• by Lisa Harmon , Alex Madison , August 9, 2010

While we're still basking in summer rays, seasoned email marketers can already feel the flurry of winter holiday campaign planning. Gretchen Scheiman's insightful post last week (check out: "Retailers: How Good Are Your Holiday Plans?") delivered some awesome suggestions for planning targeted, relevant holiday email programs. We'd like to second her list and chime in with few more ideas for smart and successful 2010 holiday campaigns.  

Optimize the potential of social networking sites. Social networking use has become even more prevalent over the past year, and it's slated to play a major role in 2010's holiday email campaigns. While adding share links to every email is a solid best practice, this year's holiday messaging should also reflect subscribers' and retailers' nuanced use of social networking as a shopping tool. For instance, you might offer subscribers seasonal discounts in exchange for becoming your friend or follower, or consider highlighting subscriber-generated content from social networking pages in your emails, as Fairytale Brownies does in this message.

Integrate mobile and email for easier shopping. Over the past year, use of mobile devices to read email has skyrocketed across B2B and B2C audiences, and many shoppers will use their mobile devices to aid in their holiday shopping. Take advantage by finding creative ways to integrate your marketing channels. In-store ads that invite subscribers to join email lists or become Facebook fans could be instantly acted upon by shoppers with mobile devices in hand, adding immediate value. Try hosting online shopping lists with emailed reminders, or email coupons that can be redeemed when shown in-store on a smartphone screen (as Pottery Barn Outlet regularly does with its Friday coupons).

Remember tried-and-true creative best practices. In addition to fun new strategies for boosting brand interaction, make sure you spend time perfecting the right holiday touches to your creative. These could include simple additions to your navigation or header, like Janie and Jack's, as well as helpful new modules like the Gift Services Footer (lovingly nicknamed the GSF), which provides handy shopping links. Last year, REI used a simple GSF to give subscribers easy access to their return policy, gift cards and store locater.

Make a plan for holding onto new subscribers. Shoppers notoriously join lists to take advantage of great deals... and then flee. Get folks to stick around by demonstrating the ongoing benefits of participating in your email program and/or social networking sites. Start simple by sending holiday greeting messages, like this one from Buckle, to show that your brand is about more than the hard sell. Follow up with messages that highlight other value-adds like insider knowledge about products, stellar in-store services or fun customer blog entries. Last Jan. 13, just as the holiday season ended, Sephorasent a message highlighting a free product sample, with the subject line "Today's free sample: Kim Kardashian's new fragrance."Not only was the email packed with great products and an invitation to join Sephora's Beauty Insider program, but the subject line suggested that this wasn't the first emailed special offer and wouldn't be the last.

As you begin to plan your holiday email campaigns, take a step back to make sure you're taking advantage of all your multichannel know-how and creative talents. Then, after you've devised a plan for winning scores of new subscribers with your standout program, make sure you have ideas for keeping them around. Happy holidays! (And enjoy the rest of your summer).