Last-Minute Tips To Create Successful Christmas Email Campaigns

The most awaited holiday weekend of the year is just around the corner. Wondering what? Well, we are talking about people’s favorite and marketing manager’s nightmare – Christmas. Although you might think that your Christmas campaign game is super strong this year, there’s no harm to do a last-minute check. 

While you may wonder, why should you indulge in such a practice and over that now? 

Well, you might want to consider the unprecedented time we are in and how the success of a holiday season might just be an absolute necessity to bring some normalcy to the plummeting sales. And as much as you hope to be struck by a miracle and achieve record-breaking sales, the success is no joke. 

Moreover, here it is from the statistics itself. 

• Nearly 56% of Americans wait until the last Saturday before Christmas. 
• 6% of the shoppers leave for shopping on the day before Christmas.

Although the percentage looks minuscule, if you compare it with the US population, it stacks up to nearly 2 million people. Yes, you heard it right! To top that, about 126+ million people plan to carry out shopping online.

This looks like a lucrative opportunity, right? But, how do you grab this with open hands?

A 3 stage Christmas Email Campaign will get you the highest ROI of any marketing channel around.

3 stages of your Christmas campaigns

Before even stepping in, here’s how you can make the most out of the holidays by dividing your Christmas email campaign into these possible three stages:

Pre-Christmas

Christmas shopping always starts early. The pre-Christmas email streaks are just a subtle way to keep the brand name at the top of your subscribers’ minds and warm them up for the upcoming Christmas.

Here are a few examples:

A pre-Christmas email from Equa offers a gift buying guide and adds value to their subscribers.

Here’s an example of a wish list from Hunting For George.

Christmas Email

This is the time to nurture your subscribers with different pre-Christmas emails. And, from here on the next step is fairly straightforward. After all, it’s time that you move to go up for the sale. One way to start is by offering discounts. After all, discounts are synonymous with holiday promotions and helps you to stand out in front of what your competitors are offering them. Moreover, providing your shoppers with Christmas discounts on your products and services, helps them to elevate their interests and also an easy way to encourage them to buy. Also, don’t forget to give your subscribers a chance to share all these offers and discounts with their near and dear ones.

Here’s an example:

Tuleste uses a Christmas-y interactive email that offers a compelling discount to keep the audience in line with the holiday spirit. Also, keep up with the messaging that goes to switch the overall brand goals.

Post-Christmas

Although Christmas is over, your campaign is still not over. Right after Christmas, the new year is on its way which can result in a profitable affair. And as a business, you should definitely take advantage of it. So, why wait for January, when you can set the pace of the next year right from the end of December. 

Here’s how you can start your post-Christmas emails:

You can start by giving more discounts for all the consumers who purchased from you during this Christmas promotion. After all, you never know, when they would want to get/purchase your product or service again. Or you can also prepare a newsletter that is popular among your customers, to entice them and make a purchase. Now, with the end to the commotion of Christmas, you should get to people’s mind so that it can benefit you. Because, without a constant reminder, there’s a high chance that they may have otherwise forgotten about your business.

Whether you’re prepping up for your pre-Christmas campaign or wondering about what to send after the holidays is over, here is some email inspiration:

Here’s an example from Leesa who offers a straight $175 New year offer in their post-Christmas email.

In this email, Postable showcases their love for their subscribers and how much they appreciate them by giving them a straight 20% off on their next purchase.

Last-minute tips for Christmas email campaign

1. Kick Up The Urgency

Every single day especially the week before Christmas is extremely competitive. Your shopper’s inbox is crowded with holiday emails not only from your competitors but from friends and family. 

You would need to put the extra effort! How do you do it? 

‍Use words to your utmost advantage and create a sense of urgency. 

Start with the subject-line and maintain the urgency throughout the messaging. After all, you need to reach those ‍last-minute shoppers who are fervently looking for places to buy and all you need to do is give them a reason to buy from you. 

(Hint: FAST SHIPPING/Free Shipping).

This email from Annmarie Skin Care gets the last-minute shoppers to buy right away:

Remember, your target group already knows that they are running against the clock and looking for a place to get over with shopping. So, take advantage of the situation and offer such people a solution to the problem, and ramp up your sales!

2. Use Mobile-Friendly Design

Stat-Stack Up: 

1. Last year, almost 50% of all Christmas Day shopping was done from smartphones!
2. According to Statista 2020, 52% of all online traffic is conducted on smartphones.
3.  85% of people use mobiles to access email.

Besides, with the pandemic in place, online shopping is the most preferred option. The stats clearly indicate that at the end of the day to build an effective Christmas email campaign, you need to optimize your design and make it mobile-friendly. A mobile-friendly environment ensures a trouble-free experience for your customers along with keeping the design on point. After all, to attract the impulsive and last-minute shoppers to your online store, a responsive email design with easy navigation that looks great on all devices, is all you need.

