7 (more) email marketing tips to making your Holiday wishes come true!
November 26th, 2009 , Piotr Krupa
Based on tips from our first Holiday “blogathon”, we ALL know now that targeting your Holiday email messages can increase open rates by 20% and almost double your CTR1 . But have you thought about the BEST way to use targeting and list segmentation for the holidays?
Should we do targeting a little different on Holiday perhaps? It’s certainly a unique season in many ways…
Our answer is “yes” and here’s why. Everyone wants to connect in more personal ways this time of year, even at the subscriber-relationship level. And many of us may be a bit tired or emotional as we plow through double the usual amount of promotional emails, until we just give up and execute the dreaded “select>all>delete’. Our point is, again, take care to personalize your subject line, titles, greetings and salutations, etc. and target your messages, but in a way that is practical and helpful to each of your target profiles. Don’t send too many messages, and avoid hype at all costs…rather be a valued shopping partner during this hectic holiday season. Here’s how:
1. First, send the easiest and most effective Holiday card ever! Create a personal video email greeting you “made yourself” with GetResponse Multimedia Studio! Include family, pets, friends, etc. Everyone wants to hear about family this time of year, so why not share! Now, segmentation…
2. Use purchasing history data to recommend products or services your customer may like to give as gifts; add value by segmenting your suggestions by demographics, relationship (work, family), etc.
3. Have fun with geo-location data and group your cross-sell and complementary gift suggestions according to climate, culture, etc. For example, faux fur scarves and mittens or mint julep apple cider mix? Depending on what you offer, there could be lots of practical uses for this info.
4. Did you run any product surveys this year? Use the results to include your highest customer rated products, and tell them why. Don’t forget to include a testimonial or 2 and a video demo of the top recommended products using video marketing!
5. Customize your design. Choose your segment look and feel from the 300+ templates GetResponse offers, or order a custom template just for Holiday. Remember to include your best product, service, or destination pictures with easy links to order pages, articles, and reviews.
6. Options for emailing your campaign to friends and family, posting on Twitter, etc. We’re thinking it’s going to be a HUGE season for social media sites, so think “viral” (the good kind!).
7. We have one last suggestion that you may not have tried yet. We ALL know you can access the total dollar value of each customer’s purchases, right? Why not try what the BIG retailers do and segment a list by “value” and create a campaign just for them! You could even ask them if they would be interested in receiving additional product recommendations from you this season and, if so, you could increase email frequency to this high-value group. Even if a relatively small number “opt in”, the dollar value of sales revenues may surprise and delight you!
Got some great ideas you’d like to share? Please let us know what topics or issues you’d like to discuss and we promise we’ll respond!
1 MarketingSherpa “Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008″
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