WHITE
PAPER
the
MA RKE TING TIPS
for the Holidays
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The Top 12 Marketing Tips for the Holidays Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? Though the holidays might seem far away, leading retailers will start planning for the holidays before summer officially arrives. Whether you’ve kicked off your planning or you haven’t even started, there are several ways to ensure that the 2014 holiday season is stellar. Making significant changes to your program in the blizzard of the holidays can be difficult, chaotic and risky. To help you and your team have a successful holiday season, we offer the 2014 edition of “The Top 12 Marketing Tips for the Holidays.” Before unwrapping the “Top 12,” we need to get into the holiday spirit by taking a step back and reflecting on the past year:
Which Holiday Programs Shined Last Year and Which Were Lumps of Coal? To get started, compare your intended holiday communication plan from last year to what was actually mailed and ask yourself:
What were the successes (and failures) and when did they happen? Leverage this insight to determine which promotions are “must haves” for holiday success, based on the previous year’s data and which programs should be dropped. According to the “Loading the Sleigh: Marketer’s Plans & Expectations for the Holiday Season” report by Bronto and RSR Research, 28% of retail brands will start their holiday marketing on October 1st or earlier. With Thanksgiving Day 2014 falling on November 27th, major shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be pushed closer to Christmas Day, resulting in a shortened selling season like we experienced in 2013. While you may look to these flagship holidays for the biggest boost in sales, you should analyze mailings sent throughout the season to identify when your shoppers were highly engaged and started exploratory shopping and submitting orders. Not only should you start early, you need to start smart. Anticipate how your shoppers will alter their shopping activity for the shortened season based on last year’s data. Cyber Monday will return to November in 2015 giving retailers more time between Thanksgiving Day and shipping deadlines.
Where did we go off plan and why? Were there underperforming emails that required you to increase frequency to meet revenue projections? If so, how well prepared was your team to respond? Expect that there will be last-minute emails that will need to be developed no matter how rock solid your communication plan appears to be. Were there unexpected shifts from competitors that forced you to become more reactive? Plan for some flexibility based on pre-season messaging trends and last year’s holiday mailings from your competitors. Subscribe to your competitors’ email programs so you can closely monitor and react to any bombshell developments. ‘Tis the season for everyone to bring out their best ideas!
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What Have You Tried Since? It would be shortsighted to only use last year’s holiday performance data as a guide for the upcoming season. Spend some time reviewing how your email program has evolved over the year and determine if there are successes that could translate into a strong holiday season. A few areas to focus on are:
Creative Testing Have new creative components been tested and implemented? Which navigation layouts worked best? Did you test animation? Was it effective? Have you seen any lift in conversions when images and copy are balanced a certain way? This white paper will show you how to optimize or introduce these key email creative elements during the holiday season.
Communication Planning Have you noticed any trends with day-of-week or time-of-day since last holiday season? Frequency will increase over the holidays, but knowing your strongest deployment times could help you better understand key times to launch your best promotions and identify remail opportunities.
Subject Lines Which kind of subject lines have been strong performers? Review tone (heavily promotional, playful, conversational, etc.) to see if your subscribers reacted differently to various subject line approaches. A more advanced tactic would be to determine if there are specific segments of your audience that open based on subject line tone. Perhaps purchasers open emails using playful subject lines more frequently while non-purchasers need the heavy sales pitch to convince them to open. Also review short versus long subject lines. Many marketers tend to take a “kitchen sink” approach by including every detail about the promotion in the subject line. Using a shorter subject line may help you to stand out in the inbox.
Featured Products Have you tested the number of products, price points, and/or product categories featured in your emails over the past year? Some subscribers may prefer to see a large number of products within an email, allowing them to have a full shopping experience within the inbox. Other subscribers may be enticed by a percentage discount and prefer to shop directly on your site. Understanding this behavior will help you design an email creative optimized for each type of shopper. Review the data to determine if there are patterns pointing to the optimal mix.
