M E R C E

2 5 E COM
I N G T I P S
L M A R K ET
EMA I Y
K F R I DA
L A C
FOR B D HOLIDAYS
AN
2019
EDIT
ION
25 Email eCommerce Marketing Tips For Black Friday and Holidays White paper

Copyright 2019 by Sendlane

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, with the exception of brief
quotations in a book review and certain other non-commercial uses as permitted by copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition, 2019

Sendlane
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 Introduction

As hard as it is to believe, it’s almost that time of the year again.

While we’re all no doubt looking forward to wearing our ugly holiday sweaters, sipping
on eggnog while chatting with family, and unconsciously humming the tune to Jingle
Bell Rock for hours on end, eCommerce marketers like you and I have even more to think
about.

Right about now, marketing teams across the globe are making plans for their Black
Friday and holiday promos. We’ve set our benchmarks, we’re listing goals, and crafting a
strategy to make sure our sales this year go off without a hitch.

It’s tough work with a lot hanging in the balance. After all, studies show that holiday sales
account for 20-30% of annual revenue. And what’s one of the biggest factors to impact
the success of those sales?

Email.

Yup, good old fashioned email – which influences a whopping 25% of those sales. (1)

Even though we live at a time where it’s never been better to run holiday promotions, none
of us can afford to sit back and rely on past experience to carry us through.

With so many holiday marketing messages about to flood your customers’ inboxes all
at once, it’s much easier for your email campaigns to get lost in the shuffle — and your
revenue lost with it.

Times have changed. Consumers have changed. So what’s working in email has changed
right along with it.

After sending and testing more than a billion emails and thousands of email and holiday
campaigns, we’ve discovered some great pointers to help make your holiday email
marketing plans go off without a hitch.

4 | Introduction
 Table Of Contents

Introduction 3
Table Of Contents 4
Tip #1: Start Email Campaigns Sooner 5
Tip #2: Announce Your Black Friday Promo In Advance 6
Tip #3: Personalize Emails Based on Browsing Behavior 7
Tip #4: Nail Your Subject Lines For Better Open Rates 9-10
Tip #5: Use Emojis, but Only Sparingly 11
Tip #6: Give Active Contacts “Early Access” to Sales 12
Tip #7: Use “Buy Now” Buttons In Your Emails 13
Tip #8: Create & Send Holiday Gift Guides 14
Tip #9: Clean Your Email List 16
Tip #10: Segment Your Email List, and Do It Well 17
Tip #11: QA Test Your Emails Before You Send Them 18
Tip #12: Host a Holiday Giveaway 19
Tip #13: Include Coupon Codes 20
Tip #14: Automate Emails For These Two Types of Contacts 21
Tip #15: Use Past Campaign Analytics to Find the Best Send Time 22
Tip #16: Plan For Smaller Holidays and National Events 23
Tip #17: Send Post-Holiday Emails 24
Tip #18: Update Your Automated Welcome Emails For The Holidays 25
Tip #19: Automate Emails For Last-Minute Shoppers 26
Tip #20: Make Your Design Mobile-Friendly 28
Tip #21: Send “Limited-Time” and “Today Only” Promos 29
Tip #22: Prepare Your Opt-In Forms Ahead of the Holidays 30
Tip #23: Setup and Automate Abandoned Cart Recovery Emails 31
Tip #24: Extend Campaigns to Leverage Black Friday Weekend 32
Tip #25: Keep The Holidays in Mind for Email Design 33
Bonus Tip: How To Drive Sales When Online Meets Retail 34-35
You Read The Whole Thing! You’re Swell :) 36
Resource List 37

4 | Table of Contents
 Start
Email
Campaigns
Sooner

TIP #1

Black Friday and the holiday season is a busy time

for consumers and marketers alike. For those of us
in eCommerce, Black Friday marks the start of a lot
of promotions and campaigns — most of which we
planned with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

What you may not realize is that you need to start

getting your promotions out there a lot sooner.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF),
60% of consumers start their holiday shopping on
November 10th.(2)

By starting your campaigns ahead of the holidays,

you’re working in tandem with the needs of
consumers while getting a headstart on the
competition.

