This article will examine the typical gap between marketers' expectations and what customers want from Christmas email campaigns. You'll discover strategies to align your holiday emails with customer preferences, boost engagement, and ensure a memorable festive season for your audience.
Do you think your Christmas emails hit the mark? Think again! While preparing this article, we noticed a striking disconnect between what marketers send and what subscribers want during the holiday season. Based on a revealing survey of marketing professionals and expert insights, we unpack the secrets to aligning your holiday email campaigns with customer expectations.
Get ready to redefine your approach and connect with your audience during the holiday season.
Survey results
In our previous article on Christmas email campaigns, we surveyed what people expected to receive for the holidays. We invite you to find out what your fellow marketers sent this year and last year, so we asked 50 specialists about their campaigns. Thank you all for participating in the survey!
Now let's compare the results — what readers wanted the most vs. what they found in their inboxes.
Survey results
|
Type of email |
How many subscribers expected it |
How many marketers sent it |
|
Offer with a discount or bonus |
70% |
24% |
|
Personalized review for the year |
5% |
28% |
|
Fun in the form of a game |
10% |
5% |
|
Greeting card |
15% |
48% |
|
1 email instead of a series of emails |
59.1% |
63% |
The time of receipt
|
Time |
How many subscribers expected it |
How many marketers sent it |
|
2 weeks before the holiday |
31.8% |
24% |
|
3 days before the holiday |
54.5% |
24% |
|
on Christmas day |
13.6% |
24% |
Furthermore, 16% of marketers sent emails at the beginning of December, and 12% sent them during Christmas Eve days.
The gap between subscribers' expectations and reality
We examined the gap between what subscribers expected from brands during the holiday season and what they received from email marketing campaigns.
Our survey results on subscribers' expectations and marketer responses were mixed:
- 70% of subscribers strongly desired holiday discounts, but only 24% of marketers included discounts in their campaigns;
- 10% of respondents expressed interest in receiving interactive entertainment content and game-based emails, but only 5% of marketers incorporated gamified elements;
- personalized reviews and greeting cards were less appealing than anticipated — only 15% of subscribers wanted to receive holiday cards, highlighting a stronger interest in discounts than greetings;
- both groups wanted to receive a single Christmas email over multiple ones.
Based on the survey results, the perfect Christmas email should blend holiday cheer, festive designs, themed games, and a compelling offer. It also should be sent one to two weeks before Christmas Day for the best effect.
The survey indicates that early December is too soon for holiday emails, and Christmas Day is too late, as people typically celebrate with their loved ones and seldom check their email. It's advisable to begin email campaigns with attractive offers ahead of time, but without incorporating a holiday-themed design.
To sum up, the ideal Christmas email combines holiday spirit with festive designs, themed games, and an attractive offer. For optimal impact, send it one to two weeks before Christmas Day.
In addition to the survey, we spoke with email marketers from Pokupon.ua, 11 Agency, Stripo, and TruffleShuffle Media, all of whom launched holiday email campaigns this year and last year. We asked them to share insights and conclusions from these campaigns, and to discuss important aspects to consider when preparing.
Diversifying holiday newsletters and standing out
Standing out during the holiday season can be tough, with so many brands vying for consumers’ attention. However, the secret lies in personalization, authentic storytelling, and top-notch design. Let’s dive into how email marketers make their newsletters unforgettable.
Understanding audience preferences
Regular surveys, campaign analysis, and audience segmentation are vital for identifying content that resonates with readers. Gathering feedback through forms in emails helps measure how engaging, useful, and informative the content is. This continuous feedback loop ensures that newsletters are tailored to the audience’s interests, fostering better engagement and loyalty.
Strengthening brand connection
Newsletters should go beyond promotions by demonstrating genuine affection for subscribers through heartfelt and beautifully designed holiday greetings. Emotional connections strengthen the brand’s image and help maintain a loyal reader base.
We know our readers well and understand what content is potentially interesting and useful to them. We do this through regular content surveys, analysis of previous campaigns, and segmentation. We also have a form in each email where users mark how interesting, useful, and informative the email was. It's crucial to demonstrate affection for your users. To achieve this, we make it a point to extend heartfelt holiday greetings to them in a beautiful and engaging manner.
