If you’ve not already started your email marketing campaigns for Christmas, you’re cutting it a little fine. The biggest online retail season of the year is fast approaching, and people are starting their shopping now.

But there’s still time left to make a splash with your Christmas content marketing strategy. In fact, with just a few weeks left before the festive season, it’s time to put subtlety aside and go big.

Here are our top tips to make an impactful start to your Christmas email marketing campaigns:

Send out a reward newsletter
It’s the perfect time of year to send out a little thank you to past customers. A discount or special gift could be just what’s needed to reinforce loyalty, and to reinvigorate lapsed customers into making a purchase.

Leverage the power of time-limited offers
Plan out a series of emails in the countdown to Christmas, offering a time-limited offer for each week. This really ups the sense of urgency, nudging hesitant shoppers into taking the plunge. It’s all about understanding the motivations of your customers, and leveraging FOMO (fear of missing out) where possible.

Chase up those abandoned baskets
If someone has visited your site, added an item to their cart but not yet purchased, you need to seize this opportunity. They’re nearly ready to buy, but it could take a tiny extra incentive to get the deal done. Set up automatic emails to customers who abandon their baskets – it’s an easy way to bring in those extra sales.

Step up the frequency of your emails
It’s always difficult to find the right balance between getting the recipient’s attention, and ending up in the spam folder. But in the run-up to Christmas, you can afford to be a little bolder.

Consider increasing the frequency of your emails to take advantage of the customer mindset at this time of year, where the drive to shop is higher. You also need to work harder to stand out, as mailboxes are hugely crowded during the run-up to Christmas.

Just make sure you keep a close eye on engagement metrics and unsubscribe rates. It’s important to check in on whether your tactics are working, or you could risk undoing a year’s worth of hard working building up those subscriber lists.

Launch a Christmas competition
It’s the perfect time of year for promotions, so why not launch a Christmas competition or giveaway? Get it right and you can boost engagement, sales and customer loyalty all at the same time. To amplify your message and really get the most from the promotion, make sure you coordinate other channels such as social media and advertising.

Need expert help with email marketing? Whether you need a last push for Christmas or are planning an exciting campaign for the new year, we’re here to help. Get in touch with our email marketing pros here at Nextgen Marketing – call 020 8064 0221 or email hello@nextgen-marketing.co.uk and we’ll get right back to you.