5 | Tip #1: Start Email Campaigns Sooner

 Announce
Your Black
Friday Promo
In Advance

TIP #2

Long before Black Friday comes around,

consumers start planning their purchases. Backing
up what the NRF says, Google also found that
users start researching Black Friday a couple of
weeks before it.3

Announcing your brand is gearing up for a

promotion along with a sneak peek at deals
prepares your contacts for what’s coming.

With this foreknowledge — and with the helping

hand of an automated Black Friday email campaign
— they know to come back for your sale.

6 |Tip #2: Announce Your Black Friday Promo In Advance

 Personalize
Emails Based
on Browsing
Behavior

TIP #3

Marketers often talk about personalizing emails for

better user experience and to help drive sales.

But most incorporate personalization simply by

applying a [FIRST_NAME] code somewhere in the
email or by utilizing some basic segmentation and
calling it good.

If that’s all you’re doing, it’s time to step it up if you

want to see better results. Both points mentioned
above have a vital role in personalization, but guess
what?

Consumers are expecting more.

And you can meet their expectations by tracking

user behavior to give them a highly customized
email experience. In fact, our Beacon feature
gives you the power to track individual customer
journeys and browsing behavior.

In doing so, you’ll gain the data and tools you

need to use that information to automate solid
eCommerce emails that convert.

7 |Tip #3: Personalize Emails Based on Browsing Behavior

 Nail Your
Subject Lines
For Better
Open Rates

TIP #4

One thing every email marketer worth their salt will

agree on is this:

Subject lines matter, especially during the holidays.

We don’t say that because we’ve read it somewhere

online, but because we’ve personally seen the impact
they have on our own and other’s campaigns. On
average, 35% of subscribers open an email solely
based on the subject line. (4)

Inboxes are flooded with sales messages during the

holidays so having your emails stand out is vital for
both open rate and deliverability.

You don’t need to be overly creative with your subject

line, but there are things you can do to stand out.

See the next page where there are some best

practices for the holidays.

9 | Tip #4: Nail Your Subject Lines For Better Open Rates
 State the holiday your email is regarding:
• Black Friday
• Thanksgiving
• Cyber Monday
• Giving Tuesday
• Christmas

Power words worth testing:

• Free
• Shipping
• Sale
• Holiday
• Save
• Gift
• Last

20 Dreaded “Curse Words” that will land you in the

SPAM folder:
• #1
• $$$
• 100% Free (or) Satisfied
• 50% off
• Act Now!
• Amazing Buy
• Cash Bonus
• Click Here
• Congratulations
• Expect to Earn
• F R E E (or) Free _____
• Friend
• How To...
• Income
• Internet Marketing
• It’s Effective
• Join Millions
• Limited Time
• Lose Weight

This is 20 of the 320+ SPAM trigger words. Find the full list here

10 | Tip #4: Nail Your Subject Lines For Better Open Rates
 Use Emojis,
but Only
Sparingly

TIP #5

Another aspect of the subject line worth testing

during the holidays are emojis. They’re bold and bright
which help your email stand out.

But… they’re also a quick way to land your emails in

the SPAM folder.

There’s a 40% chance that emails with emojis in the

subject line will be marked as SPAM.

The flip side is there’s a 60% chance that it won’t,

and if it doesn’t, your open rates can increase
dramatically.(5)

So what’s the takeaway here? Don’t shy away from

using emojis, but use them with care.

Tips when using emojis:

• Make sure the emoji complements and flows in

a well-written subject line

• Don’t use more than three emojis

• Test how your emojis render across different

email clients before sending (See image)

11 | Tip #5: Use Emojis, but Only Sparingly

 Give Active
Contacts
“Early Access”
to Sales

TIP #6

Active contacts are often loyal customers, too. In fact,

your active contacts account for up to 84% of total
site visits and spend 10x more than new customers.
(6)
Talk about some brand love!

As logic would follow, rewarding your active email

contacts makes good business sense.

Whether you have a loyalty program in place or not,

you can still reward active contacts with special
segmented email promotions — such as early access
to sales — ahead of the season’s festivities.

As a loyal consumer, they’re most likely planning on

purchasing something from you already.

But thanking them for their loyalty by offering them

a bit of VIP treatment is a nice way to get the holiday
sales rolling in.