Segmentation Have you changed your segmentation strategy in the past year? As you increase mailing frequency during the holidays, it is important to review what has been working and what could be consolidated or dropped to streamline your production processes and gain some flexibility for those last-minute mailings. If you have expanded your customer profile during the year, evaluate how you would have used that data during the previous holiday season to send more targeted messages.
Mobile Optimization The percentage of consumers who think it’s easy to purchase from a mobile phone jumped 20% (to 43%) for 2014 according to a study by Accenture. The inbox will be the starting point for many of these mobile customers who could be checking for the latest deals while out-and-about or tapping away on their sofas. This white paper will give you tips on how to optimize the experience for the mobile inbox, but you should first try to better understand your existing mobile population, which devices are used the most and how they are engaging with your messages. Now that we have properly reflected on the past year, let’s start unwrapping the 2014 edition of “The Top 12 Marketing Tips for the Holidays.”
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Write an Email Production & Crisis Management Plan Review your email production processes and determine where efficiencies can be gained. Regardless of how much pre-planning you have done, changes will have to be made and resources will be needed. According to studies by Bronto, around 4-5% of brands will send an email apologizing for mistakes in email content or problems on the website. Unraveling a customer service headache such as a typo in your offer or pages not loading during your peak sales period will only add to the work that needs to be done. Meet with your extended team (marketing, designers, production, email service provider team, et al.) to discuss the entire production process, from program conception to post-deployment analysis. This may seem like a chore but identifying any disconnects in advance and making sure all teams are working together in the most efficient way will decrease chaos, promote a team spirit, and make the season a bit less frustrating. You’ll also want to create a “Holiday Emergency Contact List.” This document should include everyone on your team and related vendors as well as the reasons they should be contacted - especially outside of business hours. Having this information organized before the holiday rush can help decrease panic in a crisis situation and allow you to more quickly resolve issues.
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Download a “Holiday Emergency Contact List” template and get started today. (Excel file)
Feature Holiday-Centric Email Navigation Having a holiday-centric navigation in your email will not only provide additional shopping opportunities for your subscribers but can also serve as a key area in which to highlight the gifting section of your site, shipping deadlines, store hours, etc. Considering the spike in email volume during this time, finding ways to visually direct the opener to key shopping areas and categorical choices can help make their task of tackling an overflowing inbox less daunting. Another reason to include some variation in your holiday navigation is to give your subscribers something new, fun and festive to see. If your subscribers are receiving twice the normal amount of email from you, then including holiday themed creative elements could make the increase in volume seem less intrusive. Here are a few key components to consider that leverage site content and in most cases can be implemented without much heavy lifting by your design team.
Highlight the “Gifts” Section Break out the link to your gift center by using a different color treatment, seasonal imagery such as a snowflake or holly leaf, or perhaps a low-key animation. A full redesign of your email navigation is not necessary. Subtle changes like those used by Eastern Mountain Sports below can help direct shoppers to gifting areas of your site.
Holiday Navigation
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Pre-Holiday Navigation
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Holiday Navigation
Pre-Holiday Navigation
“Shop For/By” Navigation There are several ways to slice up your site and frame it as a specific way to shop. This can be included above the fold if a limited product selection is highlighted in the main body of the email or below the fold as a “lifesaver link” to gain clicks when subscribers aren’t interested in any other click opportunities. Here are a few ideas: Shop by Gift Recipient Your subscribers may be shopping for Mom or Dad, hikers or bikers, bookworms or gadget gurus. Providing multiple categorical options to your subscribers will make shopping easier and can help gain a click when your featured item or promotion does not fit the recipient they’re shopping for.
Armani Exchange provides quick links to shopping for male or female recipients. The change in typeface style and color really helps the options stand out from the other navigation elements.
Shop by Price For fatigued shoppers, shop by price navigation could be a welcome option. Make sure you do not leave out the high price point shoppers. Not everyone will be going for your low ticket items and having the navigation easily accessible can help increase your average order value. Include these options throughout the season.
Moosejaw dedicates a sub-navigation bar, providing shoppers an options to define their price point and start shopping. Don’t forget to include higher price points for shoppers wanting to buy high-ticket items!
