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The Christmas holiday season is crucial for most ecommerce businesses and other online businesses.

Here are some ideas for your Christmas newsletter that will help boost sales and enhance your holiday marketing strategy:

1. Make your offers stand out

Christmas is a great time to send special offers and promotions because shoppers are buying gifts for friends and family.

That’s why it’s critical to include special offers in all seasonal emails. Get as many eyes on them as you can.

Create promotions to increase the average cart size when sending out promotional discounts and sales offers. This will exponentially increase ROI for increased traffic and conversions from other promotions, as each conversion is worth more!

2. Offer freebies to your subscribers

Brands always have something special for the holidays. It’s usually a sale on certain items, a coupon code, or a site-wide sale.

To stand out from the crowd, you must outdo their generosity. Give your customers a genuine gift.

3. Eliminate the fear of late deliveries

One of the main concerns of online Christmas shoppers is not receiving their gifts in time for the big day.

Including shipping time estimates and guaranteed delivery dates in your Christmas newsletters can help customers feel more secure about purchasing from you. In fact, 83% of consumers expect retailers to guarantee delivery dates.

So this Christmas, save your customers! Make their lives easier by assuring them that their carefully selected gifts will arrive in time for Christmas.

4. Turn up the holiday heat

To maximize the holiday shopping season, increase your newsletter frequency to increase the marketing pressure of your Christmas emails. This will ensure that your message reaches as many shoppers as possible before they start looking for gifts.

To encourage shoppers to buy, you need to increase the frequency of your email campaigns and create a sense of urgency.

5. Make use of Christmas newsletters to strengthen client relationships

Customers are essential for most businesses! Otherwise, your sales funnel is a revolving door, with no deeper customer loyalty, brand recognition, or repeat customers. Avoid this by using your Christmas newsletter to send a genuine message of gratitude to existing customers and subscribers.

6. Review the previous year and plan for the future

Christmas (and New Year’s) is a great time for businesses to reflect on the previous year and thank their loyal customers for their support. So why not do it in your Christmas newsletter, which is often the last communication sent to customers before the new year?

This strategy works well for nonprofits with a clear mission and a newsletter that updates readers on their progress.

However, Christmas newsletters can also be used to highlight your company’s achievements throughout the year.

Reflecting on the past year naturally leads to planning for the future. This is a great strategy because it makes your customers feel like they are part of your organization and keeps them “in the loop”.

Verdict

You can now enjoy the holiday season without worrying about your email marketing strategy!

In light of the pandemic situation, it is important to note that online shopping is here to stay. People are shopping online for security reasons. It’s also convenient to buy a gift and ship it directly to the recipient if you can’t visit them.

The real challenge is to entice both traditional and online shoppers. On top of that, your brand must stand out among a slew of competitors, both old and new.

Use the following holiday marketing ideas to increase sales and profits.

Work with influencers

The holidays are the best time to partner with established and engaged influencers. Data shows that 8 out of 10 consumers bought after an influencer recommended it. This explains why for every $1 spent on influencer marketing, the average return is $18.

Best yet? You’ll benefit long after the holidays. Ready to jump? Keep in mind the following when selecting and working with an influencer:

• They must be knowledgeable and passionate about the product, brand, or industry.
• Their values and target market should match yours.
• Engagement > Fans. But don’t rely on likes. Observe how they respond to comments and other metrics like post shares and saves.
• Examine the results of past sponsored posts.
• Make sure they haven’t gotten themselves into trouble or partnered with your competitor.

In addition, they must show why your products should be on their followers’ holiday gift lists.

Take it a notch up with gamification

Incorporate game elements like points/levels, challenges, rewards, leaderboards and badges to instantly increase customer engagement.

Then there’s the social element. Players can’t help but brag about their achievements on social media to gain peer approval and affirmation.

According to research, gamification can increase online customer activity by 68% and social sharing by 22%.

So focus on ‘achievement’ to keep your audience engaged. At the same time, don’t make it too difficult or too easy for them to lose interest.

Go green for eco-minded customers

Holidays equate to wasteful consumption. According to Stanford University, Americans throw out 25% more trash from Thanksgiving to New Year’s than any other time of year.

But people are becoming more eco-aware and conscious shoppers. This shift in their shopping habits is frequently reported in the media, forcing several brands to adapt.

But you don’t have to do it overnight. See if it is economically viable. So be it if it all points to the urgent need for green initiatives.

Run contests on social media

One reason people enter contests is to win. Using this marketing strategy to attract new customers can be a great way to save money. People will flock in droves, generating excitement for your brand.