12 | Tip #6: Give Active Contacts “Early Access” to Sales

 Use
“Buy Now”
Buttons In
Your Emails
TIP #7

More than ever before, marketing messages bombard

us every day. And we’ve learned to deal with an
overwhelming inbox by quickly scanning screens
with messages rather than reading anything and
everything that comes our way.

The holidays are a particularly busy time so the need

to be able to catch your contact’s attention without
using any of those annoying marketing practices is
more important than ever.

Rather than simple text links, CTA/Buy Now buttons —

or images that look like a button — stand out in emails
and give your contacts clear direction on what to do.

Our own tests show that buttons work better than

plain text links for eCommerce emails, but you can
A/B test this in your own campaigns to find a flow
that works for you.

Be sure to test the button copy too! Here are a few

options worth trying:

• Buy Now
• Show Now
• Shop Collection
• Shop Sale
• Get This Deal

13 | Tip #7: Use “Buy Now” Buttons In Your Emails

 Create & Send
Holiday Gift
Guides

TIP #8

Coming up with gift ideas for friends, family, and

co-workers is as maddening as it is rewarding.
Sending gift guides to your contacts gives them a
lot of ideas right when they need it most, and when
they’re ready to buy.

These guides also bump up email open rates.

Buzzfeed created a gift guide newsletter and it

bumped their open-rate up to 45%, well above the
22% average for the eCommerce industry. (7)

Gift Guides present you with an opportunity to

promote your best selling products or batch smaller
products together under categories that match your
customer’s interests.

Think, gifts for:

• Him or her
• Co-workers
• Coffee lovers
• Parents, and so on

You can get very creative with these guides and

create more than one to help give gift ideas that
promote purchases.

14 | Tip #8: Create & Send Holiday Gift Guides

 Clean
Your
Email
List
TIP #9

On average, only 24% of email lists are highly

engaged. (8) This means email lists contain a large
chunk of inactive contacts.

A largely inactive email list can damage your

deliverability and the health score of your email
domain reputation. All the things that make email
marketers want to angry scream at their computer.

Regularly cleaning your list of inactive contacts (i.e.

those who haven’t opened your recent campaigns)
can boost your domain reputation and help keep
you out of the spam folder — thus boosting your
deliverability just in time for holiday promo emails.

You can easily automate this process with the right

email marketing tool, like Sendlane.

But since you’ve worked really hard to get these

contacts, we recommend automating a win-back
email campaign first to re-engage inactive contacts
and keep them on your list.

If they continue to ignore your emails, then it’s safe to

clean your list of them.

16 | Tip #9: Clean Your Email List

 Segment Your
Email List, and
Do It Well

TIP #10

In 2015, DMA found that 77% of email ROI was the result of highly segmented, targeted,
automated campaigns. (9)

As the data shows, meticulous segmentation equals ROI. The issue is that most segmentation
sticks to the basics. Segmenting by interest, location, cart abandonment, or inactive contacts
are the most common.

Yes, doing those things is important. But for eCommerce brands to stay ahead of the fierce
competition, they need to think more outside the box to drive results. Segmentation can be more
diverse and personalized depending on your email marketing provider’s toolset.

Ultimately, the best segmentation is dependent on the needs and desires of your customers.
But a few of the more advanced segmentation methods are as follows:

• Email signup source (via an ad, blog post, landing page?)

• Purchase history
• Customers who buy the most items
• Customers with the highest order value
• Open rate
• Those who didn’t purchase anything
• Purchase type
• Email client
• Brick-and-mortar customers vs. online customers

Sendlane uses more than 100 data points to help you find your most engaged customers (like
the ones mentioned above) and offers automation features to help re-engage others on your list.

And with the Sendlane Beacon tracking feature, you can further drill down and segment your
audiences for better ROI this holiday season.

17 | Tip #10: Segment Your Email List, and Do It Well

 QA Test
Your Emails
Before You
Send Them
TIP #11

Email designs may render nicely on your desktop, but

that’s not always how your emails will look for your
contacts. Testing your emails ahead of the holidays
allows you to catch copy or grammar errors.

You can also view the mobile layout and how your
email renders in various email clients.

Now, here’s a pro tip for you when you do this. Make
sure the email address you send the test campaign to
does not have your “from” email address whitelisted
or added to your contacts.

