Ah – summer. A chance to spend as much time as possible outside. Dust off the BBQ and let’s get some much needed vitamin C.
Oh, and if you’re a marketer, it’s also a great time to run some summer-inspired promotional campaigns – particularly with the school holidays on the horizon.
With that in mind, and assuming you’re doing the right thing and investing a significant portion of your marketing budget on email campaigns, we’ve got some tips that will help you prepare your toolkit for what is likely to be a very busy summer period.
Clean up your lists
Yuck… look at that! When was the last time you cleaned up your email subscriber list?
Don’t worry – even the best email marketers on the planet occasionally neglect this vital task. However, it is vital, and the start of the summer season is the best time to give it a really good clean.
Search for duplicates, inactive email addresses and segmented lists that are no longer relevant, and remove them.
Analyse last year’s results
With your fresh, clean email subscriber list to hand, it’s time to take a look at last year’s campaign results.
The emails you sent twelve months ago should contain vital information within their reports. You can sniff out those that were opened the most and enjoyed the highest number of click-throughs. When you find them, make a note of the topics and designs. Something clearly worked, and you’d do well to replicate it this year.
Do the same with subscribers. Create new segmented lists based on their past behaviour and you’ll be able to send them far more relevant emails this time around.
Review your recent content marketing effort for inspiration
Stuck for what to base your summer holiday email campaigns on? Take a look at your recent content marketing efforts (blog posts, social media output, etc), and dig into the metrics. What earned the most engagement?
By working successful campaigns into your email marketing projects, you’ll give them the best chance of success.
Update your graphical elements and templates
What’s changed recently? Have you started working with new graphical elements, logos or colour schemes?
The summer is a great time to refresh the look and feel of your email marketing templates, so dig them out and give them a lick of paint.
Invest in unique, summer-themed imagery
Great imagery is a key element of email marketing success, and if you’re relying on boring, free stock stuff that has been used a million times before, now is a great time to invest in some more unique imagery.
If the budget can stretch a little, call in a professional photographer to take some photos of your business, its staff and products, or – if the budget is rather small – invest in paid-for stock imagery. It’ll make all the difference.
Start work on autumn and winter content
Although the main focus at this time of they year will be on the immediate season, those that follow need to be planned for, too.
Once you’ve planned and scheduled your summer holiday promotions, start work on the autumn and winter content that must follow. Plan ahead now, and you’ll save a great deal of time and last minute panic when those seasons arrive.
Wrapping up
Follow our tips above, and you’ll end up with a summer holiday email marketing campaign that delivers – and provides the perfect template for next year.
Before you drag out the BBQ and put on your flip flops, invest some time in your most powerful marketing channel!
