There is such thing as too many emails, especially around the holiday season. That’s why we’ve developed these 18 ways to improve your holiday email newsletter opens, conversions, and subscriber experience. Afterall, the last thing you want to receive from Santa is unsubscribers!

1. Use a Mobile-Friendly Template Last year retailers reported 50% more traffic coming from mobile during the holiday season and over half of all emails are opened yearly on smartphones and tablets.

Ensure your email will be opened on mobile by designing a mobile-friendly layout for each email newsletter. If you’re not the best with designing HTML, Mailchimp and Constant Contact have mobile-friendly template options to choose from that will fit perfectly with any holiday theme.

2. Embrace Each and Every Holiday From Halloween to New Year’s Eve, there are several holidays to take part in during the winter season. Schedule your email newsletters using a content calendar around each holiday. This way you’re able to include promotions and celebrations for everyone.

3. Create Black Friday Discounts Consumers start thinking about Black Friday as soon as November 1st appears on the calendar. Schedule emails throughout November to give sneak peeks of what kind of deals to expect on Black Friday. Keep in mind, you don’t have to give away all of your Black Friday secrets, but do give subscribers a tease of what’s to come and why they should make an effort to shop at your business on Black Friday.

4. Don’t Forget About Cyber Monday Cyber Monday is a holiday made just for you! If you have subscribers and are actively doing email marketing, a holiday made exclusively for online shopping is the perfect opportunity to give people an exclusive discount or promo. Follow up Black Friday emails with details about Cyber Monday’s exclusive discounts. Since Black Friday and Cyber Monday are so close, make sure the discounts offered on each day are drastically different so subscribers are given a valuable promotion for each day.

5. Update Store Hours For the Holiday Season Most businesses either take time off during the holidays or extend their hours to stay open later. Use email newsletters as a way to inform customers of new holiday hours, what days you will be open, and what days the business will be closed.

6. Add a Little Holiday Flair Sugar, spice, and everything nice makes opening email newsletters a lot more exciting. Have your designers add bits and pieces of holiday decor throughout the email to give it more of a festive feel.

7. Include Extra Spirit and Cheer to the Subject Line
Is your holiday email urgent and only valid during the holidays? Add a few snowflakes to the subject line and describe the urgency, making subscribers want to open the email. The subject line should always represent what the email is about, while also being relevant to the holidays.

8. Design a Holiday Gift Guide Featuring your most popular products for men, women, children and teens, showcase an array of gifts. Get creative with the layout of the gifts, because how you layout the gifts will inspire gifters to purchase additional items. Create a collage of complimentary items by gender to show what items you most recommend for each member of the family.

9. Create Holiday Themed Events and Invites Email newsletters can help increase your guestlist and inform customers of holiday events. Include all of the event details in the email with an RSVP button where people can automatically RSVP. If you don’t usually host seasonal events, your business can easily create a holiday event to invite customers into the store. Extend business hours for a day, host appetizers and beverages, and offer an exclusive discount for last-minute shoppers. Spread the word and increase RSVPs using your email newsletters.

10. Create Referral and “Bring a Friend” Incentives One way of increasing customers during the holidays is by sending out an email to offer an exclusive refer a friend discount. Encourage customers to bring a friend or family member in stores to purchase their holiday gifts and both will receive an extra percentage off or a special gift. The gift could be a gift bag full of sample-sized goodies and coupons, both that a regular and new customer can enjoy.

11. Provide an Insider’s Look of What’s to Come Send out an exclusive email to your loyal customers letting them know what to expect this holiday season. The early holiday shoppers will really appreciate a sneak peek of what you have to offer, especially if it’s an “Insider’s Discount”. Early holiday shoppers are already debating which store to make their gift purchases with, why not give them more incentive to shop at yours by giving a sneak peek of what sales and promotions to expect.

12. Include a Free Shipping Promo Code Shopping in person is chaotic around the main holidays. A free shipping promo code is just another glorious reason why shopping online is the way to go. Give subscribers a unique promo code to get free shipping on their holiday purchases in your emails. The unique promo code will help track purchases made from the email by analyzing how many and what types of purchases were made with that specific promo code.

13. Discount Your Gift Cards Gift cards are one of the most popular gifts to give. Offering a discount on a gift card, like $10 off of each $50 gift card, will encourage customers and gifters to purchase gift cards from your business. Regular customers will also purchase gift cards to use for themselves to take advantage of the $10 off.

14. Promote Holiday Specific Items Do you have products that are only offered during the holiday season? Flaunt them! Share the most popular holiday items with the exclusive “once-a-year” items in an email newsletter, linking each product to it’s product page.

15. Countdown to the Holiday Sale Send out fun emails that count down to the holidays. Daily emails will overload inboxes, so limit the countdown by sending out every 5 days, or a countdown to the last 7 Days of Christmas. Countdown email newsletters, when done correctly, get people excited to open your emails as they’re counting down with you, and are more enticed to purchase last minute gifts from your gentle gift reminders in each email.

16. Happy Holidays Email Schedule a very personal email to wish subscribers a Happy “Insert Holiday” from the team at “Insert Business” on the day of each holiday. Customize the email so they are relevant to the holiday. For example, Thanksgiving is a great excuse to thank all of your loyal customers, just as New Year’s is a time to wish them success in 2016.

17. Provide an End of Year Recap It’s the end of the year. Let your customers know how your business did this past year and what they can expect for 2016. Any new locations opening up? Plan on expanding? New products coming this spring?

18. Last Chance Holiday Deal The holidays are such a chaotic time for most. Reminder emails including last minute holiday deals are vital and encourage customers to make their final holiday purchases from your business.

How do you celebrate the holidays with subscribers? Comment below with your favorite holiday email tactics.