To really get the best out of this test, send your

test email to addresses that go to the major email
providers (e.g. Outlook, Yahoo!, Gmail, Apple Mail,
etc.)

Here are a few things to look for:

• Which folder your email campaign lands in (Main

inbox, Promotions, Spam?)
• How the subject line appears
• What the preview test looks like
• How the email appears on desktop vs mobile.
• What renders and what doesn’t

If you find errors, make changes and test again until

you get things as close to pixel perfect as possible.

18 | Tip #11: QA Test Your Emails Before You Send Them

 Host a
Holiday
Giveaway

TIP #12

Running a giveaway is an excellent technique for

growing your email list with potential customers while
building your brand awareness and trust.

84% of global consumers say they trust referrals

from friends and family over any other type of
recommendation. (10) Most tools that help you run a
giveaway use this type of word-of-mouth marketing
that’s hard to come by in our modern era.

Hosting a giveaway right before the holiday rush

keeps you front and center in the minds of your
contacts as they start to plan their purchases. Plus,
you will have also bulked up your email list just in time
for the busiest online shopping season of the year.

When running a giveaway, keep in mind that it’s

best to give things that attract your best customers
and not items that grow your list just for the sake of
growing it.

19 | Tip #12: Host a Holiday Giveaway

 Include
Coupon
Codes

TIP #13

During the holidays, you’re going to be using your

email campaigns to promote sales and boost
revenue. The more accessible it is for contacts to
start shopping the easier it is for sales to roll in, which
is what we’re going for here.

Inserting a coupon code into your emails is useful

for many reasons. First, it’s convenient to click on
a coupon and go directly to a brand’s site to buy
something knowing you’ll save money.

But the data shows (11) there’s more to it than that:

• 91% say they will visit a retailer again after being

offered a coupon
• 93% say they’re more likely to use coupons they
receive via email
• 57% say they would not have made a purchase
without a coupon
• 40% share coupon deals with family and friends

Coupon codes can offer discounts, free items,

upgrades or even free shipping. Whatever you
decide to do, including a coupon code inside your
email is only going to help your holiday campaign.

20 | Tip #13: Include Coupon Codes

 Automate
Emails For
These Two
Types of
Contacts
TIP #14

Every eCommerce email list always has two kinds

of contacts:

1. Those who open emails but don’t click-through

2. Those who don’t open your email altogether

But during the holidays, ‘inbox overwhelm’ becomes

even more apparent. As such, you should plan your
automated emails to handle the above-mentioned
scenarios so you’re not losing out on potential
revenue.

With the right email marketing software, you can

create separate automation funnels that trigger
when someone either opens but doesn’t click, or
doesn’t open your email altogether.

Triggering these emails to send later in the day may

be all it takes to get your contacts to open or make
a purchase.

21 | Tip #14: Automate Emails For These Two Types of Contacts

 Use Past
Campaign
Analytics to
Find the Best
Send Time
TIP #15

The time you send your campaigns to contacts is

important. If you send them emails too early or too
late, they will get buried under tons of other holiday
emails.

Generally speaking, the best time to send email is

the following:

• 8 am to 9 am Eastern Standard Time

• 3 pm to 4 pm Eastern Standard Time

However, to identify the best time to send your

emails is to let your contacts tell you. The easiest
way to do this is? Automation, of course! There’s no
need to try to figure it out for yourself.

With Sendlane’s Machine Learning Open

Predictability, you’re never left guessing if you sent
your campaigns out at a good time. The feature
analyzes all past behavior and auto-detects the
perfect time for your audience.

No guesswork or getting your hands messy digging

through data. Just a new tool to help you work
smarter and faster.

22 | Tip #15: Use Past Campaign Analytics to Find the Best Send Time
 Plan For
Smaller
Holidays
and National
Events
TIP #16

Black Friday and the holidays that follow are the

more common holiday sales that eCommerce
brands focus on. But depending on your
demographic, you shouldn’t ignore smaller holidays
or other important events.

There are many holidays, events and international

holidays you can leverage for sales. In 2018,
consumers spent $17.8 billion (12) on Small
Business Saturday (November 30th), and Cinco de
Mayo was predicted to bring in $120 million (13) in
grocery sales.

