Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 0 Tips and checklist for holiday marketing With the advent of the holiday season upon us, we thought we’d present you with an early present. Our top tips will help make it nice and easy for you to make it nice and easy for your customers to spend more money on your site. We hope they help…. 1. On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me…a personalized email It’s the season’s must-have gift: an email with their name on it. Just because it’s the holiday season, you don’t have to use a scatter-gun approach and send the same email to every single customer. Use your data to personalize emails based on past purchase or behavior. 2. The gift they’ve always wanted Help do their gift shopping for them by including a list for ideas. Include categories like Gifts For Him, For Her and so on. Announce new guides to your subscriber list. Incorporate the list into every email template: holiday offers, transactional messages and abandoned cart emails. 3. It’s beginning to look a lot like a lot to remember It is a busy time of the year. Just make sure to check everything off our checklist, and you’ll have a happy, healthy and wealthy holiday season: Reports: Prepare your campaign tracking reports. Thoroughly understand your metrics now. Gift cards: If shopping and shipping time is tight, increase the prominence of purchasing a gift card. State the expiration date clearly. Subject lines: Copy the writing styles that performed best in 2013. Write your subject lines now. Include multiple versions for testing. Delivery dates: List deadlines based on shipping methods and carriers (include international shipping). Create a tone of urgency by emphasizing ‘X number of days left for arrival by Christmas’. Presentation: Pay attention to details. It might be a creative design that showcases the personalized message from the giver or gift-wrap. Do not forget to omit any reference to cost. Logo: Google are famous for playing with their logo and making it relevant to dates, events, etc. Get yours in the holiday spirit by sprucing it up. Re-mail: Exclude subscribers who have purchased from the first mailing. Monitor unsubscribes and complaints rates from previous re-mail tactics to determine the impact of mailing to those that didn’t open the first mailing. Returns: Examine top reasons for returns last year, so you can minimize returns this year. For your most popular items, add product selection guides, detailed descriptions, etc. Social: Feature gift ideas and promotions in the social channels most used by your target audience. Encourage shoppers to Pin items they would like as a gift. Oh, and happy New Year! As a high traffic season, it’s your opportunity to increase your subscriber list for 2015. Build brand and customer loyalty by offering an incentive to subscribe to your emails along with an easy sign-up field on your homepage. Test your promotions, subject lines, delivery times, creative layouts, call-to-action, etc. to ensure your 2015 campaigns start with proven results. Many gift card recipients will be new customers. Along with an easy redemption process, be sure to welcome them to your brand and invite them to subscribe to your offers. Jump on post-Christmas consumer spending with a campaign to come back and purchase for yourself what you wish you got for the holidays. (Actually, you can start this on December 26th.). Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article originally appeared on The dotMailer Email Marketing Blog and has been republished with permission.Find out how to syndicate your content with B2C Author: Kane Pepi Kane Pepi is an experienced financial and cryptocurrency writer with over 2,000+ published articles, guides, and market insights in the public domain. Expert niche subjects include asset valuation and analysis, portfolio management, and the prevention of financial crime. Kane is particularly skilled in explaining complex financial topics in a user-friendly … View full profile ›More by this author:VoIP Basics: Everything Beginners Should Know!Bitcoin Investment, Trading & Mining: The Ultimate Guide for BeginnersIs This a Better Way to Set Your 2020 Goals and Resolutions?