Holiday Email Marketing: Must-Have Automated Flows

So, you’re a business owner or an email marketer gearing up for the holiday season. You’ve got incredible products and have tirelessly worked to attract customers.

Yet, the results haven’t been as expected.

No significant surge in traffic.
No boost in conversions and sales.
No significant increase in traffic no boost in sales.

But to change things around, you need to integrate a crucial aspect into your holiday email marketing strategy – email automation.

To stand out from the crowd and achieve remarkable sales with the best holiday campaigns, you need a strategy you can rely on—a strategy that can engage your audience and maximize revenue potential.

Holiday marketing presents unique challenges and opportunities. Competition in the inbox is fierce, and customers expect highly personalized and relevant content. Strategic automation can help you meet these expectations with ease.

But the real question is: how can you leverage email automation to its full potential during the holiday season?

At Mavlers, we have a team of 150+ experts with expertise in 50+ email service providers. Our experts have an accuracy rate of over 99%, working on email automation projects for busy marketing teams. Our experience and precision ensure top-notch results.

If you’re ready to unlock the benefits of holiday email automation, we’ll follow this Table of Contents:

Why do email automations matter during the holiday season?

7 Essential email flows for holiday season success

Best practices for crafting high-impact holiday emails

How to optimize your holiday email automation in real time?

By the end of this blog, you’ll have the insights needed to make informed decisions about your holiday email marketing strategy to create the best holiday campaigns. So, let’s dive right in.

Why do email automations matter for the holiday email marketing strategy?

The holiday season raises the stakes for email marketing. People are looking to buy things. Businesses try to attract customers to their digital doorstep and maximize their sales. It shouldn’t be any different for your business.

And with these opportunities come challenges such as:

There is an increase in competition in customers’ inboxes. Every brand strives to stand out and catch the attention of its subscribers.
The customers, too, expect personalized and relevant emails from the brands they follow.
Businesses need automation strategies to effectively reach their customers with the right messaging at the right time.

Email automation techniques help create, craft, curate, and optimize emails.

And, of course, there are other benefits of email automation, such as:

You will witness increased engagement and retention because of personalization and sending your emails at the right time.
You will save time and get relief from doing things manually.
Using automation tools, you will get insights into your campaign in real-time. Leveraging this data, you can tweak your existing campaigns and maximize results based on what worked and what did not.

Also, here is our 6-tier email marketing process to handle all your CRM needs.

That brings us to an important question: how many email automations should you plan?

While the answer can be subjective, it totally depends on your business needs and requirements.

Instead of throwing up a random number, consider the following factors while determining the quantity of your automation emails.

Your business goals and the kinds of audience you wish to target.
See what available resources you have and evaluate your team’s capabilities to handle large volumes of emails.
Consider your past holiday campaigns and what strategies you followed back then.

The key is to maintain a balance between quality and quantity. You shouldn’t bombard your subscribers with too many emails at once.

Now, let’s look at the types of email automations you should implement during the holiday email marketing campaign.

7 Essential email flows for holiday season success

Here are the 7 holiday email examples popular amongst top brands for playing a defining role in their holiday season success.

1. Welcome emails for new subscribers

Welcome emails need to be sent at the right time, especially during the holiday season when consumers are looking for gifts and discounts. Make sure your welcome messages are automated and sent soon after registration. Offer gratitude by thanking them in your first email and introducing your brand simultaneously.

You can also promote your products through a relatively short subscription offer to attract first-time buyers. For example, to create urgency among consumers, you can create an email with the subject line: “Get 10% Off on your first holiday order.”

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2. Abandoned cart emails to capture potential sales

You can send automated emails to potential customers who add products to their carts but don’t check out. However, don’t immediately send the email after they leave your website. After an hour or two would be more feasible. Make it sound like a reminder of something they have forgotten instead of forcing them to buy.

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3. Browse abandonment emails

A browse abandonment email may help bring your potential customers back into the store by pointing out what they were interested. It can be anything they clicked on, or something they typed in the search box, etc. You can suggest similar products to those they liked. It will motivate them to make a purchase.

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4. Product recommendations based on customer behavior

Offer relevant post-purchase services like recommending related products to customers depending on what they bought or showed interest in. For example, if they have shopped for winter clothes, recommend an accessory (stole, socks) to go with it. Recommendations should be made using customers’ preferences and past buying decisions.

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5. Holiday promotions and flash sale announcements

Loyal customers should be given a chance to buy before the sale goes public or at a cheaper price. Emails like these make VIP customers feel valued because they are informed before others through emails. When marketing, you must use powerful call-to-actions, including dynamic elements like “Countdown Timers.” You can also highlight “Limited Stock” to get the audience to take the desired action quickly.

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6. Post-purchase follow-up series

Within a few days of the purchase, you can send an email with recommendations for related products, such as accessories. You can also add ‘how-to’ guides or care tips, benefiting the customer and encouraging them to remain with the product.

Testimonials and customer reviews are crucial to highlighting your product’s popularity. Lastly, you can also send a follow-up email after a week or two to request feedback after your customers have tried the product.

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7. Customer reactivation or win-back campaigns

Segment subscribers who haven’t opened your emails and use this approach to invite them back with a special one-time holiday promotion. Promising a reward, for instance, explaining that ‘We Miss You!’ or another such as ‘Take 20% off Your Next Purchase.’ Use great subject lines and personalize your emails to make your subscribers land on your website.

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These were just a few of the many holiday email examples, but the implementation process is the key in achieving the ultimate success.

Best practices for crafting high-impact holiday emails

Although email automation requires very few manual interventions, even those few can be crucial in turning things around and standing out from competitors.

Here are a few best practices to help you craft high-impact holiday emails through automation.

Your subject lines have the potential to make or break your email campaigns. So, write a compelling subject line by incorporating seasonal themes or emojis because there are humans on the other side, too.
If you’re using offer phrases, be clear and concise so that you do not overpromise and underdeliver.
Ensure that your emails are mobile-optimized and fast-loading. If you don’t have time to code your emails, try using responsive templates.
Test your emails on all screen sizes.
Avoid sounding too salesy. People are already looking to buy, so simply guide them through the buying process. Educate them on different types of gift ideas. Keep a balance between promotion and information.
Use high-quality images to make your emails more engaging and incorporate dynamic elements like quizzes, polls, etc.

How to optimize your holiday email automation in real time?

After executing your automation email flows, you must measure and optimize your email campaigns to enhance results. You can do that in two easy steps.

By using real-time data to tweak your strategies. You can identify the segments performing well and the messaging that has yielded the most positive results. Then, you can increase or decrease the frequency of your automation emails based on the engagement you receive.
By conducting a post-campaign analysis to prepare for the next campaign.

Document your wins. Remember your losses. Learn the lessons. And create a roadmap for your next holiday campaign beforehand. You know what worked. You know what didn’t. So, making an informed decision when the results are fresh will help your cause.

Wrapping up

Now that you know about the crucial email flows you need to automate with your email marketing strategies, it’s time to plan your actions. Implementing them the right way is crucial to your campaign’s success. So, either hire an email marketing specialist or outsource to email marketing agencies.

Here are some more reads that will help you be more informed if you’d like to consider.

How Many Email Automations Do I Need? Essential Email Flows During the Holiday Season

Why do email automations matter for the holiday email marketing strategy?