Over the past few weeks you’ve sent out a blizzard of emails for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Free Shipping Day, Hanukkah and Christmas.
Now you’ve got to sit tight and hope Q4 lives up to your (and your boss’s) expectations.
Or do you?
Sure, year-end email competition’s fierce. Yet in the waning days of 2019, amid piles of torn wrapping paper and a fridge full of leftovers, you’ve still got some sweet marketing opportunities.
Let’s look at a few.
Give ’em gift cards
Sheplers.com bills itself as “the #1 western wear and boot store on the web.” So last year, with Christmas a scant two days off, they sensibly marketed e-gift cards for last-minute shoppers. Their email does a couple of things well: 1) it’s mercifully brief and 2) it zeroes in on the convenience and versatility of e-gift cards — including a key benefit that “they never expire.”
Did The Elves Forget Someone? E-Gift Cards Available
Celebrate all 12 days of Christmas
You’ve got to hand it to the email marketers at Australian clothier ONETEASPOON — “the original cult label for luxury denim, clothing, accessories & home decor for women, men and kids.” Recognizing that there are officially 12 days of Christmas (running from December 25th through January 5th) they created separate emails for each and sent all 12. Here’s Day Two:
1 DAY ONLY | DROP EVERYTHING 💥
Note: Paid subscribers can check out all 12 emails. Bear in mind you needn’t create an entire 12-email campaign to put The 12 Days of Christmas to work. Just select a date or two and tell recipients you’re marking, say, the 5th Day of Christmas or the 9th Day of Christmas.
Turn disappointment to your advantage
Christmas and Hanukkah have come and gone and millions of disappointed gift recipients (socks again?!) are still yearning for something — anything — special. Enter Nike, showing up on December 27 to urge its frustrated fans to (as the subject line puts it) “get what you want”.
Now it’s time to get what you want
Don’t abandon cart abandoners
Studies consistently show that cart abandonment hovers at 70% to 80%. (Is there any doubt these numbers balloon in the last hectic weeks of December?) On December 28 on-demand business and greeting card printer MOO used a free shipping code to motivate cart abandoners to complete their order.
Free shipping to help finish your order
Bonus: add a second new year to your schedule
OK: end-of-year marketing must wrap up by New Year’s Day. But is there another way to carry New Year’s energy into the marketing you do deep into January? Last year Cosmetics brand Origins kept the New Year’s spirit going by inviting recipients to celebrate the upcoming lunar new year. (Note: click through to see this email’s imaginative animated GIF.)
Lunar New Year Limited Edition #1 Best Seller
BTW: For 2021 the lunar new year arrives on February 12. So you’ve got plenty of time to gear up for your lunar New Year campaign.
More where those came from
Take advantage of our Advanced Search options and pinpoint virtually any needle in our 7-million-strong email haystack.
In fact, with a paid account you’re ready to locate emails by any combination of keyword, date range, holiday, promo type (dollars off, percentages off, free shipping, BOGO and more), classification (from cart abandon to churn & cancellation), subject line length, image weight, mobile optimization, animated GIF and more.
All of which makes us the perfect source of marketing inspiration at the end of the year, the beginning of the year and all those marketing months in between.
