'Tis the season - 2014 Holiday email marketing tips!

'TIS THE SEASON HOLIDAY EMAIL MARKETING TIPS FOR 2014 Sleigh bells are ringing and it's the time now to grab this amazing holiday season with email marketing. Wrap the 2014 Q4 in style with roaring revenues and creative email campaigns! Forget not, email was one of the most successful communication channels for marketers in 2013. JOGGING THE GRAY HOLIDAY EMAIL MARKETING LESSONS FROM 2013 Go responsive or don't expect a response - Almost one in three purchases was made on a mobile device, phone or tablet; during 2013 holiday season which also 50% 4896 43% 41% 40% - 36% 30% = 27% 20% 20% 13% meant a great loss for marketers 10% - who didn't aim responsive email campaigns. 00% - Q4 2010 Q1/Q2 2011 Q3/Q4 2011 Q1/Q2 2012 Q3/Q4 2012 Q1/Q2 2013 Q3/Q4 2013 % OF EMAIL OPENS ON MOBILE IS MORE DURING HOLIDAYS Email and search always turn out to be winners - Between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2013 about 40% of ecommerce orders began with Organic or Paid Search results (26% Organic, 15% Paid) while another 16% were helped along by email messaging. So all those who thought email is alive and well, were right. 40% Black Friday was "Mobile Friday", with almost 40% of purchases made through mobile devices. Again, designing emails for mobile was specifically marked important. About one quarter of Americans surveyed said that they never miss or usually visit at least one store on Black Friday. Monday 1, Cyber Monday was the biggest day in e-commerce history, with online sales increasing 18%. Email marketers should aim to use better email marketing techniques in 2014 during Cyber Monday. Email campaigns with larger discount values will make the mark as around 45% consumers only purchase when the markdowns of at least 70%. o 70% Nearly 4 in 10, did majority of their holiday shopping in December or later, which also means segregate your email campaigns across the holiday season and for a month or two more. Above all Santa has the power to bless! CEmail volume was 13% higher during the 2013 holiday season compared to the 2012 holiday season. What do you think will it be in 2014? EMAIL MARKETING IN 2014 EXPECTATIONS HITTING ALL THROUGH THE HEAVEN According to a research, 71% of marketers will be relying on mobile email to drive sales. They also feel that Apple loyalists will outspend Android users. Email and Social will go hand in hand. While marketers are planning to launch campaigns early, they will also focus on channels like Facebook and Instagram on their top priority. As 49% of consumers started purchasing soon, over half (53%) email marketers started promotions in early September. Email campaigns will emphasize on giving away perks to customers like "Free Shipping". 2014 IMPORTANT DATES FOR HOLIDAY EMAIL IN October November December Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Cyber Monday 18 Free Shipping Day s0 27 12 13 14 15 37 18 Thanksgiving 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 18 18 24 Christmas O 26 Boxing Day 26 27 28 29 30 31 31 27 Click Halloween Frenzy Eve 28 Black Friday 88% of major online retailers send at least one promotional message on Cyber Monday, which has been the most popular email marketing day of the year for seven years running. Thanksgiving and Black Friday seem second most important email days. 12 Divine Email Marketing Mantras for Holiday Season 2014 Measure what worked best in 2013. Figure out which kind of subject lines have been strong performers? Review tone of email copy (heavily promotional, playful, conversational, etc.) and identify the subscribers' behavior patterns. With every promotional email that you send, scale to meet demand or lose sales. Motorola's Cyber Monday promotion for its Moto X smartphone was so popular, it crashed the company's website. As a result, the company had to apologize to frustrated customers and would-be customers and offer a postponed deal to make up for the failed one. Not an ideal way to begin the holiday season, for sure. With more competitors already aiming to go social for leveraging brand presence, ensure that you blend email and social well. 3 Personalize your email messaging by segmenting emails using user engagement or behavior. Real time personalization will elevate the brand loyalty, resulting into an increase in shopping. 4 Pair coupons with welcome emails as it has been noticed that customers love gifts on a welcome email. Welcome email campaigns with coupons have 2.5x higher transaction rates than those without. Don't forget updating current customers as one of the surveys by Wanderful Media indicates, 82% of Black Friday shoppers wanted to receive email updates about Black Friday sales. Offer coupons to existing customers. Maintain list hygiene and ensure that you send targeted messages only with permission. With growing spam complaints and domain reputation issues, strengthen the automated email workflows strategically. Also, warm up new IP addresses and make sure the re-emailing is apt and only when required. According to one of the reports, 40% of the marketers quoted communicating with customers as a major setback, mainly due to deliverability impact. 6 61% of organizations in the past year have experienced events that could damage their sender reputation.)) Top factors impacting sender reputation • Email delivery authentication • Volume of email sent • Complaint and hard bounce rates • Spam trap hits and blacklists • Content of email campaigns • Consumer engagement SPAM (inactive subscribers) Develop a proper response mechanism with a correct apology email and brand crisis plan, if anything goes wrong. Plan a progressive profiling campaign for mid-November. Arm yourself with current data on what your subscribers are most interested in, so that you can send targeted messaging during the weeks of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 10 Track your email program's unique open rates, unique clickthrough rates, transaction rates, revenue per email and average order values. 11 Consider sending emails on weekend. During Q4 of 2013, emails sent on Saturdays and Sundays boasted some of the highest open and clickthrough rates. Similarly, emails sent later at night tended to be most engaging. 12 Email Monks Email Monks offers email, newsletter templates and landing pages design and coding service. Monks have technical expertise in responsive, scalable & retina technologies. Get in touch today, email us on [email protected] or visit us at - www.emailmonks.com * +1 213 674 MONK O facebook.com/emailmonks Email Monhs M [email protected] e twitter.com/emailmonks www.emailmonks.com S emailmonks O pinterest.com/emailmonks SOURCES Exact Target | Experian | Marketing Land | Hubspot | İAB I Time | Custora ......