Examples and Tips For Holiday Email Marketing

Are you planning to run contests and giveaways to grab your customers’ attention this holiday season? Wondering how you can stay in touch next year with all the new fans and followers you gain from your Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas promotions?
We have the marketing automation tools that will help!

The engagement you see when you run a holiday contest or giveaway is gratifying…but the connections you make are also very valuable — especially if you’ve managed to collect your contest entrants’ email addresses. We’ve seen users host giveaways that add thousands of people to their email lists in just a few short weeks.

Email addresses are the most valuable resource to come out of a contest or giveaway, and the best way to stay in touch with people so you can turn them into paying customers.

In this post, we’ll look at holiday email marketing ideas, including a series of autoresponders and scheduled emails to send out during the hours, days and weeks after people have entered your holiday contest or giveaway. And we’ll also suggest other ideas for how to follow up with them in January and February, and beyond.
The goal? Keep the momentum from your Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas holiday contests and promotions going strong.

Here are 10 Holiday Email Marketing ideas and automated emails to help your brand stay top-of-mind with all your new customers.

1. First, say “Thank you”

Send a “Thank you for entering” autoresponder immediately after a user submits an entry. This doubles as a “Welcome” email. Your Holiday Contest may have reached people who have only recently learned about your business because of your contest, and the tone you set with this email will determine whether or not they continue to follow you after the contest is over.

A welcome email sent to people who enter your holiday contest or giveaway should always include:

• Confirmation of the entry.
• Contest details, including how a winner will be chosen, when the winner will be announced, and whether people can enter multiple times.
• Social sharing/follow buttons making it easy for people to follow you.
• If you’ve enabled a “refer a friend” feature that awards bonus entries to people who share your contest, remind them in this email.

Remember, the welcome email is designed to establish a relationship between you and the lead—that’s it. The goal of this email is not necessarily to sell your products or services just yet. ShortStack users who send “Thanks for entering” emails see an open rate of more than 50 percent, so this first automatic email message is certainly an opportunity to increase awareness of your business beyond your contest.

Giveaway Campaign with a Thank You Email

Start with this template

2. Remind them to come back for more

ShortStack’s most popular holiday template is our Multi-day Giveaway Calendar. Businesses love it because it makes it easy for them to give away more than one prize — the template is modeled after an advent calendar — and it’s designed to encourage repeat visits. If you’re running a multi-stage holiday contest like this one, you could send several automated email messages during the duration of your giveaway to remind people who’ve already entered that they can enter again, or get more chances to win your prize if they share the contest with their friends.

ShortStack’s most popular holiday template – Multi-Day Giveaway Calendar

This email, like the welcome email, should focus on the current holiday contest or promotion instead of on selling. It should also:

• Remind users what the prize is and why it’s valuable.
• Remind users how they can earn more entries or continue to participate in the contest.
• Include a CTA to share the contest with your friends and/or to follow your social media profiles.
• Remind entrants of relevant dates — such as when the giveaway ends and how winners will be notified.

These emails should convey a sense of urgency in order to motivate immediate action. Phrases like “4 days left until we choose a winner!” and “Don’t miss one more chance to win our grand prize” can go a long way to getting the re-engagement you’re looking for.

Here are a couple reminder email examples

3. Announce the winner

At the end of the contest or giveaway, use an autoresponder to announce your winner(s). It’s a best practice to email everyone who entered your holiday contest or giveaway to announce a winner. Since everyone who entered your contest will be curious to know who won, this kind of email also has a fantastic open rate.

It’s a best practice to email everyone who entered your holiday contest or giveaway to announce a winner.

This email should:

• Include a CTA to follow you on your favorite social platforms so entrants will get the announcement about your next contest first.
• Let people know about any upcoming events or special offers.
• Thank them once again for their participation.
• Have a subject line that teases the announcement of the winner (which will also increase open rates).

If yours is a user-generated content contest, you could also share the winning contest entries, along with other great “honorable mentions.” Featuring UGC in your email can foster a positive relationship with your new leads.

Read Original Post at https://www.shortstack.com