The run-up to Christmas is a key time in most marketing calendars, and with competition at its most fierce, you’ll need to make sure that your communications hit the mark. So, while there’s still time, take a look at our tips for better email marketing, and have a profitable season!
Be more effective this Christmas
Good email marketing is all about targeting. Before you start, you need to know exactly who you want to talk to and what you want them to do. Our tips should help:
- Know your outcome – what do you want your email marketing to achieve? Increased sales of a particular product? More bookings to a certain event? Additional sign-ups to your newsletter? Start with a focused outcome and work backwards from there.
- Know your audience – who will help you achieve your goal? Are they already on your mailing list? If so, use their existing relationship with you to drive interest in your Christmas proposition – address them by name, add in their sales history with you, remind them what they liked about you the last time they bought something. Take the time to understand what this audience is looking for so that you can tell them how your product or service meets their need. The more time you spend getting to know your audience, the more relevant your email will be.
- Make your offering clear – consumers expect something better than usual at Christmas, so think about what your offering is going to be and how you’re going to make it attractive. You might offer a discount, or a bundle package; free delivery, or a reduced subscription price. You might have a buy-one-get-one-free, or a free gift with a certain value purchase. Or time-limit your offer so that only a certain number of products are available over a certain amount of time. Whatever your offer is, make it clear and easy to understand – and make sure your business can afford it.
- Think differently – most people have between 10-20 Christmas emails in their inbox every day, and some have considerably more. Take the time to think of imaginative ways to design your email and how you’re going to get the message across. The most important part is the email subject heading, because without a creative, interesting heading, your potential customers won’t even open the email.
- Get help – you might not have time to do this all yourself, but an effective email campaign can boost your Christmas sales, so it might be worth getting help with your seasonal internet marketing. Virtual assistance companies are a good option for this, because you only pay for the time you use, and yet you get access to experienced and affordable email marketing services, allowing you to focus on your business while someone you trust handles your Christmas email marketing.
- Send more than once– the more touch points you can have with your offer, the better your chances of converting sales. Plan to send your email campaign two or three times in the run-up to Christmas – you can have a series of emails around the same offer, rather than sending the same email out three times – and back up with social media postings in order to drive interest to your offer.
- Clear calls to action – make it as easy as possible for people to buy from your email. Have a ‘Buy now’ or similar button near the top of your email which goes straight to the sales page of your website, leaving customers with as little to do as possible. Put a deadline on your call to action to drive customers to take action right away rather than filing your email to look at again later.
- Have excellent sales processes – driving your customers to buy is one thing; giving them an excellent buying experience is another. Make sure that your website or ordering system is easy and intuitive to use, so that customers can make that purchase without any hassle. Follow up with emails that confirm purchase and despatch, and use them to build a good relationship with your customer. Make everything easy and reliable, and you’re likely to win repeat and referral business too.
So, whether you’re ready to launch into your Christmas email campaign, or you want to save your time and hire a virtual assistant, you at least have a better idea of the approach you need to take in order to increase your chances of success. In fact, you can use our tips for better email marketing at any time of the year – the principles apply no matter what sort of email campaign you’re running.
Email marketing and virtual assistant help
If you need help with your campaign why not get some email marketing support, or if you would like to know more about our UK based virtual assistants feel free to call us on 0800 994 9016 or use our contact form in the menu above.