A solid email marketing strategy is needed for any business to reach potential customers, especially amid the buzz of the holiday season. That said, since inboxes are jam-packed with a wide variety of emails this time of year, you need to stand out, especially for those on the hunt for last-minute gifts for their loved ones. Hopefully, this blog serves as inspiration, with useful tips on how you can create festive holiday emails.
Are you ready to get started?
Here are a few strategic email marketing tips that will help you to gain traction this holiday season:
Brainstorm: Before investing time and money into holiday email campaigns, we recommend that you analyze anything that you completed this time last year. This allows you to see what performed well and if anything can be recycled and reused.
Review your competition: When in doubt, it’s easy and takes little effort to see what competing businesses are doing. Simply sign up for their newsletters and await emails to your inbox.
Spend time on the subject line: Opening rates are extremely dependent on how well a subject line grabs the attention of the audience. Since the context of each email varies greatly, as will the result in given situations. However, as a rule of thumb, you should stick to 50 characters, be mindful of spelling and grammar, utilize capitalization, and consider powerful language.
Take advantage of the holidays: Even if you’re hosting a sale or announcing a new product, a simple holiday greeting is a great way for your email marketing strategy to show the receiver that you care.
Don’t forget the call to action: As much as you don’t want to believe it, customers rely on you to tell them what to do. If you’re promoting an item of a sale, be sure to include a “buy now” button in a large, colourful way to catch their attention and let them know what you’re hoping for.
Account for everything: If you’re showing a picture of an item or service in your email, ensure that it’s something that they can buy. There’s nothing worse than getting hyped up about something that isn’t even available. Also, on that note, it needs to be easy to access as well. Remember to link the items and if needed, create a holiday landing page to make finding things easier.
Emphasize a deadline: Most promotions have an end date, so if you’re running a campaign this holiday season, be sure to mention that this amazing deal won’t last and that it’s only available until a certain date. Likewise, with shipping times varying, make a note in your emails that there is a deadline to receive an item by Christmas.
We hope that you’re now feeling inspired by your email marketing strategy and that you’re keen on creating holiday-friendly emails to better connect with your audience. If you need help getting organized or want a professional company to handle the details for you, we’re happy to chat and answer any further questions you may have about holiday email marketing.
What promotion are you offering or planning to offer for the holiday season? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.
Alex Wilks has been working as a copywriter and digital marketing strategist since 2018, with added specialties in social media and email marketing. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Communication, she is a natural content writer with the ability to connect well with her target audience.
Email Marketing has been around for quite some time now. Some people are starting to question its relevance in today’s world, where there are thousands of alternatives, including social media. Does email marketing still work? Yes, it remains one of the most effective marketing strategies for small to large businesses if done correctly. Once you build that quality email list, you’ll be surprised by how much traffic, brand awareness you’ll get by consistently sending quality emails.
Statistics show that emails are expected to go even higher, at least for the next three years, which means more opportunities for business owners. However, with so many companies trying their luck on the email marketing strategy, it has been crucial to practice the best methods proven effective in helping your businesses stand out from the rest.
In this blog, we’ll share some of the best email marketing tools to try and ensure that your email strategy is top-notch and will undoubtedly get you some hot leads. Before that, let’s discuss some of the criteria for choosing the best tools to use for your email marketing.
Things to consider in choosing email marketing tools?
Before we go straight to the best tools we recommend, we’ve had some criteria that help us gauge whether these email marketing tools are worthy or not.
Easy to Use
Usability is essential, especially in today’s world. There’s no reason to use complicated tools if you can get the same results using simple basic tools, right? This allows you to have a more efficient workflow and smoothly integrate it into your marketing systems.
Affordability
With so many free marketing tools, it’s essential to know that you are getting your money’s worth if you plan to pay for a particular tool. You don’t want to spend loads of money on something that you can get somewhere for free.
Features
Last but not least, you want to find something that has features that would allow you to do things you couldn’t do before, which is the purpose of using a tool. Email marketing will seem a lot more fun, more manageable, and effective once you use these tools that we’re about to mention.
Best Email Marketing Tools
Here are some of our most recommended tools that you should use for the best email marketing strategy!
