Email is also a way to reach your most engaged customers since they have opt-in to hear from you. Inboxes never stop bursting but the holidays are a time when your customers will be dipping into their inbox for offers and gifts.

How to create a holiday email plan, some suggestions and examples for your emails, and how to make the most of each email.

What You Should Have for Your Holiday Email Plan

Whether you already have a mailing list or you are launching your own, email is a powerful marketing strategy especially over the holidays. Make sure to collect mailing list subscribers as soon as possible: The sooner you get started, the more people you will have sent holiday advertising to.

Make sure to include a marketing opt-in form for visitors to subscribe to your other contact forms and checkout page. Or even request for subscription in a pop-up or footer. Giving a promo code to new subscribers is also a great idea.

You’re more likely to be noticed as a smaller brand and company in inboxes. In planning all kinds of sales tactics — events, offers, news — email will be a way that consumers can receive your news and you will be sending them straight to your website to purchase.

How to schedule your holiday email campaign.

Setting up an email marketing campaign may seem like a mountain to climb. But if you pre-plan, it will not interfere with your other marketing campaigns. Be a guide and start with your general Christmas holiday intentions and research.

1. Set email-specific goals. Do you aim for email opens, website visitors, email subscribers’ sales, or all three? Do you have a certain sales or products that you would like to drive? Does it take any longer than email you’ve had?
2. Narrow in on your audience. Who are you going to send emails to? It can be different types such as abandoned cart, returning customer, and new customer. Every category can be subject of different emails.
3. Create a calendar. Once you know what to promote and who, you can decide which emails to send and when. Squarespace Email Campaigns for instance has a Black Friday playbook with copy and send dates that you can insert into your calendar. Schedule all your dates out so you have time to send emails.
4. Keep timing in mind. If you send emails at certain times and/or frequency, whether people read them or not will depend on how frequently you do it. This might be an experiment, but choose daytime/holiday-snap times that work well for you.
5. Hook your subscribers. When it comes to email copywriting, make sure to include eye-catching subject lines to increase opens and do not send long email copy. — Concentrate on the primary product or message, the customer value and the CTA driving to your store.
6. Tailor it to your brand. Consistent brand imagery and messaging communicate subtly signals that reassure your customers they’ve known your brand, and harness the trust they’ve already earned in you. Always personalize your email to your brand and voice so it sounds natural and natural.

Email Campaigns is for you if you’re confused as to what emails to send or how to structure your email copy. Email Campaigns has editable design templates, such as for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and other promotional moments that fall on holidays, and Squarespace’s AI writer to write draft copy.

Holiday email campaign ideas

There are a few big holiday moments that any business should prepare for with email marketing: Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the weekend in between where the majority of customers will be shopping at small businesses.

But shoppers might start shopping for Christmas gifts even in October. And in an active season, try calling during inboxes that aren’t so full.

• Gift guides and tips: Great to send over the holiday season. Include hot products or gift items such as subscriptions and bundles to make your store stand out.
• Discounts and deals: People are expecting the discounts during Black Friday weekend and major holidays but if you offer discounts other times you can get noticed from the rest.
• Special deals: Treat your customers like VIPs with exclusive products, discounts, or deals only for email subscribers or return customers.
• Last minute deals: Add urgency with last minute deals such as a one day 20% off code after someone has abandoned their cart or free shipping on any order just for the weekend.
• Post-holiday follow-up: Reach out after the holidays with “Buy one, get one” promotions or “treat yourself” offers to take advantage of shoppers who are still wanting to shop for themselves or others.
• Share a story: Because you’re a small business, you’re on the ground floor. Email with an end of year recap, your brand story or your best-selling products to get sales and engagement.

When you’re able to send emails is going to be depending on who’s reading it and what you’re conveying. Look at when messages have worked for you in the past. And if you’re not sure, ask your own advice — you know your customers.

Email templates for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Get people excited before your big sales push or major holiday times by sending several emails. This can help in times of high season when shopping for the holidays is extremely popular, and inboxes get overloaded.

For Black Friday/ Cyber Monday weekend, here’s an example of an email plan.

• 3–5 days out: Create excitement with an email teasing your sale. Take the time to promote bestselling products and send people to shop in your store.
• Black Friday: Email on Black Friday about your sale and bestselling items, link takes people to your site.
• Cyber Monday: Create an email on Monday reminding customers of their special offer and highlighting hot or sale items.
• 1-3 days later: Email an extension of your promotion or announcing its closing time. Add urgency by promoting out-of-stock items or saying that it’s the last day to buy this deal.

No one needs a lot of content to get your emails to work, just the ones that showcase the items you already sell and drive subscribers to your shop. In order to get started, Squarespace has customizable templates for this exact series of emails in Email Campaigns.

What is your holiday email performance and how can you tell?

We recommend you check performance after any email you send out to your list. Review within 3 to 7 days of sending so your recipients have time to read and take action.

You don’t need to go through the performance every single time, but do look at these data points.

• Open Rate: What is the ratio of how many people opened your email? This is how you know if people are reading what you’re posting and if your subject lines are working. Depending on your niche, 17-28 percent is a decent open rate.
• Clickthrough: Whether subscribers are engaging in the CTA/products in your email is the best way to know whether or not they are eager for what you have in store. A good click rate will be anywhere from 2-5%, depending on your niche.
• Conversion: Whether people convert on your ideal action (say purchasing a product) will tell you if the value pitch is taking off.
• Unsubscribes: It’s a good sign if your emails are of interest to your followers. Some unsubscribes are okay, but monitor for peaks.

You’ll eventually come to know what’s normal for your own mailing list subscribers and you can use that to set expectations for subsequent emails. Opens and clicks in your holiday advertising will help you learn which subject lines and products appeal to your subscribers the most, and replicate that to future emails.

Also, you can also get your emails answered if you have the time to keep track of them. This is another way to enlist your customers in giving you feedback and will help you uncover customer requests or problems.