The 2020 Guide to Fearless Holiday Email Marketing

– [Kate] Hey, guys, thank you so much for joining us today. I know we have folks who are joining us from all over the world. If you’re in Australia like me, well done for getting up nice and early. Yeah, and thank you for joining us. Today, we are going to be running through our 2020 Guide to Fearless Holiday Email Marketing. We’re going to show you how you can adapt your email marketing strategy so it can work really hard for you over this critical period.

We’ll be running through some of our best practice guidelines, and then dive into some real examples to show you how to put these tips and tricks into action. What we’ll also do is make sure that we point out some of the really handy features in Campaign Monitor that makes it really easy for you to get started and taking advantage of some of these strategies and ideas. Before we get kicked off, I may as well just start with some introductions.

My name is Kate Jordan. I am based in Sydney and I am the product marketing manager for Campaign Monitor. And I am joined today from cross-continent by my lovely colleague, Lane. Yeah, this is the magic of our work-from-home setup, is that we can have webinars from anywhere.

It’s great. Hey, everybody, I’m Lane Harbin, director of marketing at Campaign Monitor. And thank you so much for joining us today. We have a lot to cover when it comes to the 2020 holiday season. And we know that your brand like every brand is depending on end-of-year revenue. So, whether you’re a retail company, or a nonprofit, or anything in between, the end of the year is a really important time.

People are buying gifts for others, gifts for themselves and people are making charitable donations. And the holiday season seems to start earlier and earlier every year. And I think that we are officially in it. It’s October 13th and 14th for the folks in Australia. And you probably already started planning your holiday campaigns.

You might’ve even started sending them. And so today we really want to talk about some small tweaks that you can go ahead and make to your existing plans that are going to help you get even more out of this unique holiday season. And my promise is to use the word unprecedented as few times as possible, but I’m sure it’ll slip out somewhere. So looking at this slide, let’s talk about the elephant in the room here, COVID-19.

So we don’t have to tell you that this year has been tough. It’s been tough for everybody on a personal level and our businesses have been impacted too. And we know that a strong holiday season is critical to your bottom line and we also know that it’s going to be doubly true this year because you’re going to be trying to make up for losses from earlier on in the pandemic. And while it’s hard to predict exactly what this year will hold for holiday sales, we can take a look at this chart and it shows the U.S.

that, kind of, speaks to trends in the global economy. And as you can see the U.S. holiday season has actually experienced year over year growth like clockwork every year since 2002 with one notable exception, and that was 2008. So 2008, another year with the Recession.

And I think it’s the only thing that can really come close to what we’re experiencing this year, although it does differ from this year in some important ways. But I think it helps us frame that what we can do as marketers right now is try to prepare a holiday strategy that really adapts to the current circumstances and makes the most of it because there are some really great bright spots and opportunities for you as a marketer.

And our goal is to set you up for a strong finish to 2020 and a strong start to 2021. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do in this webinar today. So let’s look at some of those opportunities. Yes. So this is a year unlike any other. And along with all the challenges that this year has brought to us, there are a lot of opportunities, like I said, to drive revenue in the upcoming holiday season.

And email marketing is going to be a key part of that. So I want to look at some big trends we’re seeing this season and, kind of, talk through what it means for you. So, the first trend, email engagement is increasing. We found in a survey we did of billions of emails that are sent out of the Campaign Monitor platform that more people are opening emails during the COVID-19 pandemic than ever before.

And we know that last year, email accounted for nearly 17% of all e-commerce sales between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. And so with the spikes we’re seeing in email engagement and the increasing reliance on digital channels, my hunch is that we’ll probably exceed that this holiday season. So that’s the first thing to keep in mind. The second thing is that e-commerce itself is actually seeing exponential growth right now.

We’re seeing 10 years’ worth of growth and acceleration in the e-commerce industry over the course of 3 months. And I think we can all relate to that because, as consumers, we’ve had to figure out how to go digital routes where we might have originally gone to a physical store. And that shift is really going to change and define the landscape of the 2020 holiday season.

