A recent whitepaper released by the EEC signals the leading edge of the holiday emailing season is on the horizon. Can't believe it? Well, marketers, the holiday selling season now starts as soon as Labor Day is in the rear-view mirror and the kids have gone off to school. For instance, “Last year 88% of major online retailers increased their email volume during the holiday season, with retailers boosting their send volumes by 45% on average,” the EEC states.
This should come as no surprise – money is made during the holiday season and those who have stood on the sidelines in years past need to ante up. Consumers open their wallets and are ready to buy. Email activity increases every year, and emailers still find this to be lucrative.
Looking back to 2007 and 2006, the volume pattern has remained steady and unsurprising. “Seventeen of the top 20 biggest retail email days of 2007 came in the weeks before Christmas. Those days included Cyber Monday (Nov. 26) and three of the four “Echo Mondays” (Dec. 3, 10 and 17) – the Mondays that follow Cyber Monday.”
However, Cyber Monday displaced the day after Christmas as the highest-volume email day of the year “with 68% of retailers sending at least one email on that day.”
This does not mean Cyber Monday, Echo Mondays, or the day after Christmas are bad days to send email. Quite the contrary (see earlier note about “open wallets”). However, sending on these days means lots of competition for the inbox and run-of-the-mill offers and enticements may get overshadowed by aggressive markdowns and top-flight creative and tactics.
A send-time trend gaining momentum is targeting the relatively quiet Thanksgiving and Christmas Days themselves. Consumer behavior is much different on these days. Relatively speaking, few consumers are online or actively shopping. However, offline retailers are quiet. Consumers going online to send holiday emails and share those new photos represent a potential audience. If your offer is on-target and your messaging can capture their attention, this is a potential hot-spot for online retailers.
Bryce will be defining the “aggressive markdowns” and “top-flight creative and tactics” in future posts. Don’t miss them!