If a good amount of your contacts live somewhere

outside the US or UK, there could be a list of events
and holidays you could incorporate into your email
marketing strategy.

Also, don’t overlook important events during the

year. According to NRF, both Back to College and
Back to School events are among the top consumer
spending events each year following closely behind
shopping for winter holidays.

23 | Tip #16: Plan For Smaller Holidays and National Events

 Send
Post-Holiday
Emails

TIP #17

Black Friday and the holiday sales that follow help

most eCommerce businesses gain a lot of traction
at the end of the year. Naturally, after December
25th, there’s a dip in global sales and people adjust
to a new year.

Assuming that this is also a time to let your email

marketing take a break would be a mistake. Sales
may take a dip, but you can and should continue
to communicate with contacts or even run
promotions.

Sending post-holiday emails allows you to continue

the dialogue with your customers and adds to your
brand’s reputation you worked so hard to build up
before the holidays.

Tracking user behavior and segmenting your list to

know who your customers are gives you a chance
to send more personalized thank you emails or
reward contacts who bought from you during the
holidays.

You can also target contacts who didn’t make a

purchase with an email campaign of their own.

24 | Tip #17: Send Post-Holiday Emails

 Update Your
Automated
Welcome
Emails For The
Holidays
TIP #18

eCommerce marketers and email experts agree

on the importance of having a well thought out
welcome email sequence. By now, you likely have
your welcome emails set up and automated, which
is awesome. Want to know why?

Welcome emails generate 5x more clicks than

regular email campaigns (14) making these prime
real estate for holiday sales. Updating your
welcome series for the holidays is a great way to
make sure your contacts know you’re going to be
putting on a sale and when.

And you don’t need to reconstruct your entire

welcome series. You can simply add one extra
holiday-related email to your sequence to update
things and then remove or change it depending on
the holiday.

25 | Tip #18: Update Your Automated Welcome Emails For The

 Automate
Emails For
Last-Minute
Shoppers

TIP #19

Last-minute shopping has become so popular that

the Saturday before Christmas is now called “Super
Saturday.” And even though the idea of waiting until
the last possible moment to buy a gift doesn’t seem
so “super” from a stress standpoint, studies show
that it’s what people do.

At least 29% of shoppers make purchases

Wednesday through Friday while 16% of shoppers
still wait until Super Saturday to make their final
purchases. (15)

Most times, this is a scrambled effort to find that

perfect gift. The upside?

You can capitalize on this by automating emails for

such ones before Christmas. You can send emails
that give a countdown timer for getting a gift on-
time, offer your best deal yet, or even offer gift
cards.

Whatever you plan to do, having emails ready to

go for these shoppers is a great campaign worth
testing this holiday season.

26 | Tip #19: Automate Emails For Last-Minute Shoppers

 Make
Your
Design
Mobile
Friendly
TIP #20

If your email isn’t ready for mobile viewing, then you

might want to wait to send it until it is. The 2016
Consumer Adoption & Usage Report by Adstera
reported emails that don’t display correctly have a
70% chance of being deleted and a 15% chance of
the user unsubscribing from your list.(16)

Considering more than half of all email is opened

on a mobile device, it’s clear that creating mobile-
friendly designs is vital. Images may look great in
the desktop preview, but they may not adjust to the
right size on a smaller screen.

Luckily, Sendlane’s email builder automatically

adjusts images to fit mobile screens and even
provides you with a mobile preview so your Black
Friday and holiday emails are perfect every time.

28 | Tip #20: Make Your Design Mobile-Friendly

 Send
“Limited Time”
and “Today
Only” Promos

TIP #21

Fear of missing out (FOMO) on items they’ve been

stalking on the internet is a common worry for
consumers, with 69% of millennials experiencing
this regularly. (17)

While you don’t want to create more anxiety in the

life of your contacts, you can trigger some slight
FOMO by sending “Today Only” or “Limited Time
Offer” emails to help boost sales during this season
of giving.

You can add a countdown timer to your emails,

website products or web pages to help drive a click-
through from an email to your site.

29 | Tip #21: Send “Limited-Time” and “Today Only” Promos

 Prepare Your
Opt-In Forms
Ahead of the
Holidays

TIP #22

Opt-in forms are the gateway to your list growth.

