Holiday Retail E-mails: Start Early, Increase Frequencies and Use Social Sharing

The slight recovery for the 2010 holiday season will be led by e-mail and cross-channel marketing, according to Ed Henrich, senior vice president of professional services at Responsys.

“Based on back-to-school sales, we may see a mild recovery for holidays in 2010,” he said, and added that “Marketers have more channels than ever before to send out promotions, but email remains the linchpin of an integrated digital marketing strategy. Many retailers will see increases in attribution to email, as marketers fine tune frequency and the most engaged customers get a greater number of relevant messages.”

Responsys recently unveiled its “Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season 2010,” penned by Chad White. He quotes Aaron Smith, director of creative technologies at the company, who says that reviewing last year’s holiday e-mail performance is a solid way to prepare for this season. This will re-immerse you in the holiday mindset, give you the opportunity to make plans to avoid mistakes made last year and will offer you the chance to regroup your team to make sure blind spots will be covered this time around. Analyzing what competitors and peers did is also suggested.

The company recommends starting Christmas campaigns early, despite the fact that some still adhere to the notion that Black Friday is the start of the holiday season. For e-mail marketers, the holiday season starts much earlier. In 2009, holiday campaigns began 67 days before Christmas (Oct. 19), on average, according to Responsys. “With the economy recovering somewhat, it’s possible that retailers may begin their holiday campaigns a tad later this year,” White writes.

He also notes that Oct. 19 was just as the average start date, and Hallmark, for example, began its holiday messaging on June 29.

Another step for prepping for the holiday e-mail season is to request subscribers to update their preferences – if you don’t have one, look into ramping one up in the coming months or jot it onto your “to do” list for next year.

Alternatives include sending out subscriber surveys about your e-mail program, or progressive profiling (e.g., asking subscribers if they plan on hosting holiday-season dinners).

Among the other key preparation tactics is to offer incentives for product reviews.

Responsys also recommends boosting holiday e-mail frequencies. The company shows that on average, 14.3 e-mails were sent to each subscriber per month during November and December last year, compared to 10.3 e-mails per month during January through October. The holiday season also opens up a big window of opportunity for light e-mailers to ramp up their activity.

However, it’s important to weigh the potential drawbacks of increasing your e-mail activity too much.

Cyber Monday was the top retail e-mail day of 2009, with 71 percent of retailers sending e-mails. It was followed by Black Friday with 69 percent of retailers sending messages, Cyber Monday #2 (18 days before Christmas) with 63 percent, Cyber Monday #3 (11 days before Christmas) with 62 percent and the day before Thanksgiving with 59 percent.

Standing out among inbox clutter (writing better subject lines, introducing a holiday header and navigation bar, adding a gift services footer, using animated gifs), leveraging social sharing and altering your strategies according to “The 18 Phases of Christmas” are also recommended by Responsys. The 18 phases are:

1. “Christmas in July” campaigns
2. Early holiday messaging
3. Core holiday messaging
4. Thanksgiving Day sales
5. Black Friday campaigns
6. Cyber Monday campaigns, plus the emergence of “Cyber Sunday”
7. “X Days of Christmas” campaigns
8. Deadline to order special products
9. The end of standard shipping
10. The end of express shipping and guaranteed Christmas delivery
11. Shop at your local store
12. “In-store pickup” programs
13. E-gift Cards
14. Season’s greetings
15. Christmas Day sales
16. After-Christmas sales
17. Redemption of gift cards
18. Follow-ups and upsell opportunities

Sources:

http://www.responsys.com/downloads/white_papers/Responsys_2010_Retail_Email_Guide_to_the_Holiday_Season.pdf

http://www.responsys.com/company/press/2010_08_25.php

http://www.internetretailer.com/2010/08/30/tis-season-holiday-e-mails