8 Conversion Boosters for Holiday Email Marketing

Now is the time to plan holiday email marketing. For most ecommerce merchants, email is crucial for generating traffic and sales. What follows are eight tips to get the most from your holiday email marketing efforts.

8 Email Conversion Boosters

Combine email with other marketing channels. In my experience, there is often a nice revenue lift with an omnichannel marketing strategy versus standalone programs.

For example, I recently tested an email that notified individuals of a catalog that was coming in their physical mail. Recipients who received both the email and catalog generated 10 percent more revenue than those who received only the catalog. Using consistent messaging, creative, and offers across all channels will help individuals recognize and recall, which produces higher overall engagement.

Thus whenever possible, supplement email promotions with other digital campaigns, including social media, and even direct physical mail. It will produce more opens, clicks, and conversions.

This direct mail promotion from The Wall Street Journal Wine Club could be more effective if combined with email, social media, and display — all using the same offer and creative.

Send reminders and last-chance notifications. Especially during the holidays, consumers are overwhelmed with busy schedules and a glut of marketing offers. An effective strategy is to continually remind shoppers of final dates to order to receive items by Christmas or other holiday occasions. Consumers respond well to last-minute and last-chance offers.

Add a cart starter or gift to all orders. An effective strategy to encourage consumers to start filling their shopping cart is to fill it for them with a gift. This is easily programmed so that one click from an email adds a gift to the cart. Once the cart contains an item, it’s easier for customers to add more and consummate the order.

Moreover, once started the cart is eligible for abandoned-cart triggered messaging if necessary. This will likely increase conversions from what could have been a short browsing session.

This email includes both an early-bird and free-gift cart-started strategy. Image: Black Sheep Design.

Give shoppers a reason to retain your email. I tend not to keep promotional emails unless I have an immediate need to shop from that retailer, or if the email contains an offer that I intend to use before the expiration date.

Creating a marketing email that encourages recipients to retain can drive traffic and revenue for weeks. Effective tactics for doing that are:

• Providing a reward or cash-back incentive with an extended redemption period.
• Including critical account or password information.
• Listing important upcoming dates, such as last time to order for holiday delivery.
• Offering extended expiration dates on coupon offers.
• Notifying of future events.

Auto-load email offers in the shopping cart. This tactic is straightforward. But it’s surprising how many online retailers do not automatically load an email offer or promotion code into the shopping cart. It accomplishes two things:

• Expedites and streamlines the checkout experience for users.
• Give marketers a more accurate view on performance since attribution is automatically applied to that offer code.

Include holiday imagery. Consumers want to be festive during the holidays for their home décor, gift buying, food, and attire. Adding quality images that reflect your holiday merchandise can convert a shopper. Try A/B testing email creatives with different images to see which has a greater response.

Quality photography can help enhance emails and encourage orders. Image: Charleston Wrap.

Monitor deliverability and Sender Score throughout the season. Leading internet service providers change their email algorithms frequently, especially around the holidays when email volume is high.

Thus, during the holidays closely monitor email deliverability, IP reputation, and Return Path’s Sender Score. Fix problems quickly. Not sending email even for a day can cripple some retailers.