No matter how thoroughly your email strategy is
planned, none of it will matter if your opt-in forms
lack a good hook.

When making plans for your Black Friday and

Holiday promos be sure to prep your opt-in forms
ahead of time. To do so, consider using opt-in
forms to call out an upcoming promotion, such as
Black Friday.

According to Technology Advice, one of the

main reasons people sign up to an email list is
to receive discounts. (18) Use your website opt-in
forms to make site visitors aware you’ll be running
a promotion soon.

So by subscribing to your list, you’ll alert them with

sales and promotional offers when the time comes.
You can then segment these contacts so you know
they’re interested in this specific promotion giving
you the upper hand during the holiday rush.

30 | Tip #22: Prepare Your Opt-In Forms Ahead of the Holidays

 Setup and
Automate
Abandoned
Cart Recovery
Emails

TIP #23

Abandoned carts are on the rise with the rate

being as high as 85% and the industry average
sitting at 75.6%.(19) If you haven’t automated your
cart recovery emails, consider this your wake up
call to do so, my friend.

Setting these up is usually a pretty quick process.

All you have to do is simply paste a line of code
into the backend of your site. This tracks your email
contacts movement as they add items to their cart.

If they fill their cart but leave the site without

purchasing, your recovery email triggers and
handles the rest.

You can wait up to an hour before triggering an

email that reminds a contact about the items in
their cart. And if no action is taken at that point,
you can trigger another one for a day later as a final
reminder.

By studying others, we’ve found that two cart

recovery emails are just enough to do the job.

31 | Tip #23: Setup and Automate Abandoned Cart Recovery Emails

 Extend
Campaigns
to Leverage
Black Friday
Weekend
TIP #24

Black Friday is a big day for both eCommerce

brands and storefronts as they prep for the influx
of shoppers ready to save. But Black Friday isn’t
the only sale consumers are considering because
Cyber Monday is quick to follow.

People are prepared to be shopping on Black Friday

and through the weekend. You can leverage that
mindset by sending your campaigns even after
Black Friday has come and gone.

You can extend deals or excite contacts about

your Cyber Monday deals. And a newer trend we’ve
seen is taking advantage of Giving Tuesday — the
Tuesday following Thanksgiving.

The idea with Giving Tuesday is for brands to join

a movement that gets others to donate to help
charities around the world.

You can take advantage of this day by offering

a slight discount to consumers and donating a
percentage of the proceeds to the Giving Tuesday
organization or a charity of your choice.

Either way, your customers feel good about their

shopping since their purchase will help others.

32 | Tip #24: Extend Campaigns to Leverage Black Friday Weekend

 Keep The
Holidays in
Mind for Email
Design

TIP #25

You’re doing a lot of planning around your Black

Friday and holiday campaigns. Getting contacts to
click on your email is only part of the job. Managing
to get them to click through to your site — that
takes just as much planning as any other part.

In 2018, holiday send volume on November 29th

was 122% above the previous year’s average. (20)
To say your contact’s inboxes will be bursting at its
digital seams this year is easily an understatement.

This is why your email design is important. And

keeping in mind which holidays your campaigns
are designated for helps you keep in line with your
customer mindset.

You can incorporate multimedia content such as

fun GIFs, holiday-themed imagery, and creative
copy to ring in the email holiday cheer.

33 | Tip #25: Keep The Holidays in Mind for Email Design

 How To Drive
Sales When
Online Meets
Retail

BONUS TIP

Many eCommerce stores are online only. However, some are both an online store and have one or
more physical retail locations.

This presents itself with some challenges. Not only do you want to drive online sales, but there’s
also the need to get foot traffic to your store during the holidays.

Thankfully, the right strategy and tools can help you accomplish both. With the aim to drive
customers to your physical store, you can change up certain parts of your overarching strategy to
just that.

One example is that you can send emails to specify in-store only holiday specials thus helping
drive foot traffic. But there are other innovative ways to stay-in-touch with customers, keep them
engaged, and make sales.

Utilizing SMS (also called Text Marketing) is a great marketing tactic for physical stores to drive
sales and engagement. Generally, SMS marketing has an 82% open rate on average (21), and the
Direct Marketers Association found that using SMS and email together have open rates as high
as 25% (22).