So that’s something to keep in mind. And then a third trend I want to draw your attention to is that consumers are willing to try new things. They want to stay safe and that is giving rise to new trends. So for me personally, I know that buy online pickup in-store has been my saving grace. And actually, 70% of consumers who are aware of buy online pickup in-store have tried it and 27% of consumers have opted for Curbside Pickup with 63% saying that they’re interested in trying it.

So, step back for a second, there is a lot of change happening and with all these changes in mind, clear communication is going to be the absolute essential thing that you can think about with your marketing plan this year. And email is going to be an integral part of introducing your subscribers and your customers to all the ways they can buy from you and all the offerings that you have for them to buy.

So, I will turn it over to Kate to tell us a little bit more about the ROI machine that is email.

– Awesome. Thank you so much. So I think, you know, what Lane did there was just, sort of, set the scene looking at some of those macroeconomic trends around this year but what I wanted to do now was actually dive into the specifics of why email marketing, you know, is going to be a really important foundation for your holiday marketing strategy.

You know, it’s cost-effective, absolutely. But there are actually four particular reasons why we think it’s actually particularly well suited to a holiday campaign and why you should, you know, really think about it in the next few months. The first is that email is essentially an opt-in conversation, right? So unlike a lot of other marketing channels, the nature of email is, you know, assuming that you’re following best practice guidelines, your subscribers have actively opted in and chosen to hear from you.

This means that your message is always going to be delivered to an audience who is more likely to be engaging with your holiday message or promotion. You also have total control over the message that is being sent out, who it is being sent to, and at what time. When you compare it to other marketing channels, you’re not reliant on the algorithms of a tech company or a media company to present your message at a particular time.

You have total control over this as a marketer, which I think is a really unique opportunity that email offers. We’ll just go back one, Campaign Monitor in this regard has a couple of really handy features to help you around just making sure that you’re scheduling and sending things out at the right time. You can obviously schedule multiple emails to be sent at different times in the future.

So as an email marketer, you can schedule up those emails over the next few weeks and then essentially set and forget. You don’t have to be on the platform every day checking and manually sending everything out. You can also… Our Unlimited and Premier customers have a handy feature called Time Zone Sending which essentially means that if you know, for example, that your subscribers are more likely to open an email at say 9 a.m., you can schedule that email to be sent at 9 a.m.

for every different time zone over the next 24-hour period. So you know that it’s landing in the inbox at that optimum time. Our Premier customers can take it one step further with a really cool feature called Send Time Optimization. And essentially what that means is that Campaign Monitor will do the hard work where we look at all of the engagement rates for your subscribers and work out the optimum time for every different subscriber around when they’re more likely to open your email.

So Send Time Optimization will send your email over a 24-hour period at the optimum time for each individual recipient. So that’s just a couple of different ways with how you can, I guess, have control and are able to test and tweak that in that respect. The second thing to point out is that email offers instant buying options. If your holiday revenue isn’t on track so far and you’re trying to fill some of those gaps, email is a really great way to help close some of those gaps.

So whether your subscribers are on mobile or on desktop, they can click a call to action in your email and then be directed directly to a landing page or to your website. And we know as marketers that the fewer steps from, you know, a prospect observing something to actually clicking send or clicking buy, sorry, the better.

And email offers that very, sort of, direct instant buying option. Following on from what Lane mentioned earlier, you know, we know that we’ve seen a rise in people buying online and then picking up in-store, so it’s just another way that you are able to essentially like simplify that message, that process of buying really quickly. The third one to point out is that email fosters, you know, a connection.

So, we know that email shouldn’t be you, as a marketer, talking at your audience. It should be a conversation. And it offers a lot more, I think space and you’ve got a lot more, I guess, real estate to play with in terms of email, to actually talk a lot more genuinely and authentically to your subscribers.

Automation and personalization can make this really easy for you to send hyper-targeted messages to the right subscribers at the right time of day without you, as I said, being on the platform all day trying to manually send everything out. And as I said, the holidays are a really great time for you to connect with your subscribers and communicate your values to them, talking about your brand story, why they chose to do business with you in the first place.

