Key takeaways
- Focus on targeting, not frequency. Send messages tied to key holiday moments and triggered behaviour rather than blasting your list.
- Use seasonal storytelling (decor photos, charity links, team moments) to reengage subscribers without hard selling.
- Harness urgency for last‑minute shoppers with limited‑time offers and time‑sensitive messaging.
- Send curated gift‑idea lists that include complementary items and useful accessories, not just a product catalogue.
- Prepare for the post‑Christmas (Boxing Day) surge with loyalty or exclusive offers and social‑share prompts to amplify reach.
Introduction
With Christmas bearing down upon us at a frighteningly fast pace, there’s never been a better time to start planning out your email marketing strategy for the coming weeks. In an effort to boost your brand’s return this holiday season – and keep you from pulling your hair out during this hectic time – here are five quick and simple tips that can help you win in the inbox during the lead up to Santa’s big visit.
Focus on Targeting, Not Frequency
As Graham Charlton of Econsultancy notes, one of the easiest ways to turn your audience off as we approach Christmas is via an unnecessary barrage of marketed messages. Yes, firing off periodic emails is part of the process in a big picture sense of your overarching email strategy. However you’re much better off taking a more calculated approach during the holiday season.
Specifically Charlton points to targeting as a better alternative to frequency. In a similar vein to the “quality over quantity” mindset, keying in on important points in the holiday shopping cycle – as well as triggered behavior from customers – guarantees that your brand offers up enticing deals and contact at the right time, all while avoiding the temptation to overstay its welcome in the inbox.
Tell a Seasonal Story
One of the most enjoyable ways to tether your brand to Christmas is via a healthy serving of seasonal content. Instead of spamming viewers with a flood of “Buy me now!” emails, consider dropping the sales pitch entirely for a few moments and enacting a more “humanistic” take on your inbox offerings.
From showing off pictures of your decorated office or store, to providing a link to a charitable cause that truly embodies the spirit of the season, working in this kind of content is a powerful change of pace that can reengage your viewership. Even something as small as a few pictures of your team wearing ugly Christmas sweaters is good for a few laughs and some extra time in the limelight with your inbox audience.
Play to the Urgency of Last Minute Shopping
Charlton goes on to explain that building content for the later portion of this holiday cycle is the perfect strategy for securing a few last minute conversions from the procrastinating segment of your contact list. As you craft this content, think about the times that you may have waited a little too long to start picking up gifts and the stress that came with this shopping crunch. With this mindset guiding you, you’ll have all the inspiration needed to zero in on this urgency and help impart the need for action on limited time offers and other time-sensitive selections within the content of your marketed messages.
Suggest a Gift Idea
Speaking of gifts, Business 2 Community’s Isabel Stewart suggests taking the time to build a list of gift ideas as a way to help your target audience wrap up their holiday shopping. The big point here is not to just rattle off a compendium of your brand’s products in an email, but to also incorporate related selections and useful accessories that compliment these offerings.
Your target customers are more than likely intimately familiar with what your brand has to offer, so go out of your way to surprise them with a list of thoughtful and intriguing gift ideas. With this asset leading the way, you can generate some serious goodwill from your audience that translates into future sales and interaction well beyond the holiday season.
Be Ready for the Post-Christmas Shopping Spree
Just like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Boxing Day requires a concerted response from your brand if it plans on tapping into the vast amount of potential held within this major shopping event. As part of a sound approach to the post-Christmas shopping frenzy, Stewart points to loyalty programs and exclusive promotional offers as big winners.
The best part about rewarding the most active segments of your audience with a special Christmas Day message is that this offering serves as the perfect tool to spread the word regarding your contact list. Simply tack on a few social buttons and a reminder to share your brand’s offer with friends and family members and it won’t be long before this amazing Boxing Day deal is taking the social world by storm.
By now, the message here should be crystal clear: The Christmas season is a golden opportunity for those brands that are willing to put in the hard work and effort needed to win in the inbox during this time. All that’s left to do now is take what you’ve learned here and make the most out of the coming weeks as we move toward the biggest day of the year.
FAQ
Focus on targeting. Prioritize targeted messages tied to important holiday moments and triggered behaviour over simply increasing frequency. Quality over quantity helps avoid turning subscribers off.
Use humanistic, seasonal content, such as photos of your decorated office or store, links to a charitable cause or casual team moments (for example, photos of staff in ugly Christmas sweaters). The idea is to drop the hard sell sometimes and offer a change of pace that reengages readers.
Craft messages that tap the stress of procrastination: highlight limited‑time offers and time‑sensitive selections and frame the copy around the need for immediate action to prompt conversions from procrastinating customers.
Build a curated list of gift ideas that goes beyond your core products. Include related selections and useful accessories that complement your offerings and aim to surprise customers with thoughtful, intriguing combinations rather than a plain product catalogue.
Use loyalty programmes and exclusive promotional offers to reward active audience segments. Send a special Christmas Day message that includes social buttons and a reminder to share the Boxing Day offer to help spread the word.
Seasonal storytelling provides a human touch that breaks up sales pitches, reengages readers and can increase time spent on your emails (for example, through entertaining team photos or charity tie‑ins).
Avoid an unnecessary barrage of messages by taking a more calculated approach: focus on targeting key moments and triggered behaviour and resist the temptation to overstay your welcome in the inbox.