ActiveCampaign
As marketing goes larger than numbers and more on to customer satisfaction and experience, so is the goal of ActiveCampaign when it comes to developing their systems. It remains one of the leading email marketing tools out there. They conveniently provide a seamless approach to email marketing tackling on all cylinders, whether for e-commerce, B2C, and B2-B companies.
Suppose you’re looking for a comprehensive toolkit. In that case, ActiveCampaign is very promising as they can provide a holistic approach without complicating each step to garner as much traffic as possible. Their set of tools aims to reach, nurture, convert, and grow, which is what it takes to grow a business in today’s world. Easily manage your sales, live chat, email marketing, and more features delivered all in one place with ActiveCampaign!
You can try them for free with no credit card required as they offer an instant setup of a 14-day trial.
MailerLite
As we mentioned a while ago, money’s worth is a huge thing to consider before jumping on some online tools, and this email marketing tool is truly worth the investment. Whether your focus is on email marketing, automation, newsletter editors, or even personalized email to build customer relationships, MailerLite has all those problems taken care of.
MailerLite does an excellent job catering to a wide range of needs, whether for personal, small businesses, or even large businesses, in helping them improve their email campaign across all cylinders. Give them a shot and see for yourself by signing up for their 30-day free trial with access to their premium features.
Mailjet
Email Marketing is consistently taking leaps, even faster than ever before. You’ll also have to kick it up a notch in your email marketing strategies, as many other companies are trying to push for the same thing. This is why you’ll love Mailjet and what it can offer to improve your marketing efforts.
Sending generic emails won’t cut it in today’s market, so you’ll benefit a lot from the features of Mailjet. They provide email builders, contact management, segmentations, and comprehensive analytics so you can analyze your data and gradually optimize them to create the most effective email campaign. Having an integrated platform into your CRM and the ability to manage your mailing list all in one dashboard is also one of the many cool things about Mailjet.
Omnisend
Getting more than in less time is what you want if you’re planning to grow your business, and this is exactly what Omnisend is trying to offer. Email Marketing isn’t just about sending emails to random people, segmentation and finding the right people for your message is a huge game-changer. You could do this using Omnisend features.
What’s impressive about Omnisend is how easy it is to integrate with your existing strategy. They even provide email templates focused on lessening cart abandonment and driving more sales to your business. Any brand that focuses on e-commerce could undoubtedly benefit from using this fantastic tool, and it deserves to be in the best email marketing tools. Their pricing includes added features, privileges, and other info that varies in each plan.
Drip
Drip is taking all the proper steps when it comes to growing brands. They focus on running sophisticated email and SMS marketing systems that are proven to drive more sales without the need for coding skills.
Easily integrate Drip on any mainstream e-commerce platforms known, such as Magento, Shopify, woo commerce, etc. Using Drip is almost a no-brainer as they offer many valuable tools effective for email marketing, such as built-in revenue analytics, customer engagement across multiple channels, and many more, with fair pricing that starts at $19/month.
Mailchimp
If you’ve been searching for marketing tools for quite some time now, there is a big chance that you’re already familiar with Mailchimp. They are one of the leading email marketing tool providers online, which features automation, scheduling, intelligent recommendations, and audience insights to offer you an all-around gear in improving your marketing strategies.
You could also conveniently store images and files by using their content manager feature, which could be very handy so you’ll quickly go back to it when you need it. Mailchimp indeed turns emails into revenue, and you as a business would get so much more from this tool!
Final Thoughts.
With all the available tools in your arsenal, it’s an excellent time to own a business as there are tons of different ways for small and even large companies to grow and flourish organically. We hope that you’ll find what works for you in these email marketing toolkits and turn your emails into cash in no time!
While email marketing for small businesses differs from email marketing that’s used by large corporations, it’s equally strategic. You start by setting goals, picking the necessary tools to determine your target audience, building a list of tactics, optimizing, formating, creating, and scheduling your content. The only defining detail that separates each email marketing strategy is the tactics used to do all of the above and the scale at which it is done.
How can small businesses take advantage of email marketing?
If you haven’t already, as a small e-commerce business, you need to start reaping the benefits of email marketing. This digital service allows companies to build trust with local customers and is a huge advantage that they can hold above larger corporations who fail to resonate within these smaller communities. That said, transparency and honesty with your clientele are key, which is why unsolicited or generic emails will easily lose ground in favour of more modern approaches.
