Christmas In August: Smart Holiday Sending

Author:

Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon

Source:

While we're still basking in summer rays, seasoned email marketers can already feel the flurry of winter holiday campaign planning. Gretchen Scheiman's insightful post last week (check out: "Retailers: How Good Are Your Holiday Plans?") delivered some awesome suggestions for planning targeted, relevant holiday email programs. We'd like to second her list and chime in with few more ideas for smart and successful 2010 holiday campaigns.
 
Optimize the potential of social networking sites. Social networking use has become even more prevalent over the past year, and it's slated to play a major role in 2010's holiday email campaigns. While adding share links to every email is a solid best practice, this year's holiday messaging should also reflect subscribers' and retailers' nuanced use of social networking as a shopping tool. For instance, you might offer subscribers seasonal discounts in exchange for becoming your friend or follower, or consider highlighting subscriber-generated content from social networking pages in your emails, as Fairytale Brownies does in this message.
 
Integrate mobile and email for easier shopping. Over the past year, use of mobile devices to read email has skyrocketed across B2B and B2C audiences, and many shoppers will use their mobile devices to aid in their holiday shopping. Take advantage by finding creative ways to integrate your marketing channels ...
 
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