Then make sure the contest prize is exciting and relevant to your target audience. You’ll also get quality entries from people who will interact with your brand after the contest.

Why use email validation service? It is the process of finding all valid emails in the subscriber list.

Why Validation Is Vital

Unvalidated email campaigns may result in hard bounces for non-existent recipients.

Having many hard bounces can damage your sender’s reputation. Poor reputation reduces deliverability. Your campaign will end up in the spam folder if you keep sending emails to invalid addresses.

Three reasons to validate email addresses

1. Less Spam Complaints: For every 5,000 emails sent, you should receive no more than five spam complaints.
2. Stop hard bounces: Hard bounces occur when an email address is no longer valid, or were terminated by the user.
3. Blacklists: Being blacklisted prevents the server from taking your emails.

When should I validate my email list?

Email validation is a one-time task. Validate your subscriber list if:

• You have low open rates
• The last validation was over a month ago.
• Your bounce rate was close to or exceeded 2%.
• We’ve added all new subscribers.

How to keep a clean email list

1. Review your database often

Discard non-engaging subscribers. Cold users can cause issues – remove anyone who hasn’t opened your emails in three months from your list to avoid hard bounces and spam complaints.

2. Always prioritize data quality

Clean your mailing lists using a group email validation tool that will extract old or incorrect addresses. Using real-time email address validation prevents inaccuracies and fake accounts from causing unwanted hard bounces.

In Conclusion

Find a reliable service provider first. Email marketing has thrived in recent years, expanding the range of email verifiers. As a new business owner, you may be tempted to choose the first website you find online, but research is more effective.

Internet spam traps keeps striving. It is just waiting for a small mistake or a series of bad actions to start complicating email marketing. But, you can use spam traps to identify spammers, which is good. However, it also catches legitimate emails, causing serious issues for both parties. Learn how email validation services protect your reputation and efficiency.

Some of the things you can always be watchful by a spam trap include:

Banned domain

You can spend hours planning your next email campaign. All that effort will just be a waste if your sending domain is not active. Rebuilding your domain’s reputation will take time and effort, and you’ll need the best deliverability experts on your side.

Banned IP Address

IP addresses are used to identify our device’s internet connection. A restriction on your IP address means you must communicate through that IP, which may hinder your business.

Reduced revenue

Spam emails are less likely to be read than inbox emails, reducing your company’s revenue.

It’s easy to see how email deliverability becomes vital as email functions and usage grow in popularity. Incorrect email list management can result in bounced or undeliverable emails. This reduces the impact and ROI of your email campaigns.

If you follow the suggested guidelines and monitor deliverability, your email campaign can become a valuable tool for your company’s engagement.

How Does an Email Validation Service Identify Security Vulnerabilities?

ISPs consider messages generated by spam traps using re-used email addresses as hard bounces. Your deliverability will suffer. However, some email validation software uses this data to your advantage. Their database tracks the behavior of thousands of contacts, so we can predict a hard bounce. They instantly sort these addresses and give you the option to remove them from your mailing list.

Also, email list validation predicts whether engaging addresses will open an email. The scoring procedure will alert you if an address hasn’t interacted in a long time but is still active. With this, you won’t be able to reuse any inactive email addresses  in spam traps.

Do you always wonder whether email verification software will be useful for your company. Obviously, it will help your company compete and grow. Still, only few companies make use of this tool because they are unaware of its benefits.

What Is Email Verification?

Email verification is a service that detects potential spam traps and other email address issues before your ISP or ESP flags you.

Email Validation helps you connect with your subscribers by cleaning up your mailing lists.

An advanced email verification system checks for syntax consistency. Unlike basic email verification, their process uses AI, multi-layer examination, and complex protocols to quickly identify problematic email addresses.

Email verification services use these records to predict the likelihood of a hard bounce. Every email that goes through this system is scored and sorted using 30 different codes. The system often autocorrects syntax errors, or online marketers may approve/remove the suspicious email from their mailing list.

The scoring method also serves as a warning if an email is working but no one is responding for a long time. Online marketers can also maintain list hygiene.

How It Works:

1. A syntax check first. It involves checking all email lists for errors like extra spaces, dots, commas, and misspelled names.
2. Domain check This step verifies the domain name. Incorrect domains, like “123.com” or “abc.com”, are frequently entered by users. Also, some domains may no longer work, rendering the address lifeless. Verification ensures you only have valid email addresses.
3. Finally, send an email ping. This is a complex process that not all email verifiers offer. Thus, a tool with this capability is required to ensure that all emails are verified correctly.

