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Holiday Offers Gets Shoppers To Open Email |
Holiday Offers Gets Shoppers To Open Email
As the holiday season approaches, companies large and small will be ramping up their e-mail marketing efforts to lure shoppers with deals and incentives.
In December alone, e-mail volume generally increases 50 percent, according to the Email Experience Council, a marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association.
This means that if your company is planning to attract consumers this way, you'll need to craft a campaign that stands out among the competition in their in-boxes.
"There are a lot of people vying for your customers' attention during the holidays," says John Arnold, author of "E-Mail Marketing for Dummies" (Wiley, $21.99) and director of Constant Contact University, the training and certification arm of Constant Contact, an e-mail marketing services provider.
"Your marketing messages have to attract immediate interest from your audience or their attention will be pulled away by competing messages," he says.
To optimize your chances of success, consider:
A contact list
Companies should be collecting customer e-mail addresses throughout the year and developing a strong customer-prospect list, says Mark Preiser, a partner at Walter F. Cameron Advertising in Hauppauge. "You're always going to have a much higher success rate with your own lists, he says.
The subject line
This can make or break your chances of an e-mail's actually being opened, says Jeanniey Mullen, author of "E-mail Marketing: An Hour a Day" (Wiley, $29.99) and chief marketing officer for NYC-based Zinio, a digital publishing company, and VIVmag, a luxury women's digital magazine.
"It should be succinct and to the point about what's in this e-mail," she notes.
It can't appear too spammy or it will end up in the spam folder, explains Mullen, founder and executive chair of the E-mail Experience Council.
And avoid generic subject lines like ''don't miss out'' or ''free gift cards,'' she says.
Put the immediate benefit of opening the e-mail in the subject line as opposed to giving away the whole message so the reader will want to read further.
Some ideas: Five Gifts That Seem Expensive, But Aren't; $100 Buys 10 Quality Gifts; Most-Wanted Man Gifts, suggests Arnold.
Consider promoting groups of products by audience rather than product line. Instead of promoting "kitchen gadgets" try "for the chef in your home," Arnold adds.
Content
Use a 30-second rule for e-mail content. If you're promoting multiple products, feature a few in the e-mail and provide a link to the rest, adds Arnold.
Give people a reason to open it, says Preiser. "The first rule of holiday e-mail marketing is everyone is too busy to pay attention unless you make it worth their while," he explains. "Deferred payments and zero- down-payment promotions work well as people are maxing out their credit cards at this time."
Joel Sporn, owner of Westbury Jeep Chrysler Dodge and dealerships in Hicksville and Garden City, says he's found giveaways to be well-received. Past offers have included a $300 diamond pendant with purchase of a car or a $20 gas card for coming in to see a car.
"You 100 percent today need an offer," says Sporn. "People expect it."
Source: Herzlich, Jamie. “Holiday Offers Gets Shoppers to Open E-Mail.”
http://www.newsday.com/columnists/jamie-herzlich/holiday-offers-gets-shoppers-to-open-e-mail-1.1558121
02 Nov 2009
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