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Top-Rated Products Feature your top-rated products in one consolidated shopping area to help your subscribers buy with confidence. As more people rely on input from friends on social networks, sharing purchasers’ opinions can be a major purchase influencer.
Things Remembered uses prime navigation bar real estate to promote their “Top 10 Gifts.” Using a more contrasting color theme could help this gift-centric option stand out from the other links.
Staff Picks If you do not have reviews on your site, you can always get your team together to discuss your top sellers. Write down their comments and use this information to build an “Our Picks” section. This will give your site some personality as well as adding a human touch to the product descriptions.
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Maximize the Footer Another key area where you can include supplemental information and provide additional click-through opportunities is the footer of your email. Your current email footer may only include fine print, but even if you have already mapped out your communication plan for the holidays, a specialized footer can easily be added to increase engagement and educate your subscribers about holiday promotions. The footer should be informative and not distract from your primary message. You may only need to generate a couple footers for the entire season that can be added to all of your emails without requiring ongoing resources from your design team.
Shipping Deadlines These important dates should be communicated throughout the season and should be updated as specific deadlines expire. Not only does this help keep your customer informed, it also helps to heighten urgency and encourage the shopper to buy. This is especially important for the 2014 holiday season considering there are fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. You can ask your design team to create variations based on the major expirations: • Last Day for Standard Shipping • Last Day for Priority Shipping • Last Day for Overnight Shipping • All Shipping Guarantees Expired: In-Store Pick-up • Online Gift Cards As the options become more limited, you can give more prominence to the remaining shipping methods to increase the sense of urgency.
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Backcountry.com uses a bold, contrasting color palette to highlight shipping deadlines and strikes out expired dates. This can be an effective method to drive urgency.
If your customers span the globe, include shipping deadlines for applicable countries to properly set expectations. P.S. from Aéropostale featured shipping deadlines in the email footer and removed dates as they expired. The secondary content noting that shipping is available for over 100 countries may set an expectation that international delivery is still available before Christmas Day.
Abercrombie&Fitch provides a link to view shipping deadlines for locations outside of the United States. Limiting the amount of dates in the email could make the message less overwhelming for the last-minute shopper.
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Store Hours While store hours and locations may be part of your standard email footer, it is even more important during the holiday season to include a reminder in your email about your locations and when they are open. Many stores will also have special holiday hours. Arming the subscriber with the information they need to shop across all of your channels may even lead a non-purchaser in the email channel to convert in-store instead. Test store locator links on mobile devices to ensure clickers are taken to a mobile-friendly page or a mapping app. Leverage past-purchase or profile data to dynamically populate specific store hours and locations, like this example from h.h. gregg.
Gift Cards Promoting gift cards throughout the season can help those who are overwhelmed with shopping or aren’t sure what to buy to give a gift with minimal effort. This becomes even more important once shipping deadlines have expired. Include an ongoing tout of your gift card options and prepare for a heavy push once all shipping deadlines have expired. Consider ways to give gift cards a more personal touch by giving users the option to upload an image to an e-gift card or create a gift message for a physical card.
Dunkin’ Donuts featured all of the ways last-minute shoppers can buy gift cards.
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Customer Service Feature all of your customer service options in every email. Review all transactional messages before the season is in full swing to make sure customer service phone numbers and email addresses are up to date and that new tools that were launched post-holiday are included. Perhaps you have added live chat or a new community support. You may want to include links to information on your return policies, shipping process, and other FAQs that may already exist on your site. This can work to decrease call volume for your customer service team.
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Remail Strategically As we all know, email frequency increases significantly during the holiday season. Increasing your frequency can lead to several issues: more spam complaints, higher unsubscription rates, people ignoring your email, and an overall frustrating user experience. This is especially important if you are considering remailing promotions to subscribers. Consider segmenting your subscribers based on various levels of engagement to focus on those subscribers who are most engaged and may need a bit more influence to complete their purchase. This may mean remailing subscribers who opened but did not click or clickers who did not purchase. Check out a blog post that can help you segment your list based on various levels of engagement: “15 Mins. To Better Email Engagement.” Here is an example of how one brand sent 5 emails within 18 hours: Received Subject Line 01:17am
Hot Toy Alert! Skylanders & Furby! Plus 46 Super Saturday Deals!
