Launching your holiday efforts before the holiday season is where your efforts deliver the most impact. Your digital marketing cycle can’t wait until Black Friday to kick off. You should start preparing for your holiday marketing and start preparing the ground for your holiday marketing ideas no later than September.
2020 saw a huge increase in holiday season sales, combined with supply chain disruptions that impacted shipping. As a result, this year many consumers will be shopping earlier to ensure gifts arrive on time.
However, this isn’t the only reason you should be ramping up your online marketing long before the Q4 arrives. Done well, ramping up your engagement activity in advance will build on the recognition and ultimately trust in your brand that will give you the edge over the competition when the holiday rush begins
In advance of Black Friday ’21, there two things Team @AlchemyWorx recommend email marketers need to focus on:
- Increase the engaged file or segment size by as much as possible prior to Black Friday(aim for 10%-20% over your 12-month average)
- Improve Conversion rates
Increase the engaged file or segment size
Traditionally email marketers have used open rates as the key measure of engagement and this year the announcement that iOS 15 is will eliminate the ability to accurately track open rates presents email marketers with new and interesting challenge.
The truth however, as you can see in the graphic below, is an open doesn’t necessarily tell a marketer all of the information you need. An email received by a subscriber does not have to be opened to generate a sale or visit to your website or store. Consumer Surveys consistently show that between 30% and 40% of respondents mention “visit the company’s website via another route” as a likely response to an interesting email.
We therefore recommend widening and deepening your definition of engaged for all other metrics that you track. So instead of Engaged segment = Opened <90 or 180 days
Try treating other segments as active whether they opened or not, for example (there are many others):
• Click <180 or 360 days
• Site visit < 180 or 360 days
• Purchased last Holiday Season
Improve Conversion Rates Through Unexpected Triggers
About 50% of all revenue attributed to email automation come from two trigger types – cart and browse abandon! Cart Abandon triggers speak for themselves, but no matter how much emphasis we have placed on opens and clicks as indicators of engagement, email drives a lot of purchase behavior in other channels. Browse abandonment triggers are a very powerful way to ensure browsers are identified and converted.
Any time spent improving the conversion rates of those triggers over the next 40 – 60 days will pay huge dividends AND increase your overall conversion numbers.
Enjoy a successful #HolidaySeason2021!
