Posted by Gareth Cutter on 31st October 2008 to
Marketplace With approximately 8 weeks to go before Christmas Day, retailers are busy preparing their email advertising and sales strategies to go on the offensive. Since recent figures show that the non-food retail sector's value is down £2 billion on 2007, businesses will be competing even harder for consumers' Christmas budgets.
A marketer's first impulse might be to fire out one marketing message after another, advertising last minute promotions and discounts in an attempt to stimulate more sales. However, they risk forgetting to target their messages appropriately or even apply a consistent schedule to how often they send them out.
This presents the wrong image: consumers put the most confidence in businesses that keep a level-head during tough times. If you're intending on doubling the number of messages you're sending out to consumers, it's essential that they're the right messages, advertising the right offers, sent at the right times. Over-saturating mailing list inboxes with untargeted messages could lead people to opt-out, or worse make Spam complaints to their ISP against you - all the more reason to take some time to segment your mailing list now, before the real Christmas rush hits.
Consumers want to know when they can get a bargain naturally, and even more so at Christmas, but it has to be about something they might feasibly have bought in the first place. A calm and collected approach to email advertising will help you target the right people, outperform your competitors and result in a more relaxed and profitable Christmas for your business.
