Now is the time to start working on your holiday promotional campaigns and taking advantage of the power of of online resources – especially e-blast emails – to help spread the word. Whether you are a seasoned pro e-mail marketing pro or a novice, here are some tips you should keep in mind to increase the effectiveness of your campaign. It’s important to have a clean and modern e-blast design, and even at our ad agency we sometimes find this challenging.

During the Holiday season, time is especially short for your customers and potential customers and they will spend only about 4.8 seconds scanning your email before they decide to read further. So, designing an elegant and simple e-blast that clearly states your key messages is essential in getting their attention – fast! Resist the temptation to cram tons of text in your promotions to ensure the message elicits action.

How do you decide what design will work for your business? At Nuevo, we’ve conducted countless focus groups to determine what is most appealing to consumers. We’ve found consumers are most interested in discounts, special sales and coupons this time of year. Sounds obvious, right? The “prime real estate” in your e-blasts is from the headline down to the first two or 3 inches of that email. Here is where you must convey your message clearly and concisely and without room for interpretation.

How to increase the effectiveness of your e-communications strategy:

1. Have you done the research on your clients and your potential clients? Your current web site is a treasure trove of statistics and analytics. Pull data from last year’s web traffic. Find areas of interest and the items that generated the most traffic. Can you base an offer around these interests?
2. Research current trends and market needs and target your e-blast to solve a consumer’s problem.
3. Offer a special holiday only special – the more “urgent” the better. Deadlines inspire consumer action.
4. Tie your online e-campaign to a print and social component, such as a postcard mailer or Facebook event.
5. Ensure all of your advertising outlets are current and all communicating the same message.
6. Make your title catchy and descriptive.
7. Integrate a customer loyalty program and request customer contact information in exchange for sign-up.

Breaking through the Holiday clutter and delivering a message that inspires customer action is the Holy Grail. Give your potential customer a reason to engage and make the engagement as easy and rewarding as possible. To supercharge your campaign, consider integrating Google’s remarketing retargeting software into your website, landing page, and emails. This offers two huge benefits: 1) you can continue to deliver a message to a potential customer for up to 90 days; 2) at minimal cost. You will also be able to install conversion code on your landing pages for websites to target your conversion.

What the heck is conversion?
When you spend money to bring people to your website either through online ads or e-blasts, it’s important to track that potential customer and determine whether the investment was worth the money. Google offers some free technology, which allows you to install cookies on to the confirmation page of a request for information or a thank you page when a transaction takes place.

Example: you send out an e-blast and direct customers or potential customers to your website. When the reader clicks on that e-blast and is transferred to your website, that’s one form of conversion. Once on your website, if the consumer successfully submits a request for information, signs up for an e-newsletter or provides you their email address, etc., this “action” provides a conversion code on the thank you message they receive.