It’s almost time for the holidays. Everyone is getting ready with new campaigns and offers to attract buyers. If you own an online store, then you too should start preparing your store for holiday sales.
Among several strategies, email marketing is one of the marketing activities you can’t avoid. If you can plan creative ways to run promotional email campaigns then you may expect a high conversion rate with a profitable ROI.
Email, in fact, contributes to a significant 20% of online visits for most e-commerce stores during this holiday period.
Today, you will learn 8 unique email campaign ideas that can help you boost your holiday sales significantly.
Whether you have already planned your holiday marketing campaigns or are still getting ready, these email campaigns would be the perfect addition to your plans to ensure a profitable holiday season.
So, let’s dive into it.
1. Pre-order Offer Email
During the holidays, it’s often frustrating to make last-minute orders as products could go out of stock or the delivery could be delayed.
And you may take advantage of this by running a pre-order campaign.
Basically, you could send out a holiday email 1 month prior to the holiday season and inform your prospects that you are accepting pre-orders on certain products and you have a special offer for them on these. Highlight the fact that they could get everything delivered on time and at a lower cost, without having to worry about the rush later on.
On the email, suggest what products you could take orders for, and what offers you have available on pre-order. For example, it could be 15% off or maybe free shipping for all pre-ordered products.
Here’s an example of a pre-order holiday sales email for Halloween:
2. Email A Gift Guide During The Holidays
People are always looking to plan some exciting gifts for their dear ones during the holidays.
For example, everyone has a budget to buy some special gift for Christmas.
In this case, you could plan a holiday email where you suggest what people could get as gifts from your store.
Here’s an example of such an email:
This email by P & Co is quite a genius one. You can see, they didn’t have to have a special Christmas collection or a theme. They used an engaging image at the beginning and then went ahead to highlight certain product categories that people may look through to get a gift for the winter as Christmas gift.
3. Holiday To-do List Email
If you run a local store, then you could use a rather unorthodox holiday email marketing strategy.
Basically, you could prepare a To-list for people to prepare for the holidays.
For example, you could prepare a checklist of things to buy before Christmas. This list could include getting a Christmas tree, ordering mistletoes, pre-ordering turkeys, etc.
The idea is to help people remember what they need to be prepared with using a checklist. Many people will find it super useful, especially if your list includes some regular-use products. And on that list, you may include products you sell as part of the mix.
For example, if you are a clothing store with a Winter collection already coming in, then you could add “Buy a fleece jacket” to the list and link it to your store’s website. You could do the same for getting socks & gloves. Similarly, if you offer decorative service, then the list could include “Decorate the porch with fairy lights.”
This email doesn’t have to be about the whole holiday season. It could be themed for a certain occasion such as Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve. In fact, the same holiday email strategy will work for Halloween, Valentine’s Day, or any local special occasions.
Overall, this is a great way for local businesses to convince buyers to place more orders.
4. Email To Suggest Exciting Ways To Spend The Holidays
Often, suggesting plans for the holidays could help convert prospects, especially if you are part of a travel & tourism business or if your business is located at a tourist spot.
For example, if own a restaurant near the beach, you could create a holiday email where you suggest places a person could visit in that area including restaurants, events, bars, etc. And on the restaurant list, you could include your restaurant & its specialty to try and attract curious tourists to visit your place.
It’s a great way to attract people who are traveling to your location for the first time.
But it’s not limited to tourists. You may also plan this same approach for the locals who may not know what they should be doing during the holidays.
For example, suppose there is someone who already decided this holiday season will be a boring one and he will spend the whole time sitting at home. But then, he got your email where you saw this amazing list of things he can do. This will get him excited to make a proper holiday plan. And if you manage to highlight your business the right way, you will be on his list.
Also, rather than just sending one email with so many options, you could also plan a series of emails with suggestions on specific types of plans for each email.
For example, the first email could be about the restaurants a person could visit throughout the season, the second email could be able the holiday events he could visit, and the third email could be about exciting offers on products in the town. This will open up the opportunity for you to partner up with other brands for joint promotion.