05:13am
BOGO 50% Off on Disney Princess, Star Wars & LEGO! Last Day - Don’t Miss It!
06:33am
FREE Shipping on Thousands of Items, guaranteed!
12:14pm
Hurry! Hot Deals & Super Saturday Sale End Tonight
07:13pm
Doc McStuffins & Tabeo! We’ve Got ‘Em! Tomorrow - 7 AM!
While mailing more can lead to selling more in the short-term, having a more defined communication plan that targets subscribers based on engagement level can help to decrease overall volume and provide a better customer experience. In the example above, the extended toy sale could have been remailed to those who received the initial toy sale email but had not purchased and potentially also target those who had shown interest by opening or clicking that first message.
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Launch a Countdown Promotion There are a few different approaches you can take to an “# Days of Deals” promotion. These multi-email campaigns drive high engagement and can help your email stand out from the clutter of an overloaded inbox. You may want to send a dedicated email asking your subscribers to opt in to this specific program. This could help you include the additional email in your communication plan without taking away from your standard promotions all the while lowering the risk of abuse complaints and unsubscription spikes. Also, the increased engagement that you see from this promotion could potentially help with delivery rates overall! Here are two approaches:
Daily Deal Feature a single product with a significant discount. If you can’t accommodate a daily frequency, this could be the deal of the week rather than day. Feature prominent social sharing links to encourage your subscribers to spread the word! Make sure you have enough inventory to cover such a featured sale and be prepared to handle an out-of-stock item by offering a similar product at a similar price. Feature any accessories or cross-sale items related to the product to encourage a multi-product purchase.
Michaels sent daily deals email featuring several discounted products. Subscribers were encouraged to visit michaels.com for new deals rather than setting an expectation of an email each day of the promotion.
Progressive Daily Deals & Discounts Again, you may want to consider a dedicated email asking subscribers to opt in for this special holiday promotion. This progressive series will require recipients to, at a minimum, open each of the emails in order to receive the next in the series. Plan out the promotion by having discounts increase over time or build up to a higher ticket item with a significant discount. You can consider also requiring a click on the email to be eligible to receive the next in the series. This can be achieved by having a button in the email with a call-to-action similar to “Not interested in this deal.”
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Countdown Promotions Similar to “Deal of the Day” and progressive promotions, countdown promotions build daily excitement and can progress toward a significant promotion or discount. Using the subject line and the email creative to highlight “days left” can reinforce the urgency of completing purchases before shipping deadlines expire or Christmas Day.
Blair celebrated the season with a “12 Days of Christmas” promotion. A header image counted down the remaining days of the sale, which can help set an expectation of how long the savings will last and increase the sense of urgency to make a purchase.
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Offer a Flash Sale Limited time offers work well during peak mailing seasons. Increasing the urgency and clearly communicating the expiration of the deal will drive subscribers to act quickly. Don’t forget to: • Accommodate all time zones of your customer base • Use a window of time that will allow subscribers to receive the email and start shopping. I have seen “Happy Hour” sales that do in fact only last one hour. This can result in a frustrating user experience and could discourage interaction with future emails. • Communicate the offer and duration in the subject line. This will help drive opens and avoid any confusion around the offer.
Zazzle offered a 50% discount between 5pm and midnight but did not include time zone details. This could result in some subscribers not being able to take advantage of the savings. Sending an email before the sale begins can help build excitement, but considering the increase in email volume during this season, you might send the pre-sale announcement to only highly-engaged subscribers. Since subscribers are not able to take advantage of the savings in the pre-sale email, withholding less engaged subscribers from this email could provide a better shopping experience.
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Rather than targeting a specific time zone for the beginning and end of a 4-hour flash sale, this email from Kirkland’s notes that the sale is available until “10PM local time.” Additionally, the email sets an expectation with shoppers that the offer is only available online.
