Long before retailers hang any wreaths or tinsel in their stores, they send out emails promoting their Christmas deals to their subscribers — lots of emails! Last year I tracked more than 2,000 emails from nearly 100 top online retailers during the fourth quarter and released daily reports on strategies, tactics, and trends via this blog. Based on those reports, the Email Experience Council has produced “Ring-Cha-Ching, Hear Them Ring: The Guide to Gearing Up for the Holiday Email Season,” a helpful roadmap to the email holiday season so retailers and other companies can better formulate their campaigns this year.
“The EEC’s ‘Guide to Gearing Up for the Holiday Email Season’ provides a wealth of actionable ideas for email marketers of all size and experience levels,” says Robb Walters, Costco Wholesale’s ecommerce director. “Presented in an easily digestible format, it offers specific ideas, examples, and results from last years’ holiday campaigns by some of the largest retailers in the online space. By leveraging the best practices it suggests, any business can easily improve its fourth-quarter results. It is a must-read guide for any email strategist, and I highly recommend it.”
“What I like best about this new EEC report is the relevance it brings to other verticals. This report should be seen as a best practices guide for anyone sending emails during the third and fourth quarters,” said Jeanniey Mullen, EEC founder and executive chair. Mullen is also a senior partner and executive director for email and digital dialogue services at OgilvyOne worldwide.
Here are some of the strategies, advice and metrics from the 15-page guide, which includes examples of creatives from multiple campaigns:
· The guide includes discussions and examples of the “12 Phases of Christmas,” the 12 strategies that retailers use at different points in the holiday season. Those strategies include promoting e-gift cards and “buy online, pick up in store” services.
· Last year major online retailers increased their email volume by 47% on average during the holiday season.
· Seven of the eight biggest retail email volume days of the year occurred in the weeks before Christmas last year. Those days included Cyber Monday (Nov. 27) and all three “Echo Mondays” (Dec. 4, 11 and 18) — the Mondays that follow Cyber Monday. Interestingly, two of the three Echo Mondays were bigger email days than Cyber Monday, which is billed as the biggest online sales day of the year.
· Email volume should peak in the second week of December this year.
· Twenty-nine percent of major retailers promoted e-gift cards in their emails during the eight days ending Christmas Day.
· Just as some online and multichannel retailers promote Thanksgiving Day sales to get a leg up on offline competitors whose stores are closed on that day, some will also begin their post-holiday sales on Christmas Day and promote them in their email campaigns.
Get the Full Report
Visit the Whitepaper Room to download the full 15-page report, which is available for free for eec platinum members, at a discount to eec gold and silver members, and for $99 for non-members. Not a member? Learn more about becoming a member of the Email Experience Council.
Other Research Reports Available:
Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study
Animation in Retail Emails Study
Refer a Friend Benchmark Study
Send to a Friend Benchmark Study
Retail Welcome Email Benchmark Study
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