You know, you can talk about some of the behind-the-scenes content, introduce your team. I think the holiday season is a really great way to, sort of, foster brand affinity and also create transparency, which I know is something that an audience is, I think, particularly receptive to these days. The fourth one to point out, we’ll just go back one, yeah, there we go, is that email is probably one of the easiest channels to let you test, tweak, and adapt your strategy.

So whilst it is October, we do still have time and you can definitely test out what is working and what isn’t so you can make sure that the messages that are landing in the inboxes of your subscribers over this period have the highest chance of resonating with them. So in Campaign Monitor, for example, we have a bunch of different A/B testing features where you can test the subject line, the from contact, who it is actually sent from, and the content in the email itself.

So you can look at dynamic content, where you can swap out blocks of content for different subscribers and see what performs really well. So you can do that. That’s automatic testing. You can also do it manually if you wish. So you can send out different emails to different segments, see what really performs well, and then make sure that the emails that are getting sent out to your wider audience are going to have the highest chance of resonating with them.

So that is email marketing more broadly. But Lane, I’ll throw it to you to talk a little bit more about how you can think about it in terms of the holiday season.

– Yes, okay. First of all, I love what you said about how email is not just you talking at your audience, that is, it’s about a conversation. And to me, that, sort of, wraps up in a bow exactly what all marketers should be aiming for. And on that note, I’m going to cover four themes that I think we can all keep in mind as we’re building our email marketing strategies, and then we’ll jump into some examples.

So the first theme is human connection. Now more than ever, given everything that’s happened this year, everything that is continuing to happen, empathy matters. And your messages, as simple as it seems, should be written as if they’re coming from a human to other humans. And they should have an emphasis on building relationships.

And of course, you need to make sales, but we know that consumers prefer to engage with brands that share their values. So as you’re figuring out what your sales strategy emails are, also take time to get to know your audience and then let them get to know the human side of your brand as well. The second tenet to keep in mind is value. So obviously, the value and the price of your products and services have always mattered.

But this year, consumers are going to be more price-conscious than ever. So think about how you can offer incentives or promos to attract first-time buyers, and then don’t forget about your repeat buyers. Think about things like extra perks or loyalty rewards to keep them coming back. The third thing to keep in mind is consistency.

So whether it’s content, branding, promotions that are coming through email, they should all reflect the same brand. And when customers see your website, your store, your social media platform, they should be able to identify it immediately as your brand. And also think about, we know that these customers are going to be coming into your brick and mortar store, so how can you create a cohesive and consistent branding experience from the digital to the physical space?

That’s going to be key. And then jumping to our last point here, personalization. So consumers expect it. It’s really no longer even a negotiable. And you are collecting data that really allows you to figure out what your subscribers need and what they want, and then create content and emails that meet them where they are.

And that’s huge, you can suggest relevant products, solutions, content, even start that conversation, a back-and-forth by asking for reviews with your loyal subscribers. Overall, the right data just is going to let you connect with your subscribers on a personal level and then give you that feeling of one-to-one communication and that human connection.

So let’s take it from the theoretical to the real-life and look at some examples.

– Awesome, all righty. So, we are going to, as Lane said, jump into a few examples. These are examples from brands all over the world. And what we wanted to do was just point out what we really liked about these emails and then hopefully giving you some tips about how you could apply it to your own strategy.

So we’re going to, sort of, run by it in terms of themes. The first theme being Christmas and Thanksgiving. So, the example here that we have on the left is from Project Transformation which is nonprofit. And it’s a Thanksgiving example, where what they’ve actually done on that top half there is feature a video where they have children and volunteers chatting about what they’re really thankful for this season relating to the cause that they’re promoting as well.

People love to engage with videos. You know, I think it really brings through that personal storytelling touch that we were talking about earlier. One thing to point out though with videos and emails is it can be a little bit tricky embedding it directly into your email design just because different inbox providers. So, you know, your Gmails and your Outlooks, they can render the videos differently, and sometimes there can be issues with consistency.

So what we, at Campaign Monitor would recommend you do instead is, I think it’s what they’ve essentially done here is you take a screenshot of the video and maybe include like a play button over the top of that picture. And then link the image to wherever you have the video hosted, whether that be on your website or a different video hosting platform. So when they click the image, they’re taken directly to the video.

