Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season: Executive Summary

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 we tracked more than 4,700 emails from more than 100 top online retailers during the fourth quarter and released daily reports on strategies, tactics and trends via the Retail Email Blog. Based on that monitoring, we have produced this helpful roadmap to the email holiday season so retailers and other B2C companies can better formulate their campaigns this year.

“For those of us in email marketing, Christmas comes in August!” says Lisa Harmon, co-founder and principal of Smith-Harmon. “Happily, this Guide makes it easy for us to make the quick shift from sunny-day tactics to snow-time strategies.”

This guide includes benchmarks and advice on when to begin your campaign, how much to increase your email volume, which days to send on, and how to stand out in the inbox during the holidays. For instance, last year nearly 90% of major online retailers increased their email volume during the holiday season, with retailers boosting their send frequency by 43% on average compared to the pre-holiday period.

This guide also discusses and provides examples of the “18 Phases of Christmas,” the 18 strategies that retailers use at different points in the holiday season. Those strategies include promoting e-gift cards and “in store pickup” services.

Other topics covered in the guide include:

● Cyber Monday may not be “the biggest online shopping day of the year” as billed, but last year it was the most popular day of the year to send retail emails, with 70% of retailers sending at least one email on that day. Helping you make your scheduling decisions, the guide also details other days among the 20 most popular days to send retail email last year.
● Standing out in the inbox during the holiday season is tough. The guide offers tactics such as using video, which is an up-and-coming tactic, and animated gifs, which were used by 22% of major online retailers in at least one email during November and December last year.
● The guide discusses several strategies to employ during the final days before Christmas, including promoting e-gift cards, which were mentioned in more than 20% of retail emails during the three days before Christmas last year.
● Formulating the right subject lines during the holidays is critical. The guide includes numerous examples of subject lines used last year during the various phases of the holiday season to help you devise your subject lines for the crucial November and December months.

Get the Full Report
>>Download the full 43-page “Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season” from Smith-Harmon’s Research Library for free.

Sign Up for the Webinar
>>Register for the accompanying “It's Christmas in August!: 2009 Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season” webinar, which will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 26, at 12:15pm EST/9:15am PDT.

Other reports available from Smith-Harmon:
FTAF vs. SWYN
Executive Series on Email Marketing: Installments 1-5
Email Design Look Book 2009
Email Navigation Differs Radically from Website Navigation
Going-Out-of-Business Email Strategies
Soon Even More Emails Won't Be Optimized for Width
Retail Welcome Email Benchmark Study
…and you can find even more reports in Smith-Harmon’s Research Library.
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