Here’s one such holiday email campaign example:
5. Pre-Holiday Sale Preview Email Series
If you are part of a SaaS business, run an e-commerce store, or have a directory site, then you may plan a pre-launch teaser for your offer products before the deal is launched.
For example, you could announce 1 week prior to the deal launch that you have a huge discount incoming on a few selected products but do not reveal the discount amount. And then, give a preview of the products that will be at discounted prices during the deal period. Send a second email 3 days later showcasing some of the best products of your collection and do not reveal the discount amount. Next, send an email 24 hours prior to the deal launch to create a final hype. And finally, send the deal launch email by revealing the discount.
For this, make sure to create a separate category or a page to list down the products that will be on discount. It will make things easier for buyers so that they will be able to place more orders easily.
Using sneak peeks or teasers is a great strategy for any new product launches or deal launches. Sure, it may slow down sales for a week. But if you manage to showcase the right products, you may achieve twice as much sales in just the 1st day of the deal, than what you could get last week.
6. Themed Product Recommendation Email
This one is straightforward. You may send product recommendation emails where you highlight products that are related to an upcoming occasion, or simply the holidays.
For example, before Christmas, you could send a Christmas-themed email (with color and images that resonate with the occasion) where you may recommend the products that you have an offer on for the occasion or products that people are more likely to purchase during Christmas.
This is a common holiday email marketing strategy that works really well if you offer a coupon or a discount along with the recommendations.
7. Personalized Offers Based on Purchase History via Email
A customer is more likely to buy products if they are tailored towards what they desire or usually purchase. Hence, making personalized offers based on a buyer’s purchase history would be a great way to increase holiday sales.
For example, if you know that a person is fond of home decor based on his past purchases, you could come up with a holiday recommendation email to highlight your new collection of home decorations.
Similarly, if you notice a person has purchased a lot of T-shirts in the past, you could offer him a special holiday discount to get T-shirts again from your store.
Such personalized offers are a great way to make people feel special and they will often take in the offer to order additional products.
8. Holiday Product Highlight Emails
In this email campaign idea, focus on promoting one product at a time per holiday email.
Basically, you may plan a series of 3 to 5 emails after your holiday deal is announced. In each email, give details on a single product using images, video links, and a feature list. And then reveal the discount price and the amount people may save by buying it during the deal period.
This approach works quite well, especially for luxury items or products that people tend to buy for special occasions or the holidays. In fact, the discount isn’t really all that important if you are selling an essential product.
For example, space heaters are quite demandable during the holidays. So a highlight email on it will be very successful. A discount will be great, but not mandatory as people will look to get a heater anyway. (But competitive prices do matter.)
Here’s an example of a product highlight email:
While in the example above, you do not see any reference to the holidays, it gives a perfect demonstration of what the product is all about. You may take a similar approach and add a little holiday touch to it for your products.
9. Holiday Event Invitation Emails
During the holidays, several hotels, reports, and event venues tend to have a lot of amazing events planned out. If you are part of such businesses and have an event to host, then email marketing would be perfect to invite more guests to purchase your tickets.
For example, you could host a Christmas party for people to attend by purchasing tickets.
In this case, you would have to make the tickets available early, by at least 1 month, and inform everyone about the event.
You could also invite people to an open-for-all event where you promise to make special decorations and maybe run some sort of contest.
A holiday event invitation email will be pretty straightforward. You inform them about the event, what specialty it will have, the date & time of the event, and the venue.
Here’s a great holiday event invitation email example:
10. Emails About A Reward Campaign Based On Amount Spent During Holidays
This is one of the most popular holiday email campaign ideas that have been actively used time and time again by popular e-commerce shops and have found great success.
You may plan a reward campaign for buyers based on a target spending amount. It could be an additional discount, free shipping, or a specific gift.
For example, you could offer 10% off for anyone who spends over $500 from your store during the holidays.
Such campaigns can easily be marketed using emails. Simply plan a series of 3-5 emails during the holiday season where you constantly highlight the target people need to reach to get this exclusive offer, followed by product recommendations that they may consider buying to hit this target spending amount.