That would be our recommendation there.

– Yeah, Kate, that makes so much sense too because then you get your audience on your website where they can continue to interact with whatever CTAs you have within there. So that’s great.

– It’s a double win.

– Yes. And I wanted to just point out some things in this email example from Mad Paws. Mad Paws is a Campaign Monitor customer that actually is a pet sitting platform based in Sydney. And I think they are nailing this idea of the human element here by putting an actual face to the people behind their brand. So that top photo is them all volunteering at a beach cleanup day on Christmas.

And then it also goes into thanking their customers for a great year. And to me, this really underscores the idea of building long-term customer relationships with your email communication. And I think it’s important for all of us, even as we’re thinking about sales and revenue during this season, to also think about how we can show genuine gratitude to our community, to our audience, to the people who make our business possible.

And I also wanted to mention, these two examples are from Christmas and Thanksgiving. But just wanted to flag that not everybody celebrates the same holidays. And whether that’s because they’re in a different region or of a different religion, it’s really important to think through how to create an inclusive experience. And if that is something that’s new to you or you just want some more inspiration, Campaign Monitor does have some great holiday templates that run the gamut.

So definitely check those out.

– Awesome. All right, so the next ones we wanted to chat about is Black Friday, which I know or I believe I think is traditionally more of a U.S. holiday, but I think every year it seems to be spreading around the world. I know in Australia, the last couple of years, it’s definitely become more of a thing. And I expect that to increase. You’ve got Black Friday and then obviously Cyber Monday as well.

The example on the left here, AllSaints, it’s a pretty standard email, but I think it’s incredibly effective. You know, you have the very clear value-driven message of 30% off everything, and by saying, you know, everything is ending soon, you’re making sure to drive urgency and encourage subscribers to click through and get engaged with your sale sooner rather than later.

The example has some great ideas around personalization. So the different clothing items that you can see there, you know, you could personalize that depending on your subscribers’ attributes, maybe, you know, whether they’re male or female or their interests. You know, if you know things about the different buying behaviors of your subscribers you could actually personalize that gift guide or the recommendations around shopping e-commerce-wise to those behaviors.

One area in terms of a feature in Campaign Monitor that could be quite useful for these sorts of emails, it is available just to our Unlimited and Premier customers, is the Countdown Timer which is a feature we launched late last year, I believe. And essentially what it means is you can drag this Countdown Timer into the drag-and-drop builder into your email design, and it’ll be live counting down to a particular date or time that you have set.

So no matter when your subscribers open the email, that timer will be live. And it’s again, a great way to drive urgency for these sorts of value-driven emails.

– Yeah, but I’m so glad you mentioned that idea of driving urgency and the ways that you can do that in email because that is so important during this sale event that honestly is quite urgent and quite exciting and we want to emphasize that. And so Lululemon, which is the other example here does that well too. And this email actually is sent on a Sunday, so at the end of the weekend.

And they are making sure that their subscribers are taking advantage of these great deals and don’t miss out. And of course, it’s also a great way for them to generate some last-minute sales. And Kate, you stole my thought about personalization because I’m looking at this email and also thinking that they could make this even more effective by pulling in some personalization and segmentation and sending their subscribers only the types of products that they’re interested in.

So maybe it’s yoga pants for one subscriber and loungewear for another. That’s me, more of a loungewear person. But yeah, and anybody could really do this by updating your segments and integrating with your CRM. So you could get that personalization without doing a ton of extra legwork. And we know that that would then increase engagement and ultimately conversions.

– Awesome. The next one we wanted to run through was Small Business Saturday. And I know this is again, a particular holiday or a particular event that is becoming more and more popular each year. The example on the left, Books Are Magic, it is a small bookstore in Brooklyn.

And what I really like about this email is, you know, the design is not, you know, groundbreaking by any means. I actually really like the fact that they had the letter format, you know, just the plain text in that middle third of the email because it feels really personal. It feels like almost like the owner of the bookstore or, you know, the manager of the bookstore is writing to you personally.