How to maintain a clean mailing list

1. Ensure data quality

Use an email list cleaning service to identify outdated or inaccurate email addresses and remove them before your next campaign. Using real-time verification, you can prevent typos and fake accounts from causing unwanted hard bounces.

2. Check Your Database Often

Sort out non-engaging subscribers. If a subscriber hasn’t opened any of your emails in the last three months, remove them from your list immediately to avoid spam complaints and hard bounces.

Most marketers are afraid of one email list cleaner or scrub because they believe it will remove email addresses from their priceless mailing list; however, this is not the case; rather, this process is beneficial to your campaign’s and company’s success.

Email list cleaning involve purging your mailing list of inactive and erroneous subscribers. For example, you could purge your mailing list of individuals who have not interacted with any of your emails in the last 90 days.

Additionally, you have the option of removing anyone who has actively unsubscribed from your list. It is recommended you do this immediately, but if you’ve hesitated, now is the time to delete those email messages.

You can either manually or automatically scrub your email data source.

What Are the Perils of an Improperly Managed Mailing List?

It has the potential to become bloated. That is what will happen if you do not regularly clean your mailing list.

Your primary objective is to ensure that your target audience receives your emails. However, complications may arise that prevent you from accomplishing this.

For instance, if an ESP (Email Service Provider), such as Gmail, suspects you of sending spam, they will immediately delete your emails. This occurs when a subscriber who does not wish to read your messages immediately forwards them to their spam folders.

Naturally, you do not want that to happen.

Furthermore, you run the risk of annoying the subscribers to whom you’re marketing. If someone does not wish to hear from you, why would you bother sending them mail?

When Is It Time to Clean Up Your Email List?

If you’re considering switching email service providers, ensure that you’ve completed the following steps:

• You will not transfer ineffective contact leads.
• Your reputation is unaffected.
• Your warm-up procedure will be accelerated.

You spend only on subscribers who are engaged, not on fraudulent, insufficient, or inactive email addresses.

If switching ESPs is not a long-term strategy, we recommend cleaning your subscriber list at least once every quarter and whenever you notice an unexpected decline in open rates. Additionally, a monthly inspection is ideal for rapidly growing new subscribers.

Best Practices for Email Hygiene

The first rule. Eliminate non-working and ineffective email addresses. It is pointless to continue sending emails to invalid email addresses.

Once your mailing list is free of spam, you can improve communication with your target market.

The following are the primary factors to eliminate:

• Poor list hygiene can result in low email deliverability, which can cost you sales. Consistently inspect your database.
• If you switch email service providers, consider email list cleaning to protect your sender reputation.
• Validate your mailing list frequently (at the very least every 4-6 months) and unsubscribe non-engaging customers who have not opened your email in over three to four months.
• Eliminate spam traps, inactive email addresses, and addresses with inaccuracies by utilizing email cleaning services or software.
• Maintain a high level of subscriber engagement by utilizing marketing automation and email segmentation.

There are numerous reasons why your emails may be going to junk. Among the simplest and most reliable ways to protect your emails from spam is to gain access to a high-quality paid or free email list cleaner and adhere to the most effective email list cleaning practices.

Avoid spam traps by maintaining a clean list and validating emails on a regular basis. Ascertain that your meticulously designed email messages reach the people who value them most–your subscribers!

Email has evolved into the backbone of business communications. But, as with anything popular, email has become a hacker hotspot. A breach affecting your email messages puts the information you and your employees share at risk.

But hackers aren’t your only email threat. An email can be misdirected or forwarded to a third party without your knowledge. That’s why you should be cautious about sharing information via email.

In some cases, email is the only option. In those cases, you can secure your messages. While none of these methods are foolproof, there are some ready-made solutions that can help safeguard your messages.

Select a Reliable Email Provider

Entrusting your data to an email service provider is a big deal. If you use a cloud service, someone else is driving. Check the security policies of any services you use and keep up with any changes.

It’s likely that a widespread security issue will make the news if you use Gmail. Also, Gmail notifies you of suspected account breaches. If you receive such a notification, take immediate action. In addition, Google provides a comprehensive list of its policies on its Privacy and Terms page.

Carefully Forward and Reply to All

Forwarding and replying to all can be convenient, but it can also be disastrous. You could, for example, forward an email replying to a sensitive message. If you reply to everyone, you might miss someone who doesn’t need to know what you’re saying.

Make it a habit to check the recipient list before sending an email. Be mindful of business email etiquette when replying to all. A constant barrage of “replies to all” can seriously disrupt work.

Vet Third-Party Providers

If you use third-party hardware or software, you should be aware of their security practices. If you use a smartphone to check email, look into the policies of Apple, Android, Verizon, AT&T, and other providers.

