These 7 tips will improve your email marketing during the holidays

1. Segment your email marketing campaigns

You want to address your customers as personally as possible. Therefore, you don't want to send one general message to all your customers. You want to send a specific message per target group. You can imagine that you want to address new customers at your webshop differently than customers who order from you very often.

There are endless possibilities to segment your target groups. For example, do you have a specific promotion with a brand before the holidays? Then send this email to all customers who have already bought this brand. This way you are very personal, and your email will be well received.

Example of segments:

• Customers who have never made a purchase from you before
• Customers who bought a Saint Nicholas gift last year for children up to five years old
• Customers who bought a Christmas gift from a specific brand last year

2. Take full advantage of time-based deals

The holidays are a time of year when people are looking for bargains. Think Black Friday, St. Nicholas and Christmas. Time to hit a good deal. Promote exclusive deals in your emails to grab your readers' attention. Make your customers feel special and offer a special discount for your newsletter subscribers. Make the discount valid for a limited time, such as 12 or 24 hours. Make sure that the discount really ends after this time, as security guards are strict about this. You want your customer to buy now, not in a week. Make sure the images stand out and that the CTA is immediately visible. To provide more urgency, it is advisable to use a countdown timer in your email. Clearly naming the price also helps the customer respond more quickly to the offer.

3. Play with interactive elements

When a recipient experiences the e-mail as "fun," the messages are better remembered. Therefore, try to play with interactive elements in your e-mail. Did you know that an interactive e-mail generates more engagement than a static e-mail? Your customers like to be surprised. Nothing works better than to incorporate the unexpected into your email. For example, consider using GIFs. These are short animations that support your message and give more personality to your email. By using GIFs, customers feel more quickly involved in your campaign and this ultimately leads to better customer engagement. Think of a fun GIF of a Santa Claus with today's deals.

Another way to use interactive elements in your emails is through game elements such as a quiz, poll or survey. Besides being educational and fun for the recipient, it offers you as a marketer a good opportunity to gather more information about your target audience. This way, you will gain more insight into the customer's needs and be able to respond to them better in the future. A cinemagraph is also a popular way to implement interactive elements in your emails. These are still images in which only one element moves. It adds a creative twist to your email and makes customers stay on your email longer. The movement in the image draws attention and therefore sticks with customers better.

Keep in mind that it is not essential to use all these interactive elements all the time in your emails. It is important to determine if it fits the purpose of your email. Also, make sure you don't use too many elements, as it can still distract from the message you want to convey.

4. Social proof in your email

With the holidays, you want to stand out extra. Customers need to start ordering from you and not one of your competitors. Gain customers' trust through social proof. People trust what other people say about products and services. Including reviews and testimonials in your emails helps build trust in your brand. Showcase the experiences of real customers to increase the credibility of your brand.

Of course, you can say about your own shop that it is absolutely amazing and that everyone should buy from your shop. Of course, it does not work that way. Recommendations and reviews, on the other hand, do work. Once a potential customer sees and reads that other customers are satisfied with your products and even recommend your shop, this customer will be inclined to buy from you as well. On websites, you see reviews everywhere, but in emails you hardly see them. This is a shame because positive reviews make your company look reliable. The products you sell may already have been purchased by other customers and reviewed well.

There are several ways you can add social proof to your emails:

• Send invitations to leave product reviews. Then add the product reviews to your emails. Through product reviews, you actually let your customers do the work for you.
• In your email with your products, post how many customers have already preceded you in purchasing that particular product. The higher this number, the better.
• Add a dynamic row with the three most popular products of the moment. These products are so popular for a reason, they must be the right choice.

5. Automate email marketing

It's no surprise when it's St. Nicholas or Christmas. These days are already determined. Therefore, make it easy on yourself and schedule as many emails as possible in advance. Don't start on the holidays themselves, but far in advance. At least one or two weeks in advance is definitely not a luxury. In addition, prepare your customers for what is to come. What deals can they expect? For example, do you have special St. Nicholas deals? Or Christmas deals? Share these products in your newsletter. This way, you create a certain expectation in your customers.

Do you expect a lot from your Santa Claus and Christmas deals? Set up automatic e-mails. For example:

• Customer bought Christmas deal X, send a follow-up email with other interesting products after three days,
• Customer bought Christmas deal Y, send an explanation of how to use the product after one day.

This way you keep your customers interested and involved in your organization. Many times such an e-mail is actually appreciated. Always keep in mind what you want to achieve with such an e-mail. In the most ideal situation, create an e-mail flow from this automation so that you go for maximum results.

6. Make use of storytelling

The cozy and warm times of the holidays evoke emotions. Address these emotions with storytelling. Create a brand story that fits the mood of the holidays. A well-constructed story improves engagement and encourages customers to keep reading.

Emotion is at the heart of any good story. A range of emotions comes into play during the holidays: from joy and gratitude to nostalgia and hope. By capitalizing on these emotions, you make a deeper connection with your customers. For example, consider a story about a family reuniting for the first time after years away and how your product can help.