So I think there is quite a lot of value in keeping your design simple when you’re trying to send a more thoughtful or heartfelt personal message rather than going overload with colors, and design, and whatnot. So yeah, I think that’s a really great way. In this example, they’re, sort of, talking about, you know, why you should shop small. You’ve also got the example down the bottom there where they talk about donating a percentage of the profits from Small Business Saturday to a local nonprofit.

So again, another way to, sort of, display your values and encourage your subscribers to engage with the business on this particular day.

– Yeah, and Girlboss, the other example here is doing something very similar. So, Girlboss is a publisher but they’re celebrating Small Business Saturday by highlighting women-owned businesses for their subscribers to shop and support, which is amazing. And even though they’re not specifically trying to drive their own revenue with this email, they’re building relationships with their subscribers.

They’re doing that by supporting their community and connecting readers with organizations that they’ll love. And honestly, I think that’s such a good reminder for all organizations during the holidays and especially during Small Business Saturday, that weekend, to share the love and draw attention to causes that you care about, because creating transparency into what matters to your organization will help not only drive revenue in the long-term but also increase your customer’s lifetime value through increasing their loyalty.

And I think speaking of good causes, Giving Tuesday is another big holiday during this time period. And Outdoor Voices is a retailer that for Giving Tuesday in this example, they created a T-shirt that directly benefits the ACLU. And then this specific product is what they’re showing subscribers in this email. But we know it will then drive subscribers to their website where, let’s be honest, you’re going to check out with more than just a T-shirt, I know I would.

And it’s a great perk also for people who are looking to do some good and also knock out some of their holiday shopping. So, another great example of tying together a cause that you believe in and bringing your subscribers into your effort to support that cause.

– Awesome. I apologize if there is some background noise. We are still working from home and I think there is a street cleaner outside my room at the moment. So I apologize for the noise. The example here on the right-hand side, the Australian Red Cross, obviously nonprofits, you know, Giving Tuesday is a really big deal and a really important milestone in the calendar to drive donations.

The Australian Red Cross is actually a customer of Campaign Monitor. And what I really love about the email that they had done here is they’ve included a really personal story about a particular family who was positively impacted by a search and rescue effort that I believe happened in Vanuatu. And I think, you know, in terms of nonprofit marketing, we know that a personal story, talking about just one person or one family is more likely to resonate than, for example, you know, using statistics or a report.

It’s going to be, I think, a better way for you to connect with your subscribers and compel them to give to your nonprofit on a day like Giving Tuesday.

– Awesome. And I also wanted to call out some examples that weren’t exactly holiday-specific but they’re time of year-specific. And in this case, it’s the idea of a gift guide and year-in-review. So I’ll start with the gift guide. This is coming from Aesop. And first of all, I think this design is stunning, the images they’re using, the color palette there is beautiful.

It’s highly branded. If you know the Aesop brand, you know that this is completely in line with their aesthetic. But it’s also incredibly helpful. So I personally get quite overwhelmed by holiday shopping. So putting together a gift guide is a really nice way to help people provide a one-stop-shop for knocking out all of your gifts and at the same time driving revenue for your business.

And I especially like in this gift guide that they’ve broken out their gift categories by price. So something else to think about here if you’re doing a gift guide is including added incentives like bundling items and getting a discount or even providing a free gift when customers reach a certain threshold in their shopping basket just to bring in more conversions right away.

And then the other example here is from Nisolo. So Nisolo is a fashion retailer based here in Nashville. And their year-in-review not only covers what Nisolo has accomplished but also what has gone on in their industry. And so they are talking about how they’ve made social good a part of their core values and talking about how over the course of the year they’ve made good on that promise to their subscribers.

And they’re being incredibly transparent about what they’ve accomplished. So I think an email like this, the, sort of, year-in-review wrap-up really inspires loyalty and it inspires people to spend more with their organization just because they can see that that money is being put to good use and they want to continue supporting that.

So again, bringing in the, sort of, core values of the brand and making that clear to your subscribers.

– Yeah, I love that. And yeah, following along on the theme around connecting with your subscribers, thank you emails, obviously, these are emails that can be sent all year-round, whether it’s a transactional email after someone has made a purchase or a one-off email. I think they’re going to resonate particularly well over this time period, especially as we come to the end of 2020 which we know has been a particularly arduous year for many.

