.

Furthermore, Direct Marketing Association (DMA) states, for every $1 that marketers spend on email, the average ROI is $44, which is the prime reason for businesses to be still directing their techniques towards email marketing.

Here are 5 true-to-life strategies that will convince you to roll out email content this festive season:

1- Choose the right time to start

While marketers are full of hopes to break their selling record, knowing when to start your campaign is extremely crucial. Some internet personalities recommend starting Christmas campaigns right after Thanksgiving, while others suggest the sooner, the better. Although there isn’t any necessary application for such, but varies from the nature that the business operates in, for instance, if you run an online store the starting your Christmas campaigns right at the beginning of November seems better apt for the business. An interesting fact to support this notion as per the research conducted by the NRF, 43% of gifts for Christmas are bought in November. And 18% will be bought in December.

A great example of such is hotels. If you run either a hotel, or a restaurant, or a travel agency, you should start reaching out to your target audience in September to let people plan their holidays beforehand. For instance, Marriot sends its customers/visitors and update via emails about their Marriot Rewards to entice them about the journey that they could sign up for in the coming season.

2- Email Sequencing

Email sequences can put your campaign at its A-Game. Brands that have succeeded in making the objective of their campaign work have done so due to their message being delivered in a proper process flow, and sequencing is the perfect example of that.

Since this technique is targeted at taking people through a journey, the best way to light up the holiday spirit and having convinced customers to buy from you can be by email sequencing. This can be done in five interesting steps:

• • Send Teaser Emails – Teaser emails can make your recipient anticipate about what’s coming next. Dropping down hints of intrigue will act like a success strategy for your campaign, leading your audience to think of you.
• • Reveal Secrets – When your customers are ready to know what’s coming next, lay emphasis on Christmas letters you are sending out.
• • Use countdown timers – Before the actual sale goes live, alert them by adding countdown timers. This will not only let them know how much time is left, but also lead to exploiting their urge to shop.
• • Sale Announcement – Although your customers have been informed, a soft reminder doesn’t hurt anyone.
• • Greeting Them – Greeting is an act of communication, let your followers/subscribers know that you're important to them and make them feel special on the best holiday of the year by wishing them ‘Merry Christmas’.

3- Ensure a Mobile-friendly email

According to emailmonday, 61.9% of email open occurred on mobile, 9.8% on the desktop and 28.3% in a webmail client. The need for having a mobile-optimized email is essential. As for the stat mentioned above, majority access mails on their smartphones and a smart strategy for business is to understand reaching its audience where it spends most of its time.

Quite a few times, it has been the case that, the content of the email is well thought out, engaging and interactive but is not mobile-friendly, which act as the foremost reason for the customer to be pushed away. To provide the customers with the best experience, we’ll repeat until we are blue in the face that having a mobile-optimized is ESSENTIAL.

4- Know if you’re reaching the right inbox

Believe it or not, email service has been around for more than 2 decades. People have managed their accounts of Rocketmail, MSN, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail and what not. Some have continued to stay, and some have come down to a single address. You are sending emails, but is your desired audience being reached? Email bounce back is a common issue, and nearly all businesses face it. Your messages are being rolled out on full throttle but reach only a few. WHY?

The reason for this is either a wrong email address or dead accounts. Through data collection, it is easy to mark all individuals with unique addresses. Still, it is equally difficult to monitor if people who were once present on an email platform are no longer active on the same. This waste’s both money and time that is directed to your business email marketing techniques. To be able to ensure that your marketing efforts are being utilized in the most efficient manner, use Bounceless to declutter your mail list to active and loyal customers only. This will help you reach your messages to the right audience at the right time.

5- Avoid too much content

Christmas is prime time for gorging on food. You definitely don’t want your readers to do the same with your content.

If your reader opens your email on occasion as busy as Christmas, count yourself amongst the lucky businesses. The chances are that they are scrolling on their smartphone during a few stolen moments and being bombarded with long-form of content is not what they are looking for.

Rather, to ensure that your message has reached the customer, keep the contents of your message short and simple. Make it as interactive and relevant as possible to draw attention and to avoid being one of those messages that land directly in the junk box.

Bottom line: Get in. Get to the point. Get out.

Let’s wrap this up!

These are some of the tactics that can be implemented in your email marketing techniques. It is important to understand that an eloquent email marketing campaign is a wonderful thing. But to give your campaign the best possible chance of success, it is crucial to remember the above-discussed points as together they can efficiently help you send out the right Christmas messages.

Here’s a quick recap:

• • Make sure to choose the right time to start the campaign
• • Adapt to the approach of email sequencing
• • Make sure your email displays properly on mobile devices
• • Declutter your contact list to ensure your message reaches the right targeted audience
• • Avoid too much content that forces the customer to run away

Lastly, the discussed pointers are not solely for Christmas campaigns, but can also be applied to other email marketing activities for improved results, better deliverables and ROI. With this, you are all set to be rolling out your emails this Christmas season.