According to Statista’s study, about 60% of respondents start their Christmas shopping in mid-November or at the beginning of December. The earlier you begin sending out your Christmas email campaigns, the higher your chance is to win the customers’ attention.
In the following chapter, we’ll observe all the stages of a successful Christmas email marketing campaign to get you inspired.
A successful Christmas campaign doesn’t consist of a single message. We recommend that it includes at least three stages:
Use email automation for this. Let’s observe every step we should take.
If you send a single message on Christmas day, the chance that your email will be lost in a pile of others is really high. To prevent that, be proactive: send pre-Christmas messages to stay on the top in subscribers’ inboxes and their hearts and minds.
Start creating a festive spirit at least a week before the holiday –– for example send season’s greetings, or thank your subscribers for their loyalty.
This is an example of an email campaign by EmailGeek. It is a part of a 12-part festive email campaign sent before the date to create anticipation and a festive atmosphere in customers’ minds.
Another example of a pre-Christmas email campaign is this cute postcard by Curate Labs. It conveys just the right feel and tone of the holiday season:
When you come closer to the date, it’s time to send a Christmas message. Your subscribers have probably opened the previous emails, and now they expect you to make attractive holiday offers and gifts. So, don’t disappoint them 😉
You can prepare festive Christmas discounts, email-only deals, or some exclusive offers for the most loyal customers.
Here is an example of an email Christmas offer by Rifle Paper Co. They give their subscribers a generous 30% off everything. Take a look at the CTA button with “Go, go, go” calling that immediately grabs attention:
Next is a nice Christmas treat by Harvard Sweet Boutique. The first thing that strikes the eye is a big “10% off” header –– the benefits are quite obvious. That’s a nice trick to increase the end of the year sales.
Christmas ends on the 26th of December, but it doesn’t mean that your campaign should, too. Otherwise, here comes the best period for email marketers: the inboxes are not overcrowded with countless festive messages, so here we go.
What can you write? Make your email a continuation of a Christmas message: remind about the offer, but make it even spicier and catchier.
Take advantage of the opportunity! Write a post-Christmas email with a killer subject line, and you’ll definitely stand out from the pile of endless “Merry Christmas” promotional messages. In the following chapter, we’ll observe the key objectives of catchy Christmas subject lines.
An attention-grabbing subject line is almost half of your future campaign’s success. If you don’t get your prospects to open the email, the rest doesn’t matter.
There are four main strategies to use when planning your Christmas email subject lines.
Good examples:
Good examples:
Good examples:
Good examples:
Here are the best Christmas email techniques and practices to get inspired by and use in your marketing campaigns to promote your products and services. Find yours!
There are lots of traditional Christmas symbols to choose from: a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, snowmen, snowballs, Christmas-tree sets, candy canes, snowflakes…and so on and on. Take any and integrate it into the design of your campaign. Use holiday colors: traditionally, it is green, red, white, and gold –– create different combinations, or just highlight some accents.
ABC Ltd chose a well-known Christmas design: it’s Santa riding a sleigh with reindeers over a winter forest:
In case you want to add some creativity to the campaign, there are many ways to play with traditional Christmas symbols. See how the Poppin team neatly connected their products with a holiday theme: for their Christmas email they’ve created a Christmas wreath made of notebooks:
TWO UK offers their email subscribers to decorate a digital Christmas tree with blinking and twinkling lights and share the results on Twitter. A tricky way to increase brand awareness!
It is always so good to know that the company you’re loyal to takes care of you. So, Christmas is the perfect time to make your customers personalized gifts to show that each of them matters a lot to you and your business.
A great way to show that is to send an email with Christmas discounts on products your prospects have already shown interest in. Or just share some interesting statistics about their experience with your products, as Google Local Guides did in 2017:
Another great and unusual way to show your customers your appreciation is to send them a plain text message with the best wishes. It looks super personal and doesn’t take much effort to create. Such Christmas emails do not contain any images or coding and look exactly like the ones you send to your friends and colleagues.
Sending such a greeting to your customers makes them feel a warm bonding with you and your business:
Here’s another example of a simple Christmas message:
You can spread a holiday spirit by sending heartwarming Christmas wishes to your customers. It’s a chance to get more personal with your contacts and treat them as if they were a part of your family.
Keep in mind your last-minute shoppers. Christmas is the time when they’re on the hunt, so you as a brand can take a chance and turn the tables. Create an additional sense of urgency that forces customers to buy faster and make quicker decisions.
For example, Clinique launched a time-limited campaign with discounts for all categories of products, but each of the codes was valid for just 24 hours. One day –– one category. Not only can such an email boost conversion but it can also create anticipation for the following offers.
It is also a nice idea to add a countdown timer with animation showing how much time has left till the end of your discount offer:
To make your emails more engaging and boost your click rates, add the elements of the game to your campaign. It triggers the curiosity of readers, cheers them up, and creates a festive mood. Moreover, making customers play games to get gifts is a great way to increase sales.
Finally, Christmas is a nice occasion to thank the subscribers for their loyalty, and express your love and gratitude to them. Sometimes warm and simple words are enough to win someone’s heart.
Let’s sum up everything we’ve covered in this article about successful Christmas email marketing campaigns.
We wish a Merry Christmas to you and your families! Ho-ho-ho 🎅
Others just make a list of ways. We actually explain how to make the most of each way.
21 surefire ways to grow your email list with detailed explanations and hand-picked examples. Based on research and 10+ years experience in email marketing.