Oleksandr Dieiev,
(Source: Happy New Year email from Stripo)
Creating tailored content
Understanding a client’s brand ethos and analyzing customer data enable creation of highly relevant and personalized newsletters. Personalized content resonates more deeply with the audience, increasing engagement and trust in the brand.
Standing out with unique elements
Craft unique narratives and use creative storytelling and premium visuals to capture attention. Integrate newsletters seamlessly with an overall marketing strategy to ensure consistency. A bespoke approach that aligns with brand messaging sets newsletters apart from those of competitors and enhances their appeal.
Our approach to diversifying newsletters involves a deep dive into each client's brand ethos and customer data. We create tailored content that resonates with their specific audience. To stand out, we focus on crafting unique narratives, employing high-quality visuals, and ensuring seamless integration with the client's overall marketing strategy. This bespoke approach sets our clients apart from their competitors.
Raymond Chen,
Popular types of newsletters for Christmas and New Year’s campaigns
Another important aspect concerns what types of newsletters email marketers send to their subscribers for Christmas and New Year’s and why they choose these types. Let's examine how different types of emails are designed.
Annual reviews and reports
Many email marketers — such as experts from Stripo and Pokupon — included annual reviews of user activity and performance reports in their holiday emails. These were designed to engage readers by showcasing statistics and milestones, often wrapped in a festive design to align with the season. This type of content was chosen to provide value while strengthening the brand's connection with its audience.
(Source: Annual review of Stripo users)
Each year, we send a final review to each individual user, but in the past, this email used to underperform because of a lack of direct personalization for the client. There was no number of coupons or amount of money saved. However, we added specific statistics showing the savings our customers have made. As a result, the OR increased from 14% in 2022 to 17% in 2023.
Valeria Kalashnikova,
(Source: Annual review of Pokupon.ua users)
Greeting cards and themed digests
Festive greeting cards and themed digests were also popular choices. These emails featured holiday messages, top articles, and curated content, including the best templates or resources from the year. The purpose was to maintain engagement during declining activity by delivering visually appealing and creative newsletters.
Special offers and discounts
Agencies like 11 Agency focused on promotional campaigns highlighting discounts and bonuses tailored to their clients’ audiences. These campaigns aimed to drive sales and foster customer loyalty, as festive deals are particularly effective in converting subscribers during the holiday season.
Focusing on one client in particular who experienced significant improvements in the 2022 year, our refined strategies for the 2023 year led to even more impressive results. For this client, we observed a 13% increase in conversion rates directly attributable to the email campaigns. Most notably, the revenue generated from our email marketing efforts showed a robust growth of 21%.
Raymond Chen,
(Source: A promotional email from 11 Agency)
Regional and personalized recommendations
Brands like Pokupon.ua curated holiday-specific offers based on regional preferences and past customer behavior. By providing tailored entertainment, relaxation, and holiday preparation recommendations, they increased relevance and improved click-through rates (CTR) by 2%.
(Source: Email from Pokupon.ua)
Festive enhancements to existing formats
Alongside innovative formats, some marketers focused on enhancing their traditional email types’ visual appeal. Adding festive colors and creative touches helped differentiate these emails from regular promotional content and ensured better engagement during the holiday season.
Personalized savings statistics
Personalization played a significant role in improving engagement. For example, Pokupon.ua included detailed statistics on customer savings in their annual reviews, which led to a rise in open rates (OR), from 14% to 17%. Highlighting individual benefits made the emails more compelling and appreciated among subscribers.
(Source: Annual review of Pokupon.ua users)
This year, I sent a variety of different types of emails but also made sure that all automation was checked, working, and amended to whatever the offering was. The most successful type of email was text-based, which brought roughly a 25% increase in sales compared to a more traditional promotional email you would expect to receive.
Trying new types of holiday emails
Experts told us about new types of holiday emails that they tried this and the previous holiday seasons, why they tried them, and the results.
Top articles and templates
Emails highlighting the year's top articles and email templates were introduced as a new holiday format. The main purpose was to test fresh content that could offer added value to readers and encourage engagement beyond regular digests.
Results: Open rates (OR) increased by 10% compared with standard digest emails, confirming the effectiveness of well-crafted subject lines and engaging content.
Storytelling and visual elements
11 Agency told us that they tried new formats, including story-driven content and visually appealing elements such as GIFs for selected clients. They wanted to align with market trends and meet changing customer preferences by delivering more engaging and dynamic content.
