Online trends shift quickly. At the moment, Instagram stories are a popular way to market an eCommerce store, but they could be outdated soon. Because trends change so fast, businesses of all sizes often find it hard to keep up, but it’s crucial to stay informed about key updates in the digital landscape.

Often overlooked, email marketing is still an extremely powerful to re-engage with potential or existing customers and entice them back to an online store. In fact, email marketing remains the most effective way to engage users and generate revenue.

Luckily, your hard work will yield great results. To demonstrate the effectiveness of email marketing, here are seven statistics to inspire your holiday marketing campaigns today!

Now, it’s time to plan your email marketing campaigns for the upcoming holiday season. Here are some useful tips to create a series of effective automated email messages to maximize your revenue and grow your brand online.

According to industry experts, there are several tried-and-true methods to harness the power of automated email series that continue to deliver great results, starting with these.

Types of Email Campaigns

Welcome emails

According to Omnisend, the average percentage of welcome email openings is 45 percent, which is much larger than the average open rate of 18 percent for promotional emails. This means that potential buyers are very interested in the initial offer, and you shouldn’t let that opportunity slip away. An excellent way to start is by sharing your gratitude by offering a special deal. Kate Spade has optimized the welcome email message by rewarding new subscribers with a 15 percent discount on their first purchase.

Abandoned cart emails

According to recent statistics, up to 80 percent of online shopping carts are abandoned. However, another source advises that a good portion of that lost revenue can be recovered if the company has a strategy to re-engage users who abandoned their carts.

Think about this: Consumers who put items in their carts are already interested in your products. Therefore, it will be much easier to get them to come back to your store. They just need a little push from a strategic email.

Nordstrom is a company that knows how to execute an effective abandoned cart message. With this campaign, they show consumers the exact items remaining in their cart, which makes the email highly relevant to users; therefore, they can be more successful with increasing conversion rates that drive revenue. Consumers who receive these emails can easily click on the image and complete their purchase, which creates a great user experience.

Nurture emails

When it comes to nurturing emails, audience segmentation is key. It will allow you to deliver tailored messages that can increase your chances of conversion. Start by grouping your subscribers according to common factors, such as similar actions, purchase history, and preferences.

Once that’s completed, consider writing copy that helps subscribers know more about your brand or products. Show them a specific item that meets their interests or tells them an engaging story. This can help inspire loyalty to your brand and motivate them to make a purchase. Consumers are often bombarded with stale sales pitches, but engaging content will make your emails stand out from the competition.

How to Use Automated Emails for the Holidays

Now that we have discussed the basis of automated emails, here are some great ways to maximize them for the upcoming holiday season. Seasonal email marketing campaigns can be divided into three broad groups: pre-holiday messaging, the busiest shopping days of the season (like Black Friday or Free Shipping Day) and after the holidays end. Let’s go through each one individually:

Pre-holidays emails

In a perfect world, pre-season campaigns should be planned months in advance. About three months before the scheduled launch day, the templates should be ready, and the audience has been carefully segmented. These emails should be sent, at the latest, a month before the start of the season. So, if you want to craft a successful Christmas email marketing campaign, the emails should be sent no later than right after Thanksgiving. Now, whether you send these emails on a daily or weekly basis depends on the products you sell or the services you are equipped to offer.

Holiday shopping emails

These emails should follow the same format as the pre-season campaigns. The groundwork has already prepared, and now it’s time to offer your best products and promotions to really maximize your Q4 revenue.

Post-season emails

These emails are key to clearing out inventory before the end of the season. They should be focused on the amount of money customers can save by purchasing your products at this time. Another approach is to extend holiday messaging through the end of the year as Madewell does with giving back initiatives that don’t end with Christmas.

One last critical factor that needs to be taken into account is mobile users. Everyone lives on their smartphones, and this means that subscribers are likely to open your emails through this type of device. Therefore, making sure your email campaigns are mobile-friendly is imperative to attract revenue through mobile sales.

Every single detail counts in order to get the best results from your email marketing campaigns. Just remember that most consumers need to be guided along the path to purchase, so make sure that your message is clear and conduct split-testing to identify the best performing call to action (CTA).

Once you apply these tips, you’ll be poised to capture vital revenue during the holiday shopping season.

Let us know how it goes in the comments section and happy holidays!