Another approach would be to run a lottery for a grand prize. For example, you could email people stating that if they spend $200 and above, they will be entered into the lottery. In the last week of the holiday discount campaign, you will choose one lucky winner who will get, let’s say, a home theater system.
If you can combine your promotional copies and design for both the holidays and the reward contest, it will help excite more buyers to place orders that they probably were not thinking of earlier.
11. Holiday Mystery Box Campaigns
Mystery boxes are very trendy during special occasions and the holidays. If possible, you should try to arrange exciting mystery boxes during the holiday season because it’s a great way to convey your regards to your buyers and excite them about the occasion.
You may craft a holiday email where you announce that you will be launching mystery boxes in about a week. And then list down a set of products that may be included in the mystery boxes. Also, mention the prices these mystery boxes will be available at so that people can decide if this is worth it.
Send a second email in about 3 days to get them more curious by reminding them of the date when these mystery boxes will be available. Then, send an email 24 hours prior to the launch, and finally the launch email.
If you have desirable products listed to be found in mystery boxes, then many will be eager to get your mystery boxes. In most cases, mystery boxes tend to get sold out really quickly as people love the excitement of it.
Christmas, Halloween, New Year, etc. are great occasions to sell mystery boxes.
12. Promotional Email Automation
This is the most common holiday email marketing campaign that almost any e-commerce store runs.
Basically, you plan a series of 3-5 emails to promote the special offer you have in your store during the holidays.
For example, suppose you are running a sitewide 30% off during the holidays. So you could plan an initial email when the offer is live, then follow up with a couple of emails at 3-day intervals to request them to start shopping with this discount. In these emails, include a section to recommend your best-selling products. And then, plan a couple of last call emails to add a touch of FOMO 24 hours & 1 hour before the deal ends.
Discuss the email automation where you send a launch email, reminder emails, and last call emails about the discount.
Here’s an example of a holiday promotional email:
Tips To Get The Maximum Results From Your Holiday Email Campaign Ideas
You have just learned 12 email campaign ideas to boost your holiday sales. But, you still need to consider a few things to ensure you get more profit from your campaigns.
1. Plan your holiday sales campaigns early
Do not wait till the last moment to start planning your holiday campaigns. Take time at least one month prior to the occasion and set up all the necessary steps for the campaign.
You need to collect the tools you may need, plan out the stocks you want to maintain, decide on the discount or offer you want to make, and map out how you will execute your campaigns.
For example, if you are to use some of these 12 strategies, then you should get an email marketing tool such as Mail Mint.
2. Use holiday-themed email templates
While it is not mandatory, if you are planning to send promotional emails, then you should prepare a few holiday-themed email templates to make it more exciting for buyers.
For example, when launching the Christmas offer, you would want an email template that has the Christmas theme in terms of color, images, and overall design.
3. Craft exciting email subject lines & copies
Your email subject lines and copies should always convey excitement.
Use terms such as “Exciting,” “Amazing,” “Beautiful,” etc to describe your products or offers, and use emojis where applicable.
The reader should feel your excitement with the offer on your holiday email.
4. Use a reliable email marketing tool where possible
It is important that you use an email marketing tool that has all the features you need to set up your holiday email campaigns.
We recommend you try using Mail Mint, which is currently the easiest email marketing automation tool in WordPress.
5. Be ready with available stock
You have to realize that when you run these promotional campaigns, you need to have enough products in stock.
Stay connected with your manufacturer so that you can always re-stock should the situation arise when your products are all sold out.
Since the holiday season is a great chance to increase your sales, you don’t want to stay limited to your usual stock.
Final Thoughts
As you saw, you can get really creative with your email campaign ideas to boost your holiday sales. While the success of your holiday email marketing will depend largely on how well you can plan them, if you plan ahead, it should all work out just fine.
But don’t just stay fixated on holiday marketing campaigns. A lot of events are on the way where you can implement these email campaign ideas as well. There are Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and several local events.
So start working on getting your email marketing strategies ready and launch successful campaigns for a profitable close to the year.
Cheers!
