With the holiday shopping season just around the corner, now is the time that organizations are thinking about how they’ll leverage email marketing this year.
Why? Because they know that email is still one of the best ways to reach customers, donors, and fans–and it drives spending. The National Retail Federation expects retail sales in November and December to increase a solid 3.6 percent to $655.8 billion. Online sales are forecast to increase between 7 and 10 percent over last year to as much as $117 billion.
To help you make the most of this opportunity we’ve gathered 10 email templates you can customize this holiday season for a variety of different purposes. Let’s take a look at what they are and how you can use them to get great results.
Holiday email promotions
Promotional emails are extremely important during the holiday season and are crucial for driving revenue.
So which templates can help you send polished, professional-looking, conversion-driven emails?
1. Customizing a template like this one, you can prominently feature your discount or promotional offer–and putting a time limit on the offer helps create a sense of urgency to act. From here, shoppers can easily browse products and are directed to your online store in the matter of a few clicks.
2. This template also promotes your offer within the hero image–which can help grab the reader’s eye. Aside from a percentage off discount, you should also consider a promotion around free shipping, as MarketingLand recently reported that 9 out of 10 consumers said free shipping was their number one incentive for increased online shopping and the importance of free shipping to holiday shoppers jumped from 34% to 42% in 2015.
3. A highly visual promotional email like this one helps shoppers browse products by category and quickly find the items they’re looking for–and allows you to promote product-specific discounts and sales. With a clean layout and clear CTA buttons, this template is conversion-centric in that it makes shopping ultra-easy.
Black Friday & Cyber Monday email promotions
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest online shopping days of the year. In fact, Black Friday & Thanksgiving 2015 alone brought in $4.45B in online sales–so it makes sense that marketers leverage email to promote deals centered around these two days. On Black Friday, email marketing generated the most sales with 25.1% of the share. Social media was only responsible for a mere 1.6% of sales on Black Friday.
But that’s not all: In 2015, 48% of traffic came from mobile devices. According to Movable Ink, a whopping 76% of Black Friday emails and 63% of Cyber Monday emails were opened on a mobile device. Translation: Your holiday emails need to be built with mobile-friendly templates.
Let’s look at a few templates that work well for Black Friday and Cyber Monday email promotions.
4. A template like this one with a bold hero image and product features with a clean, distraction-free background make it easy for subscribers to quickly discover deals and deploy a coupon code. Paired with an open-worthy subject line that promotes your Black Friday or Cyber Monday deal, you can quickly spur purchases via email.
5. This visual email template enables you to promote products or deals by category without creating clutter that distracts the reader. Plus: With the coupon code offer at the bottom, you can entice shoppers with one more reason to act now on your Black Friday or Cyber Monday deal.
6. If you need a template that’s ultra-simple for your Black Friday or Cyber Monday deal, this template is a perfect fit. A single, centrally located CTA button with your discount gives readers only one option for taking action–and the single conversion path leaves no room for distraction or decision fatigue.
Holiday contests
Aside from promotions and deals, some brands use the holiday season to run contests that encourage engagement and helps collect important user data. Participants get the chance to win a prize, and for the business, these contests can help build out customer profiles and improve customer journeys down the road, too.
7. Using this customizable, mobile-friendly template, you can send a personalized invite to subscribers that encourages them to participate in a holiday-themed sweepstakes, contest, or giveaway. An image, concise copy, and a clear call to action that makes it fast and easy for your audience to participate.
#GivingTuesday
#GivingTuesday is a campaign focused on charitable giving during the holiday season–and last year, over 700,000 people in over 70 countries gave more than $116M on this day. Sending an email to garner donations is a win-win.
8. This year, #GivingTuesday falls on November 29th– an email template like this one works well for encouraging donations on this day of holiday giving. By highlighting the date of the campaign and using a central call to action button that makes donating online simple, you give your donors and advocates a quick and easy outlet for supporting your cause.
Gift guides
Putting together curated gift guides for your subscribers during the holidays can be helpful for those who are struggling to find the right present for a friend or loved one.
9. This template allows you to feature images and copy in a clean, mobile-friendly format (and would be a good fit for an email promoting a gift guide.) Using this layout, you can share images and brief summaries about your collections of curated items–and help your subscribers find the perfect gift.
Holiday events
If you’re hosting a holiday event to get some face time in with clients and customers, an email that helps collect RSVPs can be a great way to gauge interest while also spreading the word.
10. Event email templates like this one help you promote your holiday event. If nothing else, these emails are good for keeping you top-of-mind with your audience and show that you’re engaged and spreading holiday cheer.
Wrap up
With well-designed email templates, you can send holiday campaigns that not only drive revenue all season long.
Just remember: It’s a good idea to start planning your holiday email strategy sooner rather than later and harness the power of email marketing for your business.