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Streamline Social There are a few key social strategies to incorporate into your holiday messaging. Although measuring direct ROI from social channels can be a struggle, their influence on sales can’t be ignored. A practical expectation this holiday season is that social will most likely not be one of your largest revenue drivers. Taking that into account, having solid strategies for your social channels is still important. Here is a path that you can consider:
Clear up the Call-to-Action Confusion Make sure you clearly distinguish between “Share This,” “Like Us,” “Like This,” “Follow Us,” etc. A common mistake is to place a Facebook and/or Twitter logo in your email and hope the subscriber knows what to do with it. Making sure the post-click expectation is set will help subscribers decide which actions they want to take.
In this example from Boden, several social networks received placement in the top navigation, but it is unclear whether the links share the email, share information on the free shipping offer, or like the brand.
While these icons are small enough to squeeze into the prime real estate of the navigation, clicks may suffer because of subscriber confusion. Here are three ways brands used the top navigation to encourage subscribers to like the email, share the email, or like the brand on Facebook.
Get the “Like”
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Encourage your subscribers to like you on Facebook and follow you on Twitter, pin on Pinterest, etc… by communicating a value proposition of featured offers and products posted throughout the holiday season. Plan to post discounted items, products with numerous customer reviews, and perhaps a discount code only used in these channels. While steering the focus of an email away from direct promotion during this time of year may seem risky, campaigns like Horchow’s mid-season image sharing contest can increase engagement and inspire shoppers to start checking off their list.
Don’t Force the Conversion, Encourage the Conversation Remember that dialogue is a major component of social marketing and purchasing from this channel is not yet as common as buying from email. Present your promotions and shopping experience in a way that speaks to your social community. Include comments from followers (if you have permission), product ratings and reviews, and let people know where they can get more information. Chefs used customer quotes to promote a variety of top-rated products. The quotes are similar to what would be on Facebook. Additional information, such as the total number of reviews and the percentage of customers who would recommend the product, would go the extra mile.
Identify Mobile Opportunities
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You may not have a fully developed mobile program, but there are a few tactics that you should be able to get up and running this holiday season.
Mobile Acquisition & Promotions Like email and social acquisition, most brands choose not to dedicate an email or promotion to gaining new mobile subscribers during the holidays. Sending messages early in the season can help bridge the gap for cross-channel customers who are shopping online and in-store by providing another way to share information about local store coupons, events, and hours. Post-holiday mobile acquisition efforts can help to build a better data profile for new email subscribers gained during the holiday season. Including coupons delivered via SMS is an excellent way to increase revenue and grow both your mobile and email programs. As with QR codes, SMS promotions can be used in-store to decrease cashier line wait times and on any printed materials. Make sure you are setting the expectations clearly: Does the SMS require subscribing to mobile and/or email? Where can the code be used?
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eBags encouraged email subscribers to sign up for exclusive, VIP SMS offers. Early season acquisition efforts can provide additional messaging opportunities throughout the holiday season and provide customers with the latest deals and potentially a better in-store shopping experience.
Mobile Apps Emails dedicated to mobile app downloads were rarely featured during the peak holiday season. Like mobile acquisition programs, app emails bookended the season. Brands sent dedicated emails communicating the benefits of the app such as: • Scanning products in-store • Special look books • Social interactions like FourSquare check-ins and sharing items on Facebook • Interactive games
ShopHQ dedicated an email to sharing all of the benefits of downloading their app for Apple and Android devices.
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Solidify Segmentation Strategy Earlier in this white paper, we reflected on email and overall marketing performance last holiday and during the last year. Reviewing your segmentation strategy is also key and worth repeating. Ask yourself a few more more questions:
Who are my best customers? Are there certain numbers of purchases or order values that make up a core group of your most loyal? Introducing special offers for your VIP customers could result in your biggest spenders repeating buying behavior from last year. This is also important when you factor in your holiday remailing strategy. Although you will most likely need to introduce additional mailings into the mix over the season, planning your remailing strategy to include targeted audiences will combat some of the negatives seen when frequency spikes and holiday inbox clutter sets in. This may mean remailing to your most active or to your least active. Either way, make sure you are taking a planned approach when introducing these messages.
