Holiday shoppers across the United States help boost the conversion rates of marketers everywhere during the festive season. But why settle for a gentle bump in your conversions when you can achieve a significant jump instead? These effective emailing techniques can help you maximize your conversion rates this holiday season.
Offer a Unique Incentive or Benefit in the Subject Line
Businesses everywhere step up their email marketing efforts over the holiday period, so your subscribers’ inboxes are likely to be pretty crowded. Informing subscribers that they can receive a unique incentive or benefit from you before they even open your email can boost opening rates and then conversion rates.
The incentive you’ll provide will depend on your organization. Around 45 percent of shoppers won’t buy a product unless they’re saving at least 70 percent, so hefty discounts in this range are worth promoting. With high shipping costs accounting for more abandoned carts than any other factor, a free shipping promotion could also work well for your business. You could even take this up a notch by promising free same-day delivery. Discount coupons are another great idea to capture the attention of prospective seasonal shoppers.
Many other businesses will promote sales and discounts, though, so you might prefer to stand out by being a little different. Subject lines advertising seasonal shopping guides, downloadable recipe planners, and other information to help subscribers get through the festive season may also boost your conversions.
Just remember to do your promoting in as few words as possible as longer subject lines tend to be overlooked. Studies show subject lines with less than 10 characters have an average open rate of 58 percent, well above the industry average of 19.7 percent.
Make It Personal
You might be sending out a bunch of emails to thousands of people in a database, but your subscribers shouldn’t get a sense of this. Simply adding the recipient’s name to the subject line and email body can increase the revenue generated by each campaign by six times.
Further personalization can come from segmenting your email list so you’re only offering your subscribers the holiday promotions that will interest them. For example, new parents and grandparents may be interested in a fashion retailer’s line of infant and toddler apparel, but teenagers are far less likely to engage with emails promoting these goods. Instead they may prefer an email highlighting the store’s affordable apparel for Christmas parties.
You can also make your emails feel a little more personal by encouraging your recipients to respond. A simple statement like, “If you have any questions about this promotion or our company, don’t hesitate to reply to this email,” can create much greater goodwill than the standard contact information and unsubscribe link. And when your subscribers feel welcome to reach out to your organization, they’ll be more likely to ask the questions they need to feel confident enough to buy. Just remember to respond to the emails that come in promptly or your offer may do more harm than good.
Optimize Your Emails for Mobile
Studies show that 65 percent of emails are first opened on a mobile device. During the holiday period, many mobile users are also acting on the emails they receive. Last year, one in three holiday purchases were made on mobile devices. This year, 101.7 million Americans are expected to shop mobile, 37.3 percent more than in 2013. So if your emails aren’t mobile-friendly, you’ll miss a significant opportunity for conversions.
Mobile devices have much smaller screens than traditional desktop and laptop computers, so you’ll need to enlarge the elements to make them readable and usable. Typefaces between 17 to 22 points are easily read on even small smartphones. Small call-to-action buttons are impossible for mobile browsers to use, so enlarge these to aid conversions.
Beautiful images might help sell products, but many popular mobile email clients including Android’s native client, BlackBerry OS7 and Z10, and Windows Mobile 7.5 and Phone 8 block pictures by default. Many other mobile users turn images off to save their data and reduce download times. If you rely too heavily on images, your intention could be lost, along with your chance for conversions.
You could also make your emails mobile-friendly with responsive email design, a clever development which displays your email in the optimum way on any device.
Integrate Social Media
Social media and email marketing should go hand-in-hand, especially during the holiday season.
The festive period is likely to be your busiest emailing period. You can maximize the number of people who’ll see your seasonal emails by promoting your email service on your social network channels. Provide links to the subscription form with every ad and embed sign-up forms into your social media pages so your followers can easily sign-up.
Add social media buttons to your emails and encourage your subscribers to share your information with people in their networks. This will get more eyeballs on your promotions, which in turn will lead to higher conversions.
Each social network calls for a slightly different approach, but you should still ensure your marketing message is consistent across every channel you’re using.
Don’t Be Afraid of Merry Christmas
It’s true that America is a multicultural and multi-faith society with many residents who don’t celebrate Christmas. Because of this, the more inclusive phrase “Happy Holidays” has become a favorite amongst marketers. However, studies show that the more traditional Merry Christmas is preferred by 64 percent of Americans. Furthermore, the research found that emails using Merry Christmas gain twice the number of conversions as similar emails featuring the Happy Holidays greeting.
It’s thought that while many Americans don’t personally celebrate Christmas, they don’t hold it against other consumers and companies that do. The phrase Merry Christmas also seems more personal and emotional than Happy Holidays, which can appear overly politically correct or even cold. If Merry Christmas feels right for your brand, don’t be afraid to use it.
There’s no need to settle for a slight increase in conversions when you apply these effective holiday emailing tips.
The post How Effective Emailing Can Increase Your Holiday Conversion Rate appeared first on The Official Blog by iContact | The Latest Email Marketing and Social Media Marketing News.