This is great news for physical retail locations because it means even more opportunities to make
a sale during the holidays.

Incorporating SMS marketing into your holiday campaigns isn’t as hard as you might think, but
it’s important to get started sooner rather than later so you have a list when Black Friday comes
around.

SMS is a lot like email in that it requires an opt-in to get things started. To help your customers
opt-in to receiving SMS texts from you, the primary place you should display this option is right
inside your store.

34 | BONUS Tip: How To Drive Sales When Online Meets Retail

 You can also offer SMS opt-in to your current
email contacts or add the option on your
marketing materials. And doing this ahead of
and during the holidays is a great way to help
boost sales.

What you send in your SMS texts is up to you.

You can alert them to in-store only sales or

you can include URLs to drive traffic to your
eCommerce store.

Either way, one hand washes the other.

Consider using an email marketing tool like

Sendlane that includes SMS marketing features
to tie your online and in-store sales efforts
together seamlessly.

35 | BONUS Tip: How To Drive Sales When Online Meets Retail

 You Read The Whole Thing! You’re Swell.

Almost 30 pages later, and here we are — the end.

How ya feeling?

Hopefully, you’ve come away with some fresh ideas for your holiday email marketing
campaigns this year.

There’s a lot of advice packed into these pages, but keep in mind that you don’t have to do
every single thing we’ve listed. Your audience is as unique as your brand so certain tips
may resonate instinctively with you over others.

Trust your gut, test those out and see how it goes. When the next holiday or Black Friday
comes around, test a few more.

Customize things to your brand, and things are more likely to fall into place.

Interested in Sendlane?
GRAB YOUR 14 DAY TEST DRIVE

And if you’re interested in Sendlane or have questions about our platform, feel free to
reach out at any time

Questions? Contact us

We know your time is valuable, so thank you for taking the time to read this! It was great
being able to share some insights with you, and we hope you are able to walk away with
some actionable ideas for your holiday email campaigns.

‘Till next time,

Jimmy Kim & The Sendlane Marketing Team

36 | You Read The Whole Thing! You’re Swell.

 Resource list

1. https://acquireconvert.com/black-friday-email-marketing-ideas/
2. https://www.snipp.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Snipp-Resources-Whitepaper-
10-2017-Black-Friday.pdf, page 7
3. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/black-friday-shopping-trends/
4. https://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/email-marketing-statistics/
5. https://econsultancy.com/emojis-in-email-subject-lines-smiley-face-or-smiley-poop/
6. http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2016/30345/how-to-measure-and-improve-
b2b-customer-loyalty
7. https://digiday.com/media/buzzfeed-getting-serious-e-commerce/
8. https://returnpath.com/downloads/frequency-matters-the-keys-to-optimizing-email-
send-frequency/?sfid=701000000006Zaa
9. https://www.emailmonday.com/wp-content/uploads/National-client-email-2015-DMA.
pdf
10. https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/press-releases/2013/nielsen-earned-advertising-
remains-most-credible-among-consumer-2-2/
11. https://www.vouchercloud.com/resources/retail-and-discounts-infographic
12. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181126005239/en
13. https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2017/americans-spice-up-flavor-
palates-and-beverages-for-cinco-de-mayo/
14. https://www.invespcro.com/blog/welcome-emails/
15. https://www.bizjournals.com/bizwomen/news/latest-news/2017/12/holiday-
shoppers-wait-for-super-saturday.html
16. https://www.adestra.com/resources/2016-consumer-adoption-usage-study/
17. https://www.adweek.com/creativity/5-ways-marketers-can-successfully-leverage-
fomo-amongst-millennials/
18. https://technologyadvice.com/resources/email-marketing-study/
19. https://www.barilliance.com/cart-abandonment-rate-statistics/
20. https://returnpath.com/newsroom/email-volume-and-inbox-placement-exceeded-
yearly-average-during-2017-holiday-season-but-so-did-spam-complaints/
21. https://www.shiftcomm.com/blog/what-is-the-open-rate-of-sms-text-messaging/
22. https://dma.org.uk/article/email-benchmarking-report-2018
23. Source: NRF https://nrf.com/insights/holiday-and-seasonal-trends

37 | Resource List