9 Holiday Newsletter Tips with Examples

It’s the first of December, and that means one thing: it’s time to throw yourself fully into your holiday marketing. The holiday season is the busiest two months of the year for the majority of retailers, with more shoppers searching online than ever before. It’s vital that you remind your customers regularly about the promotions you’re offering in the run up to Christmas. Below, we've picked out 9 of our top tips for creating the perfect holiday newsletter campaign - we've even included four of our favourite examples from last year to help give you inspiration.
 
 
1. Get festive
It’s time to get in a festive mood. Update your newsletter’s theme to a festive design and include holiday related banners and imagery. 
 
 
2. Variety
It’s important that you keep your newsletters varied, especially if you are sending out more newsletters than you normally would. Customers are likely to become annoyed with multiple emails if they don’t provide different offers or products to previous newsletters that they have received. 
 
 
3. Time it right
Unless you already send out regular newsletters, try not to send newsletters more than once every two weeks - once a week at most. If you already send newsletters, you could increase this to more frequent in the run up to Christmas but make sure not to send so many that your customers become irritated. Remember to send a newsletter on Christmas Day or Boxing Day morning to remind your customers about your Boxing Day sale, and keep your marketing running all the way up to your New Year’s Day sale.
 
 
4. Tempt shoppers in with deals
Advertise your very best deals on your newsletters to encourage customers to click through to your site. If your sale is only short, remember to push the fact that the deals/reductions are only available for a limited time.
 
 
5. Show your products
Including examples of your most popular products will not only make your newsletter look more attractive, but it will also catch your customer's eye and immediately show them what you have to offer. 
 
 
6. Make navigation easy
Include links to popular categories, such as “Women’s”, “Shoes” and “Accessories”, to make it easier for your customers to quickly click through to see the products they are most interested. Adding in price ordered categories, like in Beyond Retro’s example below, can attract customers who are on a budget and make them more likely to take a look at your sale. 
 
 
7. Christmas opening hours
If you run a brick and mortar store along side your ecommerce store, it’s a good idea to include your Christmas opening hours in one of your newsletters. Newsletters make it easy for you to directly inform your customers with changes to your opening hours and avoids them being disappointed if they visit outside of your opening hours. 
 
 
8. Last shipping dates
No one likes missing out. Remember to include your last shipping dates in your newsletter campaigns to ensure that all of your customers can receive their orders in time. This can be easily done by having a banner placed on your newsletter or including a link to an information page on your site.
 
 
9. e-Gift cards
Past your last shipping date? You can still catch last-minute shoppers by offering e-gift cards on your store. Promote these on your newsletters just before Christmas to show customers that they can still get a gift even if they’ve missed your final shipping date.
 
 
Using some, if not all, of these tips will ensure that you make the most of this busy period and increase traffic to your store over the holidays. Check out 4 of our favourite newsletter examples from last year below.
 
 
 
 
 
Newsletter Examples
 
 
ASOS - 25/12/13
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
New Look - 20/12/13
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Boots - 24/12/13
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Beyond Retro - 25/12/13