Results: The campaigns elicited a 24% increase in click-through rates (CTR), indicating that storytelling and visuals successfully drove interaction and improved brand perception.
The feedback and performance metrics have been encouraging, showing higher engagement and a positive impact on brand perception. For these campaigns, the average CTR increased by approximately 24%.
Raymond Chen,
Interactive emails and gamification
Pokupon tried a gamified email format with a limited-time promo code, mainly tested during Valentine's Day campaigns. This made the emails more interactive and appealing, using gamification to stand out.
(Source: Christmas game from Pokupon.ua)
Results: Orders in the promoted category increased by 8%, alongside significantly higher OR and CTR, proving the approach's effectiveness in driving both engagement and conversions.
in orders thanks to the subject line and gamification.
Special note: How to make your festive email interactive with ease
You can transform your promotional materials into captivating, game-like experiences with Stripo's interactive module generator. This tool allows you to create emails enriched with interactive elements effortlessly, such as quizzes and puzzles, making your communications more engaging and effective, with no coding skills required. You can build games with us through UI and embed them into emails that you design with Stripo, or use it on any other platform with AMP and HTML5 support.
The game module includes an AMP version compatible with Gmail, Yahoo, and FairEmail, providing a rich, interactive experience for devices and email clients that support HTML5 and CSS3, like Apple Mail and Samsung Email. Furthermore, a text fallback version is available for email clients without AMP, HTML5, or CSS3 support, such as certain Outlook applications, thereby ensuring that your email reaches everyone, everywhere.
Remember that the approaches covered in this article are relevant for all holidays except Black Friday. Very soon, it’ll be time to prepare for the next big holiday — Valentine's Day. The best email strategy for this holiday is to combine a themed design, greetings, and a discount. You also can add games with promo codes, compatibility tests, and other entertaining content. You can find more tips on how to send Valentine's Day emails in our article.
Number of emails in holiday series and revenue
Every marketer must face the issue of email frequency’s impact on holiday revenue. Strategies vary widely based on brand identity and market demands, from building momentum with multiple touchpoints to delivering fewer, but highly effective campaigns.
During the interview, experts highlighted the following important points:
- Multiple emails build revenue over time. Marketers who use a series of emails during the holiday season find that it creates a coherent narrative, keeps audiences engaged, and provides multiple opportunities for conversion. Each email serves a specific purpose, such as building anticipation, offering incentives, or issuing a final call to action.
We've found that sending multiple emails in a campaign series generally leads to greater cumulative revenue compared to sending just a single email. Each email in the series serves a specific purpose, whether it's to create anticipation, provide valuable information, offer incentives, or make a final call to action. This strategy maintains consistent engagement with the audience and creates multiple touchpoints for conversion.
Raymond Chen,
Founder and CEO of 11 Agency. - Fewer emails can be highly effective. Sending carefully crafted, but fewer, emails can be just as impactful for some brands as higher volumes of emails. Marketers can achieve strong results with fewer campaigns by focusing on diversity and effectiveness, rather than volume. According to our survey results above, 59.1% of respondents and 63% of email marketers prefer one email instead of a series.
- Results depend on brand and market context: Optimal frequency varies by company. For well-known brands, even a single email can drive significant revenue. For example, one client generated four months' worth of revenue from a single campaign. However, in competitive markets, frequent communication may be necessary to keep the brand in mind and maintain engagement.
I have one client who brought in 4 months worth of revenue from one email. Where others it suits to keep their name in front of the subscribers if there is a lot of competition in that particular market.
Ultimately, the right approach depends on understanding the audience, the brand's positioning, and the market's competitive landscape. Whether it's a single impactful email or a well-planned series, success lies in crafting campaigns that resonate and deliver value.
Wrapping up
Our conversations with marketing professionals from Stripo, 11 Agency, TruffleShuffle Media, and Pokupon.ua provided valuable insights into marketers' diverse holiday email campaign strategies. From festive greetings and special offers to personalized annual reviews, each approach was tailored thoughtfully to meet audience preferences. A recurring theme was the importance of understanding consumer behavior, with strategies evolving based on past performance and current trends.
Our examination of Christmas email campaigns highlights where marketers strive to align with subscriber expectations. While there’s room for improvement, the industry’s growing focus on data-driven decisions and innovative approaches is clear. The big takeaway? Continuous adaptation and personalization are key to crafting impactful and engaging holiday email strategies.
0 comments