This includes any messaging solutions you use. Shift, SaneBox, and Gmelius are transparent about security. If a provider cannot provide details, contact them to confirm before signing up.

Avoid Malware and Phishing

Hackers’ attempts have become more sophisticated. Phishing is one example. A phishing email looks legitimate and asks you to click a link to enter account information. The email and website can be designed to look like popular banking, shopping, and other platforms.

Email attachments also pose a hidden threat. A virus is downloaded to your device when you click on an attachment.

To avoid phishing, go to the site directly rather than clicking the link in the email. You can avoid malware by using up-to-date antivirus software and not opening attachments unless you expect them. Knowing the risks can help you avoid them.

Have a Breach Plan

You should have a strategy to protect your infrastructure in addition to a cybersecurity policy. To begin, ensure you have software and firewalls in place to stop a breach. But you should also have a plan in case of a breach.

In most cases, a third-party provider hosts and manages your network. It may be as simple as requesting the information, reviewing it, and adding what your team should do in the event of a breach.

No security breach is 100% preventable. There are steps you can take to reduce the risk of this happening, such as implementing email security procedures. Keep revisiting those measures to update them if anything has changed since you wrote them.

The majority of email services and programs use message priorities to indicate what is and is not important. Prioritization of messages can be applied manually or automatically, and messages can also be marked as low priority or unimportant.

How Prioritizing Email Marking Works

Certain email services and programs enable you to mark outgoing messages as important or unimportant manually. When you’re ready to send the email, you can designate it as such.

In the Inbox, emails with the highest priority may be bolded, highlighted, starred, or otherwise flagged. Less critical messages may be grayed out or relegated to the bottom of the list. Again, the specifics will vary according to the recipient’s email program.

Certain email providers, such as Gmail, automatically set an email’s priority level if the sender does not specify one. It assigns a priority to the message and moves it to the “Important” section of your Inbox. This feature is based on predicted behavior and varies depending on who you email and whether the message was generated automatically or was sent by a real person.

Other email clients allow you to manually change the importance of emails. This is useful when a sender frequently uses the high priority/important flag when they shouldn’t, or when you want all emails from a specific sender to be marked as important.

Why It Is Important

Keeping important emails in the foreground enables you to focus on them rather than on unimportant emails. It’s one of the most efficient and effective modes of communication, and interacting with emails on your terms and according to your priorities enhances the experience.

Depending on the email client you’re using, the email client may send notification of a new email only if the message is deemed important. Distractions are reduced by removing non-critical emails from your notifications without deleting them.

How to Configure Email Priority

When composing an email, many email clients allow you to specify the message’s priority. Typically, it is located in the compose box.

In some email clients, such as Gmail, classifying an outgoing email as important is as simple as adding a descriptor to the subject line, such as [URGENT].

The iPhone makes it simple to access the world’s most popular email services, such as iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, Google, Yahoo, AOL, and Outlook. Due to the Mail app’s built-in support for these email options, you can configure it to access email from all of your accounts in one location. You’ll want to begin sending emails as soon as you’ve added your email accounts to the iPhone Mail app. What you need to know is as follows.

How to Send a New Email on iPhone

To send a new email message using the Mail app that comes pre-installed, follow these steps:

1. To open the Mail app, tap it.

2. Tap the Compose icon in the lower-right corner of the screen. It’s a square containing a pencil. This initiates the creation of a new, blank email.

3. In the To field, enter the email address of the person you’re writing to in one of three ways:

• Begin typing the recipient’s name or address in the body of the message. If the individual is in your address book, additional options appear. Select the desired name and address.
• At the end of the To field, tap the + icon. Tap the person’s name in your Contacts list.
• Type the complete email address for recipients who are not in your Contacts list.

4. Tap the Subject line and type an email subject.

5. Tap the email’s body and type the message.

6. Tap Send when you’re ready to send the message.

How to Attach Files to an iPhone Mail Message

Attachments—documents, photos, and videos, for example—can be sent from the iPhone in the same way that they are sent from a desktop email program. You can send an email with a photo or video attachment directly from the Mail app on iPhones running iOS 6 or higher. What to do is as follows:

1. Begin by creating a new email and typing the message.
2. Tap and hold the email’s message area.
3. When the magnifying glass or blue cursor appears (depending on your iOS version), release your grip.
4. Tap the right arrow to reveal additional options in the pop-up menu.
5. To open the Photos app, tap Insert Photo or Video. (Later versions of iOS include similar options such as Add attachment and Insert drawing.)
6. Locate and select the image or video that you wish to attach.
7. Select the photo or video to attach to the email message.
8. Tap Send once the attachment has been added to the email.

