Everlytic’s 2018 holiday marketing tips

With the holiday season approaching, people are spending more money than usual.

Are they spending it at your business? Using email marketing, you can cut out some of the hard work of finding new customers and market directly to your most engaged audience – your subscribers.

Here’s how to maximise this with Everlytic’s 2018 holiday marketing tips.

Step 1: Upgrade your tech

The best marketing these days is driven by technology. With the right tools, you can save heaps of time and resources, and engage more of your audience. For instance, marketing communications platforms such as Everlytic enable you to:

• optimise your emails for mobile;
• segment your audience;
• use dynamic content;
• personalise your messages;
• automate your messages;
• take clients on customised journeys; and
• track and analyse your results.

These features don’t just sound impressive – they all contribute to higher engagement, better conversion, and a bigger bottom line.

Step 2: Plot your strategy

Once you’ve got the resources at hand for your marketing strategy, use them to implement some of these top holiday marketing trends:

• Keep it short and social

Keep your emails short and eye-catching. Then back it all up on social media, because if there’s one thing people do more of over the holidays, it’s spending idle time on Facebook and Twitter.

• Call readers to action

Calls to action (CTAs) are critical in your holiday campaigns. Make sure yours is big, bold and right at the top of your mailer, so readers don’t miss it. Check out Wordstream’s tips for killer CTAs.

• Mobilise the journey

Ensure that your entire customer journey, from email to your website, landing pages and checkout, is as simplified and optimised for mobile as possible.

• Top customer service

Commit to providing exceptional customer service that guides your buyers through the process, answers their questions and makes doing business with you as seamless as possible. Customers are more likely to return that way.

• Optimise your shipping

Be clear on when delivery will be made so buyers can order in time for Christmas and other special days. Then reduce your shipping costs because according to Success Agency, “people are more likely to purchase a more expensive product with free shipping than a slightly cheaper product that has a cost for shipping”.

If you’re not in a position to cut your shipping costs completely, Big Commerce says other ways of reducing shipping costs include:

• offering free shipping after buyers have spent a certain amount;
• absorbing the price of shipping in the cost of the product;
• offering free shipping to certain areas; and
• charging extra for overnight shipping to cover some the deficit you have from offering free shipping on standard deliveries.

Step 3: Get yourself prepared

We say this often, but we can’t say it enough. Because, like Bob Carter, a palaeontologist, stratigrapher and marine geologist, once said: “Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine.” Or your consumer’s.

So, plan early, create calendars for your messaging and automate as much as you can so you can free yourself to do other important work. As Jeff Bullas suggests, be prepared to adapt your plans in response to the market and the results you get.

This article originally appeared on Everlytic’s blog on November 23 2018.

This article was paid for by Everlytic.