Even though we haven’t even gone trick or treating yet in the United States, it’s not too early to be thinking of Cyber Monday, the first weekday after Black Friday that kicks off the online holiday shopping season.
What are you going to do to get ready? From a marketer’s perspective, there’s plenty to work on in the course of readying your holiday email campaigns. Here’s a checklist of things to think about (in no particular order):
Landing pages: Every email should have a call to action. But where are you going to send your recipients to take said action? A landing page! You think your existing web pages may do the trick, but that may not always be the case. It’s worth considering creating a landing page tailored to each email campaign. This increases the relevancy factor, which can lead to a higher conversion rate. Here are a couple of links with more information about landing page design:
10 Tips for Writing the Ultimate Landing Page
Tips to Optimize Your Email Landing Page
List segmentation: I’ve preached the importance of segmentation before and will do it again here. The more you know about the members of your distribution list, the better able you’ll be to send them relevant information. The number of promotional emails landing in your recipients’ inbox will increase dramatically this holiday season. If you want yours to be among the ones they open, stand out with content tailored to their interests. A good subject line helps too. Which leads me to my next point….
Subject lines: I’ve always preached “tell, don’t sell” the content of your email. This means straightforward subject lines that clearly state the content inside the message. Here’s an article MailChimp wrote about subject line best practices (don’t let the fact that it was written in 2007 scare you.).
And here are some questions to ask yourself in the planning process that will play a part in setting a plan:
- What’s my budget? Knowing what you can spend will determine how many emails you’ll be able to send, which will control the time spent developing email content and landing pages. (OK, this may be the No. 1 thing you need to know before doing anything else mentioned here….)
- How often will I be sending emails? This will be a function of budget and workflow.
- What am I trying to accomplish? Knowing what it is you want to do is going to drive everything else mentioned. Is it sell more widgets? Increase sign-ups to my company newsletter? (Since it’s holiday season, I’ll go with the first question.) Staying true to your mission is a key success factor.
If you’re not an online retailer, this is still a time to be thinking about how you’re going to get the most out of your online shopping experience. Keep an eye on your inbox for special promotions from your favorite online retailer. Or sign-up for their e-alerts and promotions, if you haven’t already done so.
In the meantime, Happy Halloween!
Comments are closed.