Holiday campaign planning – done your 2018 plan yet?
From David Fowler’s ’Tis The Season: 11 Email Best Practices For Holiday Campaigns List
Holiday campaigns, really? already?
Now really – I know, it barely October and at least here in San Francisco, I can tell the New Year is months away, because, on October 1st, they already start slowly sliding in the holiday drama so that by the 15th, its a full out reminder that the winter holidays will be on us soon.
Many of you are already thinking, that means a “todo list” of performance plans to complete, vacation and the resulting scheduling of staff and more importantly the planning a holiday campaign. For non-profits and those seeking to bring in funds that capitalize on the end of year funds, donations and other key revenue streams having an end of the year or holiday campaign is crucial. Stuck wor ideas – this is a good time to check the blogs as many of your favorites will start publishing “best pick” types ones. On the Hubspot blog, in Lindsay Kolowich’s “12-minute read” recent post “
David Fowler recently shared this post; ’Tis The Season: 11 Email Best Practices For Holiday Campaigns which suggest 11 of his “best practices” for your holiday campaign. It’s a good read for those of you thinking or who haven’t started thinking of your end of year promotion/campaign. From his list 5 of them stand out for me as the ones that always seem to catch people by surprise
My 5-holiday takeaways from Fowler’s “11 Email Best Practices For Holiday Campaigns” list:
- Email list hygiene – This means that quarterly email lists (and snail mail address list) you keep meaning to do a review of – it really needs to get done. Doing in October with a planned completion of October 31 will leave this task prepped for the holiday campaign and bring you into the strategic planning for the next year with demographics that may shape your outreach.
- Review current levels of engagement – This goes hand in hand with getting your list cleaned up. Now is the time to be brainstorming and networking to determine how you want your engagement to look next year. Take a critical, but kindly, look at what yours looked like this year. Include the wide landscape of your reach; Internal, external, influencers, missed opportunities and dig into that file of “maybe I shoulds”.
- Link email campaigns with other digital marketing activities: This is my reminder to also expand your thinking about partnerships and storytelling as a way to expand your reach, brand and develop new opportunities both digitally and in real time. By linking and cross promoting other peoples efforts, you build cross-over demand and inspire new followers. I know this is the perfect time to start thinking about interviews, podcasts, and other marketing tools that encourage interactivity and reach. Or develop a “free” digital “something” and offer it to key select partners to offer via the platforms that promote as a holiday extra and negotiate the tracking and sharing of the downloads.
- Ensure networks can handle increases in email traffic: Yeah – this not the time to get skimpy with your tech needs. Not a good time to roll out any new functionality that is temperamental. Do some forecasting with your tech team. If you are the “teach team”don’t use this time to make significant changes without backup. But at the same time – it’s a perfect time to check with your hosting services and other supplemental tools to ensure you can handle an increase in traffic or web hits. Oh and this also includes and subscription renewals you have pending – get them taken care of early. Also, try to get some forward reading in now on how to prepare or prevent your traffic gridlock.
- Set realistic expectations and goals – much of the above all play into this one. Its good to aim hight for your goals – but maintaining your own “reality check” as to what is realistic is also important. When I work with small businesses and/or the individual business owner, this is the time I encourage them to take a three-prong new year planning approach and introduce time to brainstorm and journal the follow considerations; a) How will staying the same affect us, b) what would big growth mean and c) what happens if we stumble.
For the full read of Fowler’s article, visit this post on the CMO.com opinions page
About Frank Strona
As a nationally known writer, educator, advisor, technology, coach, strategic engagement and content specialist, I have been active in the pursuit to improve, educate and promote opportunities that support the engaged learner and business while also preparing the workforce with the tools and skills necessary to stay competitive in a rapidly expanding technology-based world.