Amazing Tips on How to Plan Your Holiday Email Marketing Calendar & Planner

With the onset of the holiday season in the last quarter of every year, email marketers prepare themselves for one of the busiest time ahead. With over $14.4 billion spent in shopping for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday accumulatively, it is necessary to hit the inbox at the right time. Considering the fact that preparations for holiday email marketing ideally begins a month prior to the holiday season, have you marked the right dates on your Calendar yet?

This infographic titled “Email Marketing Holiday Calendar and Planner for 2016” serves the purpose of giving you an insight into the strategies implemented for different holidays and also acts a planner.

[Click to enlarge]

October

Late September and early October is reserved for looking back and analyze. Marketers reflect on the reach and performance of previous year’s marketing campaigns and purchase patterns of their best sellers and duds. Invest your efforts in creating a customer re-engagement email series to re-engage with dormant customers. Conduct promotions and events to collect emails and welcome them into your family.

With planning for Halloween off the tables, it’s time to move forward with the ‘Testing Trio’. With Black Friday (25th November) falling the next day to Thanksgiving (24th December) this year, marketers may have more on their metaphorical plate. Including product recommendations driven by the purchase history can be the ace up your sleeves, needed in such testing times. Moreover pruning your emailing list at this time can prove greatly beneficial.

In case you have a brick-and-mortar store along with an online portal, this can be a good time to experiment with an Omni-channel strategy so as to maintain sales without the discomfort of dealing with long queues.

Things to achieve:

• Implement Cart Abandonment automation.
• Analyze previous year’s best performing products.
• Re-engage with dormant Customers.
• Welcome email triggers for new customers.
• Segment your list strategically.
• Recommend products for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
• Remove hard-bounces and unsubscribes to maintain a clean email list.
• Experiment with Omni-channel strategy

November

To commemorate the valuable service given to their country by soldiers, Veteran’s day is celebrated across the United States on 11th November. Score brownie points by offering early access to sale or special discounts to war veterans to improve customer relations. Sometimes even a “Thank You” can go a long way.

Since there is only express delivery services done on Thanksgiving Day; make sure you let your subscribers know your free shipping deadline. Retailers generally keep 21st as the last day for free shipping for Thanksgiving gifts.

Things to achieve:

• Re-check holiday inventory
• Strategic placement of products across all the three holiday sales.
• Communicate important order-by dates and shipping details so your customers receive their products in time for the holidays.

December

Christmas is the time for family. Make your most loyal customers feel part of your family by offering special discounts or sneak previews of your forthcoming sales. Engage with your followers in social media by organizing a holiday contest or sweepstakes Spread holiday cheer by rewarding patrons with a personalized holiday greeting.

Use interactive elements such as GIFs, Video or sliders in emails to add a special touch. Create a sense of urgency with Countdown effects and hard-hitting headlines to motivate Last-minute shoppers.

There are chances that some subscribers missed out on earlier promotions. Remind them with back-in-stock messages for the most popular products.

Things to achieve:

• Engage with subscribers by sending personalized holiday greeting.
• Harness the power of social media to increase brand visibility.
• Utilize interactive emails to enhance customer engagements.
• Create offers that convey the message of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)

January

Time and tide waits for none. Similarly, even though your email marketing campaign has successfully endured the Holiday season, it is no time to kick back and relax. The New Year brings with it unexplored potentials and opportunities for 2017.

Have you marked the D-days in the Holiday Email Marketing Calendar? Just Plan it and Nail it!