A story only really comes to life when it feels personal. This can be done, for example, by using real customer stories or personal anecdotes about your team. Show who the people behind the brand are and why exactly they are so passionate about what they do. This not only creates an authentic feeling, but also builds trust and loyalty among customers.

A good story is accompanied by appropriate visuals. Think of an atmospheric video of a family around the Christmas tree or beautiful photos of your product in a festive setting. These visuals attract attention and reinforce the emotions evoked by the story. Just make sure the visuals match the tone of voice and feeling you want to convey.

A story does not have to be complicated to be effective. Simplicity is often better. Make sure the story is easy to understand, and the message is clear. This ensures that customers can remember the story and share it more easily. Also, consider the social media channels you are using. Short, powerful stories often work better than long texts. Finally, it is important to remain authentic in your storytelling. Don't use clichés or forced situations, but let the story unfold naturally. This creates a credible and authentic message that sticks better with customers.

7. Analyze and optimize

As always, it is important to track and analyze the performance of your emails during the holidays. The first step to optimizing your email strategy is to monitor important data, such as open rates, bounce rate and unsubscribe rates. This data provides insight into how your emails are performing and whether they are actually being read by recipients. Consider whether there are times when your emails perform better and analyze why that might be.

Now that you've collected the data, it's important to analyze it. See which subject lines and CTAs had the most effect and which didn't work so well. Also check which recipients responded the most and which did not. Look for trends and habits. This way you can draw conclusions about what works and doesn't work with your specific target audience. Based on the data you collected and the analysis you performed, you can then optimize your email strategy.

After you have optimized your emails, it is important to keep monitoring and analyzing. Keep an eye on performance and see if your changes have had the desired results. If not, adjust your strategy and try again. This way, every year make a comparison between your St. Nicholas campaigns, Christmas campaigns and you name it. What went well and what could be better? What worked well? There is no harm in repeating last year's strategy again if it worked well.

Combine email marketing with display marketing

At first glance, e-mail marketing and display ads may not seem to have much to do with each other. They can indeed reinforce each other. By using display ads based on customer data from email marketing campaigns, you can target advertising and increase conversion. For example, by retargeting users who viewed a product, but did not purchase, with an ad for that product. This tactic is proven effective and definitely deserves a place in your marketing mix.

Another great advantage of combining email marketing and display ads is that it allows you to reach a large audience. Email campaigns have a specific target audience and display ads can also be shown outside this target audience. So by combining these two forms of marketing, you increase your reach and can appeal to more potential customers.

If you want to get the most out of your email marketing and display advertising, it is advisable to closely monitor the results of the campaigns. For example, you can track which customers clicked on a link in your email and use this data when retargeting through display ads. This way, you ensure that your ads are only shown to customers who have previously shown interest in your product or service.

The right time is also important when retargeting customers with display ads. After viewing a product, you don't want to bombard a customer immediately with an ad for that same product. Wait a bit and show the ad at the right time, such as at a later time or as part of another campaign.

Extra: 3 examples of emails to activate customers for the holidays

Are you ready to set up holiday campaigns, but not sure where to start? We would like to give you three examples of three different target groups to start with.

1. Reactivate sleeping customers

Often you have a large group of customers who once ordered something from your webshop, but have been inactive for some time. What better time than to activate these customers than during the holidays? Segment the target group with the rule, for example:

Customers whose last order was a more than a year ago

For these customers, create a specific flow. For example, the first email could be about the fact that you miss your customers and that they can score discounted Saint Nicholas and Christmas deals. Is your customer not responding to that? After a few days, send another email with a section of your Saint Nicholas and Christmas deals. Maybe with another discount or with a free product. Pull out all the stops to win over these customers. This group has been inactive for a while and often needs an extra push in the form of a discount.

2. Engage VIP customers extra

Besides having a group of inactive customers, you also have the opposite. These are your VIP customers: customers who order a lot and often. You want to approach this group in a different way than your dormant customers. You want to thank them for ordering from you so often. Create an email flow for these customers. These customers deserve special treatment. For example, give them VIP discounts in the first email. Does the customer not respond to this? Create a reminder email. After the customer uses the discount create another email in the email flow with that the customer has early access to the Christmas offers. This is how you make your customer feel special.

3. Customers who bought a specific brand

Do you have a regular group of customers who always buy a certain brand? Make smart use of their buying behavior by grouping these customers into a segment. Do you have this specific brand on sale or are you running a brand campaign for Saint Nicholas and Christmas deals? Then this is the target group that is interested in this. Set up a newsletter with only deals from this brand. Of course with a nice Saint Nicholas or Christmas touch. Or, create gift suggestions to make it as easy as possible for your customers. You don't want them to experience stress of choice. Because you offer their favorite brand, this e-mail is guaranteed to be a success.

Email marketing during the holidays is very successful if you apply the above tips. Personalization, time-based offers, interactive elements, social proof, automation, storytelling and analytics are the most important factors to consider while planning your marketing campaign. Think about how your brand can contribute to a fun, festive atmosphere and don't forget to measure results and adjust your strategy as needed. Mix these tips with your own creative ideas and make the most of this festive season. Good luck!