By now, you have been inundated with blog posts, webinars, and whitepapers that show all of the good email tactics you can employ in Q4 to end 2020 on a high note for revenue in your digital marketing program. If we wanted to conform to everyone else with a uniform marketing tactic, we would, but given our unique approach to hitting send in the modern-day ESP is slightly different from most, we thought a more direct approach would be best.
Bad Email Tactic Examples:
Tactic #1 Never employ a COO strategy!
Like a COI (confirmed opt-in), don’t create an email that your email list must click on to opt-out of your email program.
Tactic #2 OOPS.
Don’t re-send emails to everyone who doesn’t open your first email. Also, never treat it as an “oops email” in the subject line opening line.
Tactic #3 Don’t do a Non-incentive Holiday.
Do what everyone else is doing, tell your subscribers that there will be incentives or discounts this entire holiday season and mean it. Every piece of the creative and subject line should elude to a “holiday sale.”
Tactic #4 Stand-out…horizontally.
Change up the entire appearance of your email creative to show everything horizontally. Very few, if any, organizations have or are currently doing their holiday emails horizontally.
Tactic #5 Opt-Up
Instead of a typical opt-down choice inside your preference center, consider adding an opt-up option for the subscriber to receive 2x,5x, and even a 10x increase in frequency.
Tactic #6 Minimalist Creative.
Rather than spending time in creative reviews, QA, and internal battles over content, send the same image-only email over and over with the same CTA. Then, you can take some time off and not worry about things.
Tactic #7 From Name Roulette.
Rather than be consistent like in any other year, change up the FROM name in every email you send to see if your subscribers are paying attention. Reward those that notice.
Tactic #8 Can-Spam Step Up
If someone opts-out of your program, use the Can-Spam 10 business day to your advantage and increase your emails’ frequency to the subscriber, offering them better deals to re-think their decision.
Tactic #9 Hard Bounce Redux
Keep sending email to all hard bounces for the entire holiday season because well…its 2020, and you never really know what will happen.
So there you have it….9 not-so-great tactics for Q4. We hope you had as much fun reading this piece as we did writing it.
Stay healthy and positive.