How to Use Siri on the iPhone to Send Email

Along with writing an email using the on-screen keyboard, you can dictate an email using Siri.

Activate Siri by pressing and holding the Home or Side button on your iPhone (depending on your model). “Send a new email” (or a phrase along those lines) or “Send a new email to [person’s name].” Siri will prompt you for the email’s subject line and body text. Simply say what you want to say and then send the message. Quite simple!

How to Use the iPhone Mail App’s CC and BCC Fields

As with desktop and web-based email programs, you can CC or BCC recipients on iPhone emails. To use either of these options, create a new email as described in the previous section. After completing the To line, expand the Cc/Bcc, From line to three fields by tapping it.

Add a recipient to the CC or BCC fields in the same manner as you would the To line.

If your phone is configured with multiple email addresses, you can select which one to send emails from. To view a list of your email accounts, tap the From line. Select the account from which you wish to send the email.

The advantages of email marketing for businesses have been well documented in recent years: low costs, high conversion rates, and detailed tracking. But email marketing is becoming much more than a spammer’s and e-commerce tool. Permission-based email marketing is becoming a viable alternative to direct mail as consumers become more aware of the distinction between spam and permission-based emails.

The good news is that most people who receive permission-based emails open them.

Jupiter Research says Effective email marketing campaigns can generate nine times the revenue and eight times the profit of traditional mail campaigns. Writing a good business email requires both art and science. Consider the following factors, issues, and solutions.

1. CTR and conversion rates

So the user has read your email. Great. But where’s the sale? We have some good news to report. For starters, consumers are more likely to buy directly from a business email campaign. An email link led one-third of users to buy something, according to DoubleClick. Another 42% opened an email link for more information and later bought the product. Second, online couponing is huge: 73% of consumers have used an online coupon for an online purchase and 59% for an offline purchase.

Affluent consumers prefer to spend their money on experiences rather than things. All businesses sending business emails in those categories reported that between 71% and 80% of recipients bought something after receiving an email.

If your company isn’t in one of those categories, don’t worry. Email marketing conversions are improving daily. It has increased by nearly 30% since 2004, and by more than 18% since 2004.

2. Why are my images and formatting broken in my emails?

Email marketers are increasingly worried about broken campaigns, as several companies and web-based email providers have begun blocking graphics to combat spam. According to ClickZ, 40% of email marketing messages are “broken.”

So, what’s the plan? Some email marketing software stores all sent emails in a secure online location (a location only original recipients of the email can access, thanks to encrypted technology that automatically authenticates the user). Some programs even allow you to track users’ behavior when they read your email campaign from a secure web location

3. Spam

The average person receives over 300 emails per week, 62% of which are spam. It’s not surprising that the industry is disliked. Spam filters, bulk folders, and “report spam” features are educating consumers. Spam was a major concern for 89 percent of users in 2003, but fell to 85 percent in 2004 due to increased spam-fighting tools.

Is it possible to send permission-based business emails? Encourage your subscribers to add you to their “safe senders” list. The second and most important strategy is to make sure your email marketing service provider has good relationships with ISPs. This ensures that your email marketing campaigns reach inboxes rather than spam folders. Assuring that your email marketing software provider has strict anti-spam policies and follows Can-Spam guidelines.

4. Personalization and content

Business e-mails are not one size fits all.

DoubleClick found that email users were 72% more likely to respond to a business email that was tailored to their specific interests. This figure highlights the importance of allowing users to create their own interest groups and control their business email. The study found that coupons and household goods are the most popular interests.

Your coupon is only valid if the user opens the email. The study found that the “from” field name is the most compelling reason to open a business email. So make sure your company’s name is prominently displayed there. The “subject” line is also vital. Users prefer subject lines with discounts and news, followed by new product announcements and free shipping offers.

5. Who are my real consumers?

It’s past time for more businesses to recognize the importance of email marketing in CRM. You’re getting fleeced if your provider’s business email services don’t include detailed real-time tracking. Actual tracking allows you to see when a user opens your campaign, clicks on your link, and completes the purchase. By analyzing your users, you can improve your campaigns and make them more effective (several email service providers also let you compare the performance of your campaigns).

But many marketers are in the dark. Recent WebTrends research shows that only 5% of marketers are very confident in their ability to measure online marketing efforts, while 26% admit to “flying blind.” WebTrends attributes the lack of confidence to a lack of measurement knowledge, indicating that much work remains.

Email marketing is not the place for a blind shot. To achieve the same significant results as many other online and offline businesses, you must aim correctly and follow these critical rules of play.