What did customers buy last year? Is there a way to leverage product category data to anticipate shopping behavior this year? If product category is available for past purchases, leverage that data to feature products that are relevant to your buyers. This may require you to have multiple main product shots but in general this should not require too much effort to accomplish. Having this familiar information present for your openers can increase engagement and drive repeat purchases this year.
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Send a Holiday Card Whether you say “Seasons Greetings” or “Happy New Year,” taking the time to thank your subscribers for being part of your program can go a long way in fostering stronger relationships. You can narrow this to purchasers if you wish, but typically these emails see high open rates and, strangely enough, even non-promotional holiday cards see fairly high conversion rates. After the rush of the holiday season and the barrage of promotional emails, a non-promotional holiday card can be a welcome reprieve.
Hugo Boss changed-up the traditional “Letter from the CEO” by sending a video from the CEO to subscribers on Christmas Day.
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Madewell brightened up the inbox with this festive “Merry Everything” greeting sent on Christmas Day.
However, after tackling gifts and a hearty meal, many of your subscribers will want to go online and buy the gifts that they did not receive. Armed with a not-fully checked off gift list, this is the day when the shopper’s focus shifts away from gifting to getting what they want! Boden’s playful Christmas Day email guessed the reasons why subscribers were checking email on the holiday and offered free shipping as a special treat.
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Orvis thanks subscribers for helping them to protect the environment. The email reinforces the brand’s dedication to the customers and outlines charitable contributions made throughout the year. This approach helps to drive engaged customers for the upcoming year. After the flurry of emails over the prior weeks, a nonpromotional email with a human touch can be well received.
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Build Post-Holiday & New Year’s Strategies The presents may be unwrapped but that does not mean the purchasing has stopped! Make sure you have planned for the time between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. This period typically sees heavily discounted promotions. Key areas to focus on:
Returns, In-Store, Clearance After Christmas Day, shopping will shift from buying for others to buying for oneself. Make sure you are using a voice that speaks to the recipient as the customer. Highlight any clearance offers, in-store promotions, and information on your return policy. You may also have access to gift card recipients (if they are opted-in). Make sure they understand how and where they can redeem their gifts.
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Many retailers will highlight deep discounts, like this 90% off sale sent by Norm Thompson. It takes a lot to stand out in the post-Christmas Day inbox!
Didn’t get what you wanted? This is also a time to have a bit of fun. I’m sure we have all received a gift out of left field and want to shop to help us forget it was ever unwrapped! Highlight a diversified product line, all of the ways a customer can shop, and make the subscriber feel like there is going to be something in it for them.
Urban Outfitters offered dollar-off discounts to help their subscribers to get what they really wanted for the holidays.
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Rainbow encouraged subscribers to treat themselves. Timing these promotions soon after Christmas Day will help drive sales as consumers shift from gifting to shopping for oneself.
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Send Shipping-Focused Messages You can probably recite your shipping cut-off dates for holiday delivery by heart, and hopefully they will be communicated clearly and consistently to subscribers throughout the holiday season. Consider sending dedicated messages close to shipping cut-offs. Key areas to focus on are: • Last Day for Standard Shipping • Last Day for Priority Shipping • Last Day for Overnight Shipping • All Shipping Guarantees Expired: In-Store Pick-up • Online Gift Cards Various methods of including this information are included throughout this white paper, but as the season progresses, make sure that these dates are top of mind for your customers. A dedicated email can be targeted to non-purchasers, which could save some burnout from those who have already bought. Update your abandoned cart emails to include this information as well.
Hammacher Schlemmer dedicated an email to announcing the final day for express shipping. The email contains timing deadlines and links to additional information based on the shipping destination.
This may be a lot of information to digest, but do not feel overwhelmed. This is not a checklist for you to complete. Simply select the tips that make the most sense considering where you are in your planning process, your available resources, and your brand’s goals for the upcoming holiday season. A key to successful marketing during the holidays is to plan as much as possible in advance but also to prepare for those plans to change frequently. Adaptability is key! Employing as many of these tips as possible will ensure that you have a successful holiday season.
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