Elevate your chances by leveraging the use of new media like GIFs, colors, and other aspects.

‍Here’s a simple, but supremely fun and colorful Christmas reminder from J. Crew Factory that creates a sense of urgency. In the next example, you will come across a ton of features that are sure to compel shoppers to take the buying route. Here, the J-Crew Christmas email is not only responsive but also readers don’t have to zoom in or struggle to read. Make the entire GIF clickable and get them one step closer to purchasing from your store!

3. Offer e-Gift Cards

Although a lot of people might have wrapped up their Christmas shopping, nonetheless few more buyers would be busy making last-minute buys. As these last-minute buyers run against the clock to find the perfect Christmas gifts, as an online store you can clearly take advantage of the situation. Unfortunately, a lot of the highly sought after gifts get out of stock even before the weekend before Christmas. Or, these gifts might not reach their destination, in time. So what do last-minute buyers do? More importantly, how do you snag sales at such hours?

A digital gift card can be a perfect answer to the owes. 

Here’s an example from Torrid, who implemented this idea for their holiday campaigns. They even went as far as to call out all the last-minute shoppers by using a perfect subject line that sums the situation perfectly- ‘E-gift cards for the procrastinators.’

This idea would work like a charm to sweep up some massive sales from all the ‘procrastinators’ who did wait till the last minute. Now, all you gotta do is chalk out a flexible and gift card idea and schedule the email to go out a day or two before Christmas!

4. Go the Old-school Route 

Take the text message route. Although online promotions and emails work like charm, sending an SMS or Whatsapp message can get you up to 99% open-rate? Yeah, Yeah! We know. 

But it’s actually true. If you can get your hands on your audience’s contact number, sending them an SMS or Whatsapp Text, won’t cost you much. Plus, it also doesn’t need a lot of planning from your end. All you need to do is get your landing page, text, and contact number ready, to roll out offers. 

Many brands like Cost Plus World Market do this. They are clearly able to utilize this old-school promotion pathway and make the most out of the high open-rates.

Here’s an example from Cost Plus World Market, who have used clickable links, along with a striking copy to pique the curiosity. 

5. Run contests

You might find this last-minute idea boring or cliche. But, running a contest still has the charm for you to win your target audience’s interest. Besides, who doesn’t like winning a competition?  So, making your customers happy especially during the Holiday season, is something we all need to do during these challenging times.

This example runs a term teaser and doesn’t forget to announce the winner before Christmas and take them by surprise. 😉

6. New Year is coming

Right after the Holidays, there’s another year and another celebration. So, even when you’re wishing them a happy Christmas, you can also add some incoming new year wishes. This would not only help them to notice that the New Year is close, and offer them a surprising gift to their kitty.  

This example from Prezzo is a perfect example. If you are in the Food and Beverages community, this type of wish will only help you strengthen the celebration ties. While this year, restaurants are not allowed to invite gifts, they can always announce special delivery services for their otherwise eager and regular customers. This email can be part of your post-Christmas campaign. 

7. Share Insightful content ????

Everywhere around the world a brand that shares impactful and useful content is sure to top the popularity meter. So, instead of waiting for the next holiday season, start to share your valuable content now. Keep providing your audiences with enough value, you will surely get unexpected returns. Invest time in telling them stories, the latest developments in your business, and share content that improves their life for the better. 

Here’s an example from Prezi who has done an excellent job of engaging their subscribers in the form of a post-Christmas gift.

8. Segment Your Emails Too 

We all know about segmenting your customers, but are you aware of Email segmentation? Fret not. We are here to enlighten you. The email segmentation helps your Christmas emails to perform way better than the non-segmented emails! Ask why? Because the segmented content that your subscribers will receive be more relevant and add value to their life. And we all know how relevance is the key to a better performing email campaign. 

Here’s an example from Resy. They have taken the idea and executed it to another level. They have used the holiday newsletter to look back at their customer’s journey with them and have personalized it to the utmost level. Such holiday emails are bound to bring back joy to your consumers’ faces and win their hearts.

9. Add Fun Elements

You know what sells more than anything – a funny joke! Then, why shy away from adding a touch of humor to your Christmas newsletter to make it better and memorable. Here’s a tidbit example and we love this joyous slogan that says ‘go ahead, do a little happy dance’!

Another great brand that creates some must-loved Christmas puns is the American Eagle Outfitters! This example not only has got a funny slogan to start with but has got an insane design to start with!

The Bottom Line

Although Christmas is near, shopping is still on. And if you’re scared if you will even make the most out of it or not, implement these last-minute tips and put on your Santa cap on and celebrate with your customers! However, if it still looks difficult for some reason, TargetBay is here to help you at all levels. Our beautiful and easy to design templates will not only come in handy but also get the advantage of the last-minute Christmas shoppers.  

Drive them to your online store before Christmas is over!

We also wish you a very happy Christmas (campaign)!