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 5,250 emails from more than 100 top U.S. 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.
This 41-page guide includes benchmarks and advice on when to begin your campaigns, 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 more than 83% of major online retailers increased their email volume during November and December, with retailers boosting their send frequency by 39% on average compared to the preceding July-October period.
This guide also discusses and provides examples of the “18 Phases of Christmas,” the 18 messaging strategies that retailers use at different points in the holiday season. Those strategies include promoting e-gift cards, “in-store pickup” services, and gift card redemptions.
Other topics covered 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 71% 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 discusses tactics such as using holiday headers, gift services footers, and animated gifs, which so far this year have been used in twice as many email campaigns as last year.
● To target procrastinators, the guide discusses several strategies to employ during the final days before Christmas, including promoting e-gift cards, which were mentioned in more than 30% of retail emails during the three days before Christmas last year. That was 50% more often than during the same period in 2008.
● 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 41-page “Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season 2010” for free. (This is a direct download of the PDF. There are no forms to complete.)
Sign up for the Webinar
>>REGISTER for the accompanying webinar, which will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 1, at 12:15pm EST/9:15am PDT.
Other reports available from Responsys:
Email Design Look Book 2010
Cross-Promoting Sister Brands Safely
Animated Gif Usage Surging
Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study
Majority of Retailers Fail Hotmail-Firefox Rendering Test
Retail Email Guide to Multichannel Engagement
Many Retailers Not Optimizing Preheader Text
…and you can find even more reports on Responsys' Downloads page.
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1 comments:
I am surprised that cyber Monday was not the biggest online shopping day of the year. Though it is not shocking that companies use this day to send out the most emails. Very interesting information that retailers can use during the upcoming season..thanks for sharing!
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