With the big day of the festive season just around the corner, it’s never too late to send out an email campaign that targets last-minute Christmas shoppers and people who simply want to get away from it all.
Despite what you may have been told by self-proclaimed marketing experts, if you operate within the B2C space, you still have time to take advantage of the festive period with email marketing. In fact, as Christmas Day draws nearer, engagement levels can be at an all time high – particularly from consumers who are desperately seeking inspiration for those hard-to-buy-for relatives.
With that in mind, there’s nothing like a bit of Christmas email inspiration to get the creative juices flowing.
Just like everyone at this time of the year, our inboxes are bulging with marketing efforts from all manner of businesses and we’ve picked five which we think have absolutely nailed festive promotion.
1. Apple shows the importance of design
If there was one company sure to find itself within this list, it was Apple. Every year, they demonstrate how to extol the values of one’s brand within an email. And, as you’d expect, it’s all about the design and simplicity of messaging.
The email itself is quite a scroller, but for good reason. It features individual blocks of content that highlight each gift they deem appropriate for Christmas. Each block contains an eye-catching product photo, simple message and clear call-to-action (CTA), as seen below:
2. Firebox is the knight in shining armour
Christmas isn’t always a joyous time. If you’re one of the many people who struggles when it comes to buying presents, a helpful hand (or shoulder to cry on) is a very welcome sight indeed.
Firebox clearly understands this, which is why the following email will doubtless have earned them brownie points with desperate consumers. Clearly, if you have no idea what to buy someone, you need to head to their store where (thanks to some brilliant email imagery), it’s obvious their ‘mystery boxes’ may well hold the answer. One of the best Christmas email campaigns ever
3. Hurry, says PetsPyjamas’ Christmas email
The injection of urgency is a brilliant email marketing tactic. If you pick your time and messaging carefully, you can convince your subscribers to act quickly and make them feel as though they’re missing out if they choose to disregard your email.
PetsPyjamas have played cleverly on the stress usually induced by the run-up to Christmas by offering a last-minute getaway to its subscriber base. There’s a brilliant twist involved in this example, because when you read the first two words of the subject line (“Last-minute”) at this time of year, you assume it’s another gift-related email. Not so! What a cute Christmas email!
4. Why make a big deal, eh, Claridge’s?
Although the word ‘Christmas’ is mentioned in the main body of this email from Claridge’s, they certainly don’t lead with it. In fact, the email is admirably non-Christmassy for this time of year, but it works really well.
Why jump on the Christmas email bandwagon when you can instead delight your subscribers with something far more subtle?
p.s. note the duplicate CTAs. There’s no missing them, is there?
5. ASOS focus purely on the offer
We’re forever told in the world of Christmas email marketing that being overtly forthright with special offers, percentages and uses of the word ‘free’ is a bad thing, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes, simple, sales-led messaging absolutely works.
This is evident in the following example from ASOS, who shun clever festive design and wordplay for an email that features one thing – a 30% discount offer. That’s it. Nothing more. No razzle-dazzle – just a big piece of text stating the discount, placed in front of an appropriate image.
Anyone looking for a bargain in the run-up to Christmas will surely have had their gaze diverted by this one.
Wrapping up (excuse the pun)
We hope you’ve gained some inspiration from our selection of this year’s top festive email marketing efforts.
The takeaway? Keep it simple, focus on the imagery and don’t try to be too clever with your messaging. People certainly don’t want to be bamboozled at this time of year!
Disclaimer: mailingmanager has no affiliation to any of the businesses featured in this blog.