So the example on the left-hand side here from Gymshark essentially is a personal email, a personal, sort of, message where they talk about their appreciation for their customers who have gotten them to where they are today. I think, as I said, in this particularly difficult year, customers really appreciate or subscribers really appreciate you being quite genuine and transparent about that as long as, you know, you’re making sure that, you know, that message is really authentic.

The example from Blume on the right-hand side I think is more of a transactional email I believe which is sent after, you know, you’ve purchased a particular item. And it’s talking about, you know, why they appreciate their customers so much and by purchasing with them, what sort of causes you’d be supporting by doing that.

So again, you’re, sort of, talking about your values. And then hopefully, you know, reminding a subscriber, you know, once they purchase something, why they’ve done that and then hopefully incentivizing them to purchase or shop with you again in the future. Yes, all right. So I think that’s the end of the examples. What we wanted to do now is just quickly talk about some more tactical things that you can do, reasonably minor things that you can just keep top of mind during this period that is often going to make quite a significant impact to the results of your strategy.

So the first one being subject lines. You know, we all know that great content is awesome, but it’s not particularly relevant if your subscribers don’t open that email. So to do that, you’re going to need some pretty stellar subject lines over this period to stand out in a crowded inbox. I feel like we all know that.

Or just to go back one more, one thing to keep in mind though is that preheader text is something that not everyone thinks about. I know it’s optional. You don’t always have to add it, but I would always recommend to think about your preheader text as much as your subject line just because preheader text allows you to entice your subscribers before…it gives you a little bit more space to entice subscribers before the message gets cut off.

One thing as well to consider, if it aligns with your brand, you know, tone and guidelines, consider adding emojis to your subject line or test it out. We know that in some cases, emojis can lead to an increase of about 45% in open rate. So definitely something to test over the holiday period if it aligns with your brand.

What I wanted to do is just show you a couple of examples from the ones that we mentioned earlier and just talk about some of their subject lines and, you know, why we like them. “A creative guide to giving,” from Aesop. You know, it’s really short, it’s to the point, it’s enticing, and, you know, sort of, makes me want to, you know, read on. The one from Nisolo says, “2019 was a defining year for Nisolo and the fashion industry. Here’s why.”

It is quite a long subject line, which, you know, for some might perform as well, but I love how it’s almost like an invitation to learn more. It’s really intriguing and it just is a little bit different to other subject lines you might see in your inbox. So I love that example. And the last one from Gymshark, the thank you email. They’ve got the emoji there, so bonus points.

And it’s short, snappy, you know, it says, “Sappy email warning.” I like that that’s a little bit cheeky. It’s obviously in line with their brand. So yeah, another great example of a subject line there. The next one I believe is call to action. Lane, do you want to chat about that?

– Yeah, I’ll take this, but I do have to say that I am a sucker for an emoji in a subject line. I will open it every time. So two thumbs up on that. But yeah, talking about call-to-action buttons. So one of the best ways to see conversions through emails is to make your call-to-action buttons as obvious as possible. And that means including bold calls to action that stand out and really grab the attention of your reader even while they’re skimming your messages, which they are probably skimming your messages.

Remember to keep your text short and use contrasting colors that pop against the rest of your email design. And keep your button about 44 pixels wide and 44 pixels tall at a minimum because any smaller and it might be hard for your readers to tap it on their smartphones. Campaign Monitor actually makes this really easy to do. We have drag-and-drop builder that has preset call-to-action buttons that you can pull in, see what you like, test to see what your audience responds to.

And then when readers do click your calls to action, you’re going to want to lead them directly to a page that you promised in the email. So a great CTA is going to make it clear where subscribers can expect to go once they click. And then a good landing page is going to reassure subscribers that they’re in the right place. So that’s a bit of brand consistency and a bit of just fulfilling the promise that you give them in the email.

