It’s easy to get side-tracked on your holiday planning with so much going on today – especially if you don’t have a plan to follow. We’re here to help. Over the next two months, we’ll be sharing 100+ tips and advice from our Account Managers and Client Strategists to give you a roadmap for a successful holiday season.

‍
Get the full 100+ tips now or follow along with our series.

‍

The knowledge, skills, and habits you and your team have established are more vital than ever. Ryan Ogurcak, Account Director, reminds us of this in his four tips below.  

• Audit last year’s holiday broadcast sends to determine which campaigns generated the highest engagement metrics and conversion rates. Strongly consider running similar campaigns this holiday and tweak subject lines, products, or calls to action for those that didn’t perform.
• Some subscribers will only purchase during the holiday season, so tweak your segmentation strategy to include purchasers from last year’s holiday season (November - December) in your broadcast sends.
• Run a re-engagement campaign pre-holiday to revitalize subscribers that have disengaged the past several months to increase your holiday reach and decrease the post-holiday season’s net unsubscribes.
• Repetition is key. Consider creating a “12 Days” campaign, sharing a new “product focus” each day for 12 straight days. To maximize success, be sure to show the previous products in each new email creative for ongoing product awareness. In the last few days of the year, countdown the “top products” of the year for new product awareness and subscriber interest.

‍

Being prepared and proactive will drive success. Joe Schmidt, Account Director, lays out your preparedness plan. ‍

• Don’t wait to get people’s attention. In late summer, start recurring email campaigns and push re-engagement ads on social channels.
• Spend the time now identifying your audiences. Pre-build your core audiences/segments you’ll need for broadcast messages: purchasers, non-purchasers, single, multi, engagement levels, last purchase date, Holiday, COVID-19, etc. Use these audiences for social posts and ads.
• Prepare to send daily, even multiple times, to stay competitive and top of mind.
• This year, you must be ready to deploy order updates due to order delays, delivery delays, inventory shortages, closed stores, etc.
• Most consumers are creators of habit, so Holiday is the time to execute your proven subject lines, promotion strategies, and routine send times.
• Keep track of the temporary Q4 changes you made so you can quickly revert in January.

‍

During this unprecedented year, Karen DiClemente, Sr Strategy Director, advises you to think strategically to maximize engagement and revenue.  

• Customers are expecting to connect and shop with you cross-channel. Differentiate yourself from your competitors with SMS and create urgency, exclusivity, and loyal shoppers who prefer mobile messaging.
• Optimize your holiday opportunities with scenario planning. With possible store closures or limited in-person shopping, be prepared to send geo-targeted emails to encourage traditional in-store shoppers to shop online.
• Crisis planning is a must; make sure you have an apology email template ready to go and a plan in place if your website crashes from unprecedented traffic and demand.
• Be strategic in your sending and balance your holiday plan with the deliverability risks. To maximize reach and revenue, always think about the frequency of total messages and your file's depth. If you want to send to your full list or a much larger audience than usual, ramp-up sending one month before your planned send, and monitor your deliverability during the increases.
• Don’t wait to connect. Start in the third quarter to have the highest possible circulation and engagement in the fourth quarter.

‍Stay tuned for more tips.