Holidays are an opportune time to send promotional emails, but email marketers need to know how the Fourth of July tends to differ from other occasions from a sales perspective.
While nearly four-fifths of winter holiday shoppers will start before Thanksgiving, according to Russell Research, email marketers are unlikely to reach July 4th shoppers too far in advance. In fact, 76% of revenue from emails came within a week of the holiday, with 32% coming in on July 4th itself, according to a study by Experian Marketing Services.
So before you kick back on Independence Day, get cracking on a July 4th email campaign that you can launch shortly before you launch fireworks.
Have a Holiday Theme
July 4th-related online searches are more often related to food or parties than the history of the holiday, according to Experian, so as much as you may want to drop a sick Hamilton reference, think about how to align your brand with ideas on how to celebrate the holiday.
“If you don’t know where to start with July 4th emails, send out a general newsletter to all your customers, putting the 4th of July spirit at its core,” says Adi Ezer, director of customer growth at Remarkety. “People are always looking for a reason to celebrate, and there’s no greater reason than honoring the country’s independence. And on the 4th of July, customers expect us to roll out the savings carpet, so they are much more attentive to promotional emails than on any regular day of the month.”
While a general newsletter can be effective, Independence Day is also a good reminder to make emails more, well, independent, when you’re up to the task. A personalized subject line is 26% more likely to lead to the recipient opening that email, and a segmented marketing campaign, such as having different emails based on the recipient’s age, leads to a 760% increase in email revenue, according to Campaign Monitor.
But personalized doesn’t have to mean you have to sweat over your keyboard — save that for the beach volleyball on the 4th. Instead, Remarkety can automatically create segmented groups for you and fill in your customers’ names individually. And not only do automated emails cut down on your workload but they significantly improve open rates and click-through rates by an average of 70.5% and 152% respectively, according to Epsilon, as referenced by Campaign Monitor.
Sales Equal Sales
Consumers want discounts, and July 4th emails should be no exception. In general, 85% of consumers say that discounts are one of the most important reasons they sign up for companies’ emails, according to a survey by MarketingProfs.
For Independence Day emails, Experian also found that discounts work, as having free shipping in the subject line led to three times more transactions, and ones with coupons in the subject had twice the transaction rate of those without.
“I would recommend having a special promotion distinctly linked to 4th of July, which could be anything from giving a 7.4% discount or a special offer if a customer takes a picture with your product next to the American flag,” says Ezer. “The email has to be related to the holiday if you want it to stand out.”
Emails in response to customer actions such as making a purchase or abandoning their shopping cart, which Remarkety can help you track, are also highly effective at getting recipients to view your emails. In fact, transactional emails get opened twice as often, finds Silverpop. So during the week of July 4th, be ready to send emails in response to what your potential customers are doing, particularly if the content of the email can help them with their July 4th planning.
Lastly, be sure to have a strong call to action button in your email, rather than a simple text link. Doing so increases click-through rates by 127%.
So remember:
- Keep a July 4th theme at the core of your emails
- Send personalized, segmented campaigns through Remarkety if you want to take it to the next level
- Include a discount related to Independence Day
- Respond to customer actions
- Have a call-to-action
If you follow these tips for effective July 4th emails, you should see a noticeable improvement in your email marketing results, which should make those hot dogs and hamburgers you’ll be having taste even better.
