Tag Archives: email marketing

Three rules for holiday emails

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One of the projects we’ll be completing this week is crafting holiday greetings for our clients (mainly b-to-b providers) to email to their customers. It’s one of my favorite projects of the year, so here are three rules for sending a great holiday message.

1. Spread cheer!

Share good wishes for your clients to enjoy the holiday season. Keep it general enough that no matter what your customer’s religious or cultural practices, your message will apply and not accidentally offend.

2. Show your personality.

This is a great opportunity to be creative, light-hearted and fun. But that’s not to say that I’m not advocating dancing elves a la Jib-Jab for every company.

Pretty photos or images are a nice way to convey a personality or feeling. One way we’ve done this is sharing images of how our client companies’ hometowns celebrate and bedeck themselves for the holidays.

For Metrics, located in Greenville, NC, we shared a photo and information about how many White House Christmas trees have come from North Carolina. (This year’s is the twelfth.)

For OsoBio, located in Albuquerque, NM, we included photos of the nearby Sandia Mountains and talked about the winter recreation OsoBio employees enjoy there.

These personal touches make a connection with your readers.

3. Thank your customers and look forward to another good year ahead.

It’s a simple formula, really, for what should be a simple message. I just have one don’t, and will hope that common sense and the do’s above will lead you down the right path.

Don’t make a sales pitch.

Don’t talk about your business. Don’t make it educational or informative. Don’t talk about your products or services. The only time this is ok is if you are offering customers a discount or gift of products or services. Otherwise, just don’t go there.

I do think that it’s okay to give folks a reminder of office closures or special holiday hours you’ll be keeping. Otherwise, this email has one purpose: spread holiday cheer and show your gratitude.

Every email is an opportunity.

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I spend a good deal of time managing email campaigns, especially thinking about how recipients will respond to what is being sent.  The HTML email templates we’ve designed for our clients give outbound emails a strong brand identity and visually pleasing way to display content.

The recipients’ experience came to mind when I received an email notification that my auto insurance premium is due at the end of the month.  Here’s a screenshot so you can see what they sent:

My insurance carrier could make this notification a much more pleasant experience for me by moving away from a black and white email with a paragraph of all-caps.

I wish that I could have our designers create a nice branded email template they could use to remind me again who insures my car (something that’s too easy to forget).  I would include a prominent, stylish button that connects me to a login to my account to pay my bill.  The amount due would be in a nice font and a nice color that would make it stand out from the paragraphs of legalese.

Please, make it easier for me to see what matters most.

Every email is an opportunity to continue building your relationship with your audience.  Even the most routine message shouldn’t be overlooked.