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Plan holiday email strategies to gain traffic
It’s not easy for most of us to think about the holidays mid-summer, but for retailers
it is imperative. While you’re
enjoying the sunshine and long
days, you should also be thinking about your holiday marketing strategy. Here are four
automated email campaigns and
examples of their success that
any retailer can implement.
1Welcome series. Back-to- school and holiday shopping
brings increased traffic to your
site and leads to an increase in
subscribers to your marketing
list. Take this opportunity to
further engage these shoppers
with an email welcome series
that gives them more information about your brand and
your products.
2Shopping cart-abandon- ment campaigns. Online
shoppers constantly abandon
carts — to the tune of 70% of
your shoppers — but that doesn’t
mean the sale is lost. Timely cart
abandonment reach-back campaigns that include product reminders, social proof, and even
discounts prompt customers to
complete the purchase. Vintage
Tub & Bath has a three-message
cart-abandonment series,
integrated with its Bazaarvoice
reviews, that achieves an average 22.5% cart recovery rate.
3Restock notifications. When you sell out of a
particular item, you and your
customers both lose, unless
you have a restock notification
campaign to alleviate the
“Back to school
and holiday
shopping brings
increased traffic
to your site.”
Ross Kramer,
Cofounder and CEO,
Listrak
problem. Give customers an
easy way to sign up on the product or checkout page to receive
an email when the item is back
in stock. BirkenstockCentral.
com sends emails with images of
the particular product and a link
back to the cart for shoppers to
purchase, which averages a 33%
click-through rate and 28.5%
conversion rate.
4Repurchase campaigns. Keep the sales rolling in after the holidays with automated
repurchase campaigns for consumable items. These campaigns
can be based on customer purchase history and the shelf life
of particular products. Sending
an email message or series offers
customers a convenient way
to repurchase the product. n
Optimize email marketing for campaigns
Email still rules when it comes to building cus- tomer relationships. It’s
direct, it showcases your brand
or product and it drives immediate action. However, many
companies still get it wrong.
Here are a few things every marketer should remember in order
to grow a trusting relationship
with your customers and deliver
compelling, expertly designed
emails that reward business.
1Test like crazy. Know your options in A/B and multivariate testing. Sophisticated email
providers have list segmentation,
testing and targeting options
that will do much of the heavy
lifting. Testing can be performed
on subject lines, and the time
and frequency of delivery.
“What best suits
one group of
customers may
not work well
for another.”
2Timing is everything. Set a regular schedule for
your campaigns, and try to
adhere to it. Messages sent at
the beginning of the workday
may not be as effective as those
sent later in the afternoon or
over the weekend. What best
suits one group of customers
may not work well for another.
For instance, maybe a weekend
email works for Yahoo/Gmail
users, but not for subscribers
using a business email.
4Maintaining visual consistency is crucial.
Your content should change,
but your email must be immediately recognizable. How you say
something is important. Since
your objective is for people to
click and act, make sure you
offer a clear and prominent
call-to-action. If they hesitate,
you’ve lost them.
Josh Levine,
Founder and chief
experience officer,
Alexander Interactive
3Content is still king. Subject lines drive open rates, so test
a few options with a small segment before rolling out a campaign to the entire list. Ensure
that your content is valuable by
making offers clear and getting
to the point quick.
5Users need control. Segment your content into
distinct newsletters for topical
sending, and let readers tell you
when they want to hear from
you. If you send a weekly email,
let customers indicate which
day they want to receive it. If a
reader wants to go, make it easy
with a simple, one-click unsub-scribe link within your email. n