So let’s take a look at some of those earlier emails and just see how they made their CTAs stand out. So as you can see, they’re all highlighted here, they all have CTAs that pop, they’re short, they’re sweet, they’re to the point, and they’re all surrounded by ample whitespace as well. So they stand out and they’re really easy to click or tap. But the best thing about CTAs, actually the best thing about email in general is that you don’t have to guess what’s going to work for your audience.

You really can test it. So we highly recommend just playing around with these different variables and seeing what works best for your audience. Because something as simple as just changing the color of your CTAs can help you drive more revenue right away.

– Awesome, yeah. I so agree with what you’re saying about making sure those CTAs are using like action words, like give, or donate now, or read on. Like, I think that really encourages users or subscribers to take an action. So a really good point there. The last one we wanted to point out which I know we have on a lot about as email marketers is deliverability.

So it’s obviously important all year round. You want to make sure that your emails have the best chance of actually landing in the inbox of your subscribers. But it’s particularly important over the holiday period, where you know that your email marketing strategy needs to work really, really hard. So what I’d recommend is just take a moment and take a step back before the holiday season is, sort of, in full gear and make sure that you’re doing everything you can to ensure that your deliverability best practices are in check.

So if you haven’t already, make sure that your domain is authenticated, which is a technical process. Campaign Monitor makes it really easy to make sure that inbox providers know that it is you as a brand that is sending that email and that it is not likely to be spam. So we have a bunch of resources on Campaign Monitor around domain authentication.

We actually have a whole webinar on it. So check out our website, our blogs, and tutorial resources to learn more about that. Some other things that you can do for deliverability is to review your list. So make sure that your subscribers are engaging with your newsletters or with your emails and then consider pruning or actually removing subscribers who have not engaged with your emails over a long period of time.

There’s no point sending to those subscribers if they’re not choosing to engage. You know, you can consider launching a re-engagement campaign to remind them, but then after that point, definitely recommend, sort of, pruning that list to make sure that you’ve got a really engaged list. The last thing I would recommend would be to reevaluate or just consider your send frequency.

You don’t want to go from sending, you know, not that frequently to all of a sudden sending dozens and dozens of emails. That is a, sort of, surefire way to having some deliverability problems. And we know that subscribers are most likely to unsubscribe when that frequency is just getting too much. So keep it consistent.

Just because it’s the holiday period, it doesn’t mean you should just, sort of, have a drastic change in the number of emails that you’re sending. I think it’s very much, should be about quality over quantity in that respect. All righty, so that is pretty much all of the content pretty much wrapped up. But what we wanted to do before we finish is just give you a bit of a sneak peek as a thank you for joining us today of some of the holiday email templates that are actually launching in Campaign Monitor for our drag-and-drop builder in the next couple of weeks.

So you’ve got templates for a year-in-review, you’ve got a Thanksgiving template, an e-commerce shopping-type template. This obviously complements our existing template library that has dozens of really beautifully designed and easy-to-use templates that you can swap out your brand, and your text, images, etc. But hopefully, this will, sort of, help you get a little bit more inspiration for some additional designs for your emails this holidays.

And with that, I will throw it back to you, Lane.

– Thanks. Yeah, I just wanted to recap and remind everybody that the takeaway here is if your holiday strategy isn’t delivering the results that you wanted or even if it is, there is always opportunity, even in 2020, to adapt and tweak so that it can drive revenue and impact for your business.

And email is the channel that is the absolute best for testing, for tweaking, for figuring out what works best for your audience. And that way you can drive short-term impact during the holiday season, but also build those long-term relationships that are ultimately so important to your business. And if you need an email platform that can help with that, of course, Campaign Monitor is always here for you.

– Awesome. So just with that, final few housekeeping notes from us. As I mentioned at the beginning of the webinar, expect to receive an email from us in the next couple of days. We’ll have the recording as well as a bunch of different notes and some answers to your questions. And finally, as you close off this webinar today, there should be a short survey that will pop up.

If you do have a couple of minutes, we would really appreciate it if you could fill it out. It’s definitely got a question there around additional content or topics that you’d like us to cover in the future. So we would love to hear your ideas in that respect. So definitely fill that out. And with that, I think we’re all wrapped up. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Lane.

– Thanks, Kate. Thanks, everyone.

– Okay, guys.