Lessons Learned from This Year's Flood of Holiday Emails

Author: Therese Grohman on 28 December 2011 | 0 Comments

Tags: email marketing, email best practices

One of my favorite things about the holidays is receiving cards from friends and family and hearing what everyone has been up to.

While not as heartwarming, the yearly deluge of holiday emails that land in my inbox is certainly interesting for a marketing professional like me. Reviewing these festive missives inspires both admiration (Wow, what a great opening line!) and horror (Oh no, typo alert!). It's always an instructive exercise.

With this year's batch fresh in mind, here are some best practices to follow when communicating with past event participants and supporters via email.

Don't get lost in the crowd.
With emails from nonprofits, businesses and friends, inboxes are even more packed than usual come December. How can your email stand out amidst the clutter? As you can probably guess, it all starts with the subject line. A bland "Thank You" or "Happy Holidays" theme isn't giving anyone a good reason to open the email.

Instead, think about what recipients might find intriguing. For instance, what were your organization's top five accomplishments for the year? Is there an uplifting story about a family your organization helped out? These are the types of questions that can drive great subject lines — and powerful body copy too.

Convince, and then ask.
Your long-term aim with emails and other communications should be to convert event participants into passionate supporters of your cause. This means continually reinforcing your mission and its importance. By bringing your mission to life, time after time, you'll make a more compelling case for people to stay involved and committed.

Once you've made your case, a strong ask should follow. Believe it or not, this step sometimes falls by the wayside. A few weeks back, I received a short, well-written email that didn't ask for a gift. Always include a strong ask in the body. Having a bold DONATE NOW button in a prominent location doesn't hurt either.

Personalize it.
I hate to break it to you, but simply inserting the recipient's name doesn't impress people any more. To write an effective email, you have to do know much more about the individual. What's her connection to your organization and cause? Did she take part in one of your events, or did she support a participant? How long ago was it?

If you have access to data points like these, then you can make the email truly personal. Thank her for organizing a team for this year's Walk/Run. Acknowledge how much he raised and how hard he worked. Encourage her to do it again next year. You can also try segmenting your list according to various factors to personalize the appeal in other ways.

Know when to stop.
No matter when you send out emails, you're up against short attention spans. The challenge is even more acute during the holidays, when inboxes are overflowing. So get to your point fast, and then get out. It might take 100 words, or 200. But whatever you do, don't linger too long.

And on that note, I wish you the best of luck with next year's holiday emails.

For more on email marketing, read our blog post from earlier this month: “7 Post Event Email Sins”.  How do you make your emails stand out? Share your thoughts on email campaigns below.