As summer comes to an end and the supermarkets start stocking Halloween decorations, Christmas might be the last thing on our minds. The overall volume of emails entering inboxes rises by 25% over the festive season and people are now busier than ever around Christmas time with present buying, family visits and finishing work before the holidays hit. As a result, it’s important for brands to consider their marketing strategy over the period as soon as possible and make sure they get it right.
Getting through the clutter in someone’s inbox means being clever with the way you formulate your email marketing strategy. Therefore, having something that attains a customer’s attention while they scroll through the email is essential to prevent them evicting your message to the trash folder.
As a recent study by Apple found, majority of people spend just three seconds viewing a message when they’re not busy, so imagine that time span when they are. Engaging or interactive content that catches someone’s attention or becomes shareable is ideal, whether this be through images, video or animations. Not only is this likely to catch the people’s attention more than just text, but by making your emails interactive you can further build on brand relationships with customers.
As most people read their emails on the go, whether it’s on the way to work, while shopping or travelling to see family, making sure emails look as good on a desktop as on a phone is important to leave a lasting impression on the customer, especially if the brand has a technology or design element to it. Email marketing and mobile design has evolved immensely in the last few years with the ‘hamburger’ menu and carousels as inventive ways to make emails and websites more user friendly for mobile phones. With 40% of online sales coming from mobile phones during the year, it’s clear that doing this in the right way allows a good chance to get more sales.
Whatever your brand decides to do target audiences over the Christmas period or not, it’s clear that forward planning and thinking outside the box before competitors is vital for effective email marketing all year round. What are your opinions on Christmas email marketing? A pain, or brilliant marketing technique?
