All I want for Christmas is…higher CR! – Email marketing in December

For retail and eCommerce businesses, December represents the climax of your Q4 sales potential, being the final month of the Golden Quarter. In 2022, the UK spent over £20 Billion during the festive season, so it’s vital your email marketing is working hard to ensure your business gets a slice of the action! 

December email marketing demands a mix of tactics that taps into the immediate joy and urgency of the festive season, while also cementing your relationships with your customers as the year draws to a close. It’s also important to remember that your email communications should not only be about the race to Christmas Day, but also extend into the post-Christmas sales, and setting the stage for the New Year. 

We’ve compiled the ultimate list of thoughtful, festively themed email marketing tips to take you through into the Christmas season and beyond, and ensuring you end the year on a high note! 

Christmas is the perfect season for fun, creative email campaigns that reflect the month’s festive spirit, and what could be better than a 12 days of Christmas promotion? For 12 consecutive days over December, highlight different deals or Christmas products on the run-up to Christmas Day.

Though nearly 70% of people start their Christmas shopping before the 1^st of December, there’s still time to cater to those procrastinators with a range of last-minute gifts. Use your email communications to push express shipping options, digital gift cards or even instant-download gifts. 

Your email marketing should be working on both a transactional and emotional level, so it’s the perfect time to boost customer engagement with festive-themed competitions, giveaways or showcases of user-generated content.

With emails more likely to be opened as the Christmas season approaches, it’s the perfect medium to communicate your customers of any changes to delivery schedules, last order dates for products to arrive before Christmas, or the availability of customer services during the holiday period – this will keep everyone on the same page, and ensure you uphold high standards of customer experience right through the festive season. It’s also the time to let your customers know about your Christmas-specific services, such as gift-wrapping options or sustainable packaging choices, to further add value to their purchases.

Using your data-drive insights, you can recommend products based directly on previous purchases or browsing history, perhaps even providing tailored promotional offers to further incentivise purchasing. At this point in the year, the incentive to purchase is much stronger, so it’s important that your email communications tap into that to secure those conversions!

While Christmas may be over, the work of your email campaigns certainly isn’t! Ensure you’ve lined up your announcements for Boxing Day and end-of-year clearance sales, and that your customers are up to date with your limited deals and offers. Not only does this incentivise purchasing in the moment, but value for money deals like these mean customers are likely to come back! This is also the perfect opportunity tease upcoming product lines of services before the New Year, building engagement and anticipation before items drop.