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People spent $1.14 trillion online this past holiday season, and $270 billion in the United States. For businesses like yours, the next few months are likely to be the most lucrative for sales, and you need a reliable strategy to do so.
Email marketing is competitive 365 days a year, but what about the last quarter? It all comes to a head. With so many companies competing for attention and profits, we can't afford for anything to go wrong.
From identifying the right offer to preparing your email list, here are five steps you can take today to get better results with your holiday email marketing.
Related: 8 Easy Email Marketing Tips to Improve Open and Click-Through Rates
1. Create different offers for different audience segments
How your customers interact with your company can vary greatly. For example, repeat customers have different needs than potential customers who just created an account on your website. So, when you and your team brainstorm your holiday email campaign, you should consider these details to segment your audience.
Even if you're scared of splitting your list, focus on the benefits. Segmented campaigns have 14% higher open rates. That means you're more likely to convert.
2. Verify your customer's email address
Now that you have a clear offer for each customer segment, it's time to check the health of your email list. A good place to start is to review your latest email marketing report. For example, if your bounce rate is above 2%, you know it's time to run your database through an email validation tool. Otherwise, your email deliverability will decrease. Now is not the time to risk your email going to spam.
ZeroBounce verified over 6 billion email addresses in one year and found that only 57% were valid and safe to store. You lose your email list every month, so be sure to delete old data and check any new addresses you collect as well.
Related: 11 Common Email Marketing Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)
3. Perform email blacklist checks
Have you noticed a sudden drop in open rates and clicks over the past few months? Your IP or domain may be blacklisted. Mailbox providers (such as Yahoo and Gmail) and anti-spam organizations maintain email blacklists that block senders with a history of sending spam. However, even well-intentioned senders can get blacklisted if they don't maintain a healthy email list and follow best practices. In most cases, recipients will not receive emails from blocked senders.
Email blacklists are updated in real time. The best way to check if your IP or domain is flagged is to use a blacklist checker. Such tools run tests against hundreds of blacklists and alert you if there are any problems.
4. Cut ties with subscribers who never click.
Every email list has passionate fans who open every email and subscribers who rarely or never click. These email addresses will not be bounced back, but the lack of interaction will send a false message about you to your Internet Service Provider (ISP). If a large portion of your list doesn't open your email, is it relevant enough to show up in their inbox? If your subscribers don't engage, your campaign may be marked as spam, so 6 months If you haven't deleted it yet, now is the time.
While you may be nervous about paring down your email list right before the holidays, you'll enjoy more engagement. Since they haven't opened your emails in months, those subscribers were less likely to convert anyway.
5. Increase engagement by sending gifts
To increase engagement ahead of the holiday season, start warming up your leads a few weeks before launching your campaign. An effective tactic is to create a series of educational emails to alleviate some of your customers' pain points. Whether you run a B2B or retail business, consider offering free content to build your emails. Free e-books, infographics, and helpful videos can go a long way in building trust and standing out in people's inboxes.
Remember: Healthy engagement increases email deliverability and shows ISPs that your content is relevant. Before you push the sales pitch, build your audience with great emails.
Related: 5 things you can do right now to improve your email marketing
Bonus tip: Keep sending great emails
Email marketing is best served by not only sending engaging content, but sending it regularly. If it's inconsistent throughout the year, you'll want to gradually increase the amount. Enhance your connection with your customers and improve email deliverability.
Avoid sudden and rapid increases in volume, as your ISP may flag the behavior as suspicious. The more predictable you are, the more likely your email campaign will reach your inbox.
