Christmas can seem like the perfect time to capitalise on the chance to market to your audience. However, while the opportunity is there, it should be undertaken with caution and ethics.
I’m Adam Herbert, co-founder of Go Live Data, and here’s how to strike the right balance and not damage your customer relationships.
The first thing to consider when planning your Christmas campaign is timing. Do you have an order cut-off point? Or a time when you close down for Christmas? If you do, then you need to consider the best time to share your offer with your customers and allow time to lead up to the offer, announce it, then share when it’s closing.
However, you need to be careful not to oversaturate customers’ inboxes with more messages than needed. Keep it simple, drive them to your website and let the website share the wider info.
It’s also worth noting that some simply won’t want to hear about Christmas until we’re actually in December.
There are multiple options when it comes to tracking. Obviously, you’ll be tracking who opens what, and when. But you can also either personalise a bespoke offer code or share a blanket offering.
Both have their plus points. A blanket offering can be shared externally to your emails meaning you have the chance to reach a far wider audience. Sites like HotUkDeals will regularly share the most up to date offer codes available and help to grow your audience, especially if you have to enter your email to claim the code.
A personalised approach allows you more intel, tracking-wise, but does limit your chances of growing your reach, unless you also offer a referral option where your clients can ‘share the love’ as such.
This is the biggy, how much is too much? This really depends on what you’re sending out. If you’re just sending out blanket emails of ‘buy this now’ then your audience will turn off quickly and be likely to hit the unsubscribe button. If you have different offers for different products each day for a period of time, it can be helpful to share these with your audience as a reminder. This also lends itself perfectly to in-app notifications, if you have one.
The basic rule of thumb, is what do I really need to tell my audience, what can I give them to offer value, and what is an added extra that could wait?
At Christmas, you’ll likely have multiple offers and be wanting to generate as many sales and traffic to your store or website as possible. The key to ensuring you don’t oversaturate everyone is to offer a tailored approach. By offering your clients the chance to opt in and out of certain categories, you can start to build an audience profile ensuring that you’re sending them emails and offers to the sector they’re interested in.
This tailored approach means you’ll be far more unlikely to annoy your customers or ruin relationships. They’ll likely be more engaged with what you’re sending and happier to take action. The one slight curve ball to this is, at Christmas. While your customer may have just signed up for menswear updates, chances are at Christmas they’ll be buying for family members and friends. Therefore, a gift guide offering showcasing the best offers on a host of products from different ranges, and maybe even a discount if they purchase something first from their chosen area, can open your customer’s eyes to new areas of your business.
The main aim to protect your customer relationships this Christmas is to ensure that you deliver value. Don’t bombard them, and open them up to new and existing products that could lead to additional sales now or in the future.
Co-Founder & CEO, Go Live Data
With over two decades experience of working in the data and marketing industry with a particular focus on email marketing, Go Live Data’s CEO, Adam Herbert, has spanned a career of working and supporting several market leaders. Across this time, Adam has helped leaders and their organisations with market sizing, supporting their growth through data driven strategies and helping businesses move from traditional marketing methods into the digital arena which continues to evolve at a rapid rate.
He now runs his own businesses to really drive change in what is seen as a stagnated industry. With a particular focus and track record in business strategy, operations, product marketing and sales, Adam’s professional career has always been focused on helping customers drive revenue via strategic data lead strategies and has guided some of the world’s largest businesses through GDPR to help update and maintain a compliant database as well as understand what good looks like in terms of outreach to new prospects for his clients.
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