A Step-by-Step Guide to Planning Your Holiday Emails in 2024 – Free Guide

Here are five predictions for the 2024 holiday season from Happy Or Not:

1. E-Commerce Growth: Online sales will see modest increases compared to the pandemic surge, requiring businesses to stay adaptable.
2. Innovative Promotions: Retailers will focus on unique promotions, offering personalized shopping assistance and exclusive services to attract customers.
3. Supply Chain Resilience: Emphasis on robust supply chains will continue as a critical factor, driven by past pandemic disruptions.
4. Higher Prices and Expectations: Inflation and supply chain issues will raise prices, leading to higher customer expectations for product quality and shopping experiences.
5. Sustainability Focus: Consumers will prioritize eco-friendly products, favoring businesses that implement sustainable practices.

Image Source: HappyOrNot

These trends are echoed elsewhere like the National Retail Foundation, and the general sentiment is that holiday sales are set to increase again in 2024. In order to prepare your business for this year’s holiday season, go through our step-by-step guide and get ready to for a phase of growth!

Note: Even if you’re a service-based business, don’t overlook holiday planning. Many businesses look to maximize their year end budgets this time of year too, and the planning guide can help all the same.

Step 1: Start with last year if you can.

A good place to start your holiday planning is to take a closer look at what performed (and didn’t perform) last year. What campaigns did you run last year? How did they perform?
Take a moment to look through your data and make some notes. Find metrics to quantify performance: sales, coupon code redemption, open rates, click rates, etc.

Step 2: Pick 3 holidays to start.

Which holidays are important for your business? Start by picking three.

These are dates that are either important to your customers or during which you have something to say (Ex, Black Friday/Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday, Giving Tuesday, Christmas). These dates will be individual to each business, but for some ideas, here are some important dates for Q4:

2024 Q4 Important Dates

December 3 Giving Tuesday

December 25 – January 2 Hanukkah

December 25 Christmas

December 26 Boxing Day

December 26 – January 1 Kwanzaa

December 31 New Year’s Eve

Step 3: Get Inspired & Do Your Research

Nothing gets the wheels spinning like checking out what other similar businesses have done to improve their holiday marketing tactics!

Take a look at some of these high performing campaigns here for your inspiration and to get those wheels spinning.

HubSpot 20 Holiday Marketing Campaign Examples

Leadpages 15 Holiday Marketing Tactics for Small Businesses

Pagefly Holiday Marketing 101: Ideas for Small Business

Another way to get those wheels spinning is to learn about what your competitors are doing in this space. Take the time to research a few of your competitors – understanding how you can stand out from the competition and position your offers so they resonate is important.

Pro Tip: Look at milled.com for past email campaigns from your competitors or Really Good.

Step 4: Outline Your 2024 Offers

What is your primary, main message for each of the holidays? Design an offer or a message that will entice your consumers to spend their holiday money on your products.

Examples of some enticing offers: 20% Off Gifts, Free Gift with Purchase, Free Shipping, Free Consultation, Discounted Price On A Service.

Pro Tip: Make sure these offers are not competing with each other, but are instead “stackable”. For example, you might offer a gift with purchase from October to December, and also free shipping in December.

Once you’ve got an offer, take some time to iron out the operational details:

Start Date / End Date (When will this be redeemable?)

Terms (Are there any exclusions to the offer?)

Segment (Is this offer for everyone or particular segments?)

Details (What product or service is included in the offer? How do you redeem? Where do you send customers to redeem the offer?)

Step 5: Create a Launch Plan

Once you’ve confirmed your holiday offers, start putting together a launch plan. Here’s a guideline:

1. Map out any website updates needed: including adding a landing page, navigation, offer messaging, and operational components for your offer like coupon codes.
2. Map out email campaigns: plan to send at least two email campaigns per offer. One to announce the offer, and then another as a last call. You should also incorporate these offers into any regular email newsletters or campaigns that you’re currently running. For the duration of the offers, consider updating your flows or automated emails, or if the offer is big, give a sneak peek to your audience.
3. Map out social media campaigns: Announce your offer on social media, and be sure to announce a last call for the offer as well. On top of this, consider updating social media cover images and pinned posts for the duration of the offers. Also, don’t forget the power of stories and reels for conveying messages to your audience!

Pro Tip: Consider “early access” to exclusive offers for your VIP segments if applicable.

Step 6: Turn That Plan into Actionable Tasks

1. Once you’ve hashed out the launch plan, you’ll be able to turn that into actionable tasks, where individual components have set deadlines. This can include creative, copywriting, development, website UI/UX, email updates, social media posts, etc.
2. Use this Holiday Planning Guide to prepare holiday offers early. Aim to have each offer developed and ready to go one month before their launch date.
3. Schedule campaigns where possible – for example, we recommend using scheduling features in Klaviyo, Omnisend, or Hubspot for email marketing and Sked Social for social media.
4. Monitor and evaluate campaigns when they’ve run their course for next year’s learnings.

Pro Tip: Don’t try to develop things before the offer details are firm. This rarely leads to good results, and is a surefire way to burn out your marketing team.

Step 7: Don’t be afraid to ask for help!

If you need additional support for holiday preparations, reach out and ask for help. Whether that’s a strategy session or implementation support, this is our expertise.

Our team is ready to support you in making this your most successful holiday season yet.

Book a complimentary consultation to learn more.