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Making The Most Of Your Holiday Email Campaigns

This is a Guest Post by Campaigner Product Manager Paul Turnbull

34% of small businesses are implementing their first holiday email marketing campaign this year. That’s according to an internal survey we recently conducted at Campaigner. Since the holidays are the most critical time of the year to attract new customers and boost sales, it’s vital those first timers understand how to effectively create and distribute their email campaigns if they’re going to have a successful and profitable holiday season.

To maximize the success of your holiday email marketing campaigns, consider the following tips:

1. Get Social. If you don't already, add a page for your business on Facebook and become active on Twitter. This will allow you to repackage what's already been sent out in your emails on the page and via your tweets. You can share a link to your Facebook page and Twitter handle with your current email subscribers and suggest they share it with their friends.
2. Provide interesting content. Both Facebook and Twitter offer a fresh way to republish enewsletter content and promotions. The catch - you only have 140 characters for each tweet you send your Twitter followers. However, there's a major upside: you now have a direct way to interact with customers and shoppers who may not yet be aware of what you're selling.
3. Include a strong call to action. On your blog, Facebook and Twitter pages, use hyperlinks to make sure your customers and prospects can find you through your newsletters and drive traffic to your site and dedicated landing pages. This way you can review click feedback, etc.

Above all, you want to make sure your holiday email program has a long-term return on investment for your business. The service provider you choose should offer analytics on open emails, clicks, bounces, and opt-outs that you can use to help drive your content strategy. You should also track your sales based on promotions included in your emails using Google Analytics parameters in your links. That will give you a great head start on next year’s email program.

Paul Turnbull is the Product Manager for Campaigner® and is responsible for product design and providing an easy to use email marketing solution for small-medium businesses.

[Image: Flickr user Doug Wertman]