Before you can plunge into sending emails, you must first get customers to subscribe and agree to be a part of your email list. Not only is this a requirement for legal purposes but it allows you to ensure that your list is filled with potential buyers that are interested in your products and brand. To capture lots of emails, be sure to make the signup easy to find with minimal steps involved. While growing your list might take time, this will allow you to prepare your digital marketing goals and speak with an agency that offers email marketing services. Professional email marketing will ensure that your newsletters are of higher quality and filled with exclusive, eye-catching content to promote your brand and assert you as a knowledgeable member of your industry. Instead of screaming for attention, you’re strategically generating a buzz that helps to cement strong customer relationships.
How do small businesses measure email marketing success?
There are many ways that a small business measures the effectiveness of its campaigns. Success rates can be measured with several metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, time spent on pages, and conversion rates. You should keep track of the number of emails that get marked as spam and also those that are forwarded. Then, compare that with the number of emails that were deleted before or after they were opened. All of these metrics yield valuable insights for future emails and further develop your email marketing strategy.
How do you improve the efficiency of your email marketing?
Many effective methods ensure email marketing success, including:
Optimize emails for good display on mobile phones
Create a schedule for sending emails and adjust it according to metrics
Cater content to a targeted audience
Divide your mailing list into segments and build tactics to appeal to each audience
Test your emails before sending them
Monitor their performance reports and develop ongoing changes to your email marketing strategy
Do you have any more questions about email marketing for your small business? Drop a comment below for a prompt response.
Alex Wilks has been working as a copywriter and digital marketing strategist since 2018, with added specialties in social media and email marketing. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Communication, she is a natural content writer with the ability to connect well with her target audience.
Email marketing is one of the best digital marketing services available and the power it holds can allow your company to exponentially grow in sales and noticeability. That being said, while you want your campaigning efforts to create the right amount of traction on their own, sending out automated messages that target specific customers based on their behaviours is another advantageous way to create buzz and draw in paying customers. So, whether you write these messages yourself or hire an agency to build upon up your automation list, here’s are a few types of email suggestions that can leverage conversions.
Sales trigger
As part of your email marketing strategy you should formulate a sales trigger email so that when someone completes a purchase on your e-commerce website, they are automatically sent a thank you message. Not only will this establish a sense of trust in your brand, but it also shows that you’re an appreciative business owner who values your customers. You can even use this automated email as an opportunity to cross-sell another product, featuring something that your new customer may also find interesting. In your email copy, write something along the lines of “Since you loved [insert name of item here], we thought you’d also like [insert cross-sell item name here] too!” It’s that simple.
Customer support follow-up
If you haven’t been following up with your customers post-purchase then you’ve been missing out on a great opportunity to connect with them. While following up by phone or online chat offers a more immediate response, many people find these methods to be bothersome, catching them at an inappropriate time where they feel pressured to respond. However, a friendly email allows your customer to know that you’re interested in their feedback, putting the choice in their court to open and read the message at a time that’s convenient for them. Not only do follow-up emails give your customers a support option if something is wrong but it also opens up the field of communication if they’re wanting to rave about their recent purchase as well. The best part is that it’s easy to integrate a customer support tool into your email marketing strategy. Simply write your follow-up message and have it sent automatically whenever a contact from your subscription list carries out a purchase. This message could include how to get help if they need it and even offer a survey to track the quality of their experience. We recommend also including a discount for a future purchase as an added incentive.
Abandoned cart email
Abandoned cart messages should play an important role in your email marketing strategy. When someone takes the time to find a product that they like on your website and proceeds to add that item to their cart, it means that they’re interested in making a purchase, now or later. This is a great opportunity to up your conversions by crafting an automated email that will send out encouraging them to come back and complete the sale. A simple reminder may be enough to spark that, “Oh, yeah” feeling in some customers, but an added incentive, such as a discount coupon may help to encourage more customers to jump back to their shopping carts and proceed to the check out with that desired item.
What important messages did we leave out of our automation list? Drop a comment below if there’s something that should be included.
Alex Wilks has been working as a copywriter and digital marketing strategist since 2018, with added specialties in social media and email marketing. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Communication, she is a natural content writer with the ability to connect well with her target audience.
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