Seasonal selling and marketing abound. Specific holidays, everything from Black Friday to New Year’s Eve and transition periods from summer to September when school starts indicate that if someone understands the appropriate email drip campaigns, they can strike while the iron is hot during increased traffic at such times. Knowing when and how people are feeling and for what for their seasonal awareness can boost those seasons with a custom experience for maximum conversion. But all the seasonal campaigns in the world won’t mean a thing if your emails never reach inboxes. That’s why leveraging Warmy.io for email deliverability is critical so that your automation runs smoothly. In this article, you’ll discover how to set up seasonal email automations and when to use an email warmup tool and template checker.

The Importance of Seasonal Email Workflows

Seasonal email workflows are triggered email campaigns based on specific events or holidays. This type of workflow helps you anticipate customer needs and expectations, and then follow up with an urgent offer that fosters increased engagement. For example, a Black Friday workflow is a sequence of emails sent out in advance, on the day, and the day after to reach those who may have missed it on the first go. Custom workflows ensure that you’re reaching out with the best timeliness and relevance of communication based on what your audience is up to and interested in at that time of year. Furthermore, custom workflows keep you on people’s radar because competing emails inevitable during busy seasons for consumers’ inboxes tend to be email background noise. But when you can preestablish and automate your outreach intentions for these times of year, you not only have a consistent, purposeful message set to go, but you simultaneously avoid overloading your team at a time they can barely cope.

Setting Up Seasonal Workflows for Success

Seasonal workflows are build and breakdown. When is your audience buying and when do they need to hear from you so that you can plan and execute campaigns to engage at the right time? For every seasonal holiday or occasion relevant to your brand, select one definitive date that you will send an email and work backwards from there. Do they need to hear from you weeks before the occasion (holiday or season change) or only on the day?

Do they need to hear from you after the opportunity? Are there other occasions for which you can send future emails after the occasion? For example, Back to School requires early access offers, a sent email as school approaches, and a last chance email of get-it-now essentials the night before school. Finally, use seasonal content and messaging that fits your brand. The proper subject lines, images and graphics, and prose that entices urgency and excitement are at your fingertips. 

Utilize customer data to fashion a one-to-one email with products and suggestions based on what you know about the person. Finally, ensure you test everything from your workflows prior to launching live. An email template tester will allow you to evaluate rendering on devices for your design, make sure links are functional and not going nowhere, and help you with typos or positioning mistakes. When an email campaign is executed properly, it not only raises awareness of your brand, but it also enhances engagement during these critical times.

Leveraging Behavioral Data for Seasonal Campaigns

Customize your seasonal workflows based on behavioral data. When you know what people bought or viewed or how they’ve interacted with your brand you can better customize campaigns to what’s wanted and needed. For example, if you notice a bunch of people who used to regularly buy Christmas decorations from you, your holiday campaign seasonal workflows can be customized around the top sellers in that category. The same goes for back-to-school moms and dads will appreciate you knowing that they have school supplies or backpacks instead of separating them into two campaigns. Using behavioral data makes your workflows more worthwhile efforts and establishes trust with subscribers. With your campaigns constantly new based on customer interaction, you’ll never be behind the times and never fail to amuse. In addition, adding Warmy.io to the mix with that personalization and time-sensitive, action-triggered delivery means that there is a higher likelihood that your work will arrive in an audience inbox at just the right time.

Crafting Post-Event Follow-Ups

But such occurrences shouldn’t be limited to only what happens when it’s done. Seasonal follow-ups are just as beneficial and impactful to prolonging such initiatives and fostering customer loyalty. For instance, after your Black Friday event, thank customers for coming if they made a purchase, and let them know that you have a holiday sale on the horizon. If they didn’t buy anything, perhaps let them know it extends for a few more days to remind them or they’ve qualified for a special discount to give them a push to convert. Speaking of surveys, another great opportunity to gather feedback is through email after the fact as well. A few months later, send a short survey about what your audience liked about the campaign and what you can improve. This can help you fine-tune next year’s seasonal efforts for the customer experience.

Building Anticipation with Pre-Season Teasers

Another method of activating subscribers is via seasonal teasers. Seasonal teasers are emails that build anticipation for your seasonal endeavors and let your audience know that something’s in the works down the line. It builds anticipation and provides a reason to pay attention and participate when the time comes. For instance, a pre-Black Friday email that teases what sales and discounts they’ll receive on that day with a reminder to save the date. Similarly, for back-to-school, sending teasers of what’s going to be on the shelves or in the catalogs with sneak peeks of what’s new or available will do wonders. Teasers generate excitement through compelling graphics and short messaging designed to pique interest. In addition, teasers allow you to gauge how engaged your audience is and segment accordingly for greater timely, relevant messaging later in the season.

Why an Email Warm-Up Tool Is Crucial

Seasonal campaigns are meant to generate excitement, but if deliverability fails, your efforts go to waste. If your emails cannot be delivered, your holiday and campaign operations will never result in your intended game. Thus, an email warm-up tool is needed. The email warm-up tool that does all of this in a quick fashion and creates a sender’s reputation one of the most critical components for ensuring your emails go to the inbox and not the spam folder is Warmy.io. Warmy.io increases email volume sent gradually over time, in addition to simulating best practices engagements, opens, replies that alert ESPs that your campaign is legitimate and deserving. This is even more true for seasonal campaigns where thousands of emails are blasted in a few days’ time. Without a proper sender score, your email ends up in the spam folder, and it’s game over. An email warmup software in your arsenal of campaign tools protects your seasonal efforts from succumbing to disaster and ensures all your efforts aren’t for naught.

Best Practices for Seasonal Email Workflows

To make the most of your seasonal email workflows, follow these best practices:

• Plan Early: Start preparing your workflows well in advance to ensure smooth execution. This gives you time to refine your strategy and test your campaigns thoroughly.
• Segment Your Audience: Tailor your emails to different customer segments based on their past behavior, preferences, and demographics for a more personalized experience.
• Leverage Urgency: Highlight limited-time offers, countdowns, or exclusive deals to encourage immediate action.
• Test and Optimize: Use an email template checker and performance metrics to refine your workflows, ensuring they resonate with your audience and drive engagement.
• Focus on Deliverability: Incorporate Warmy.io to maintain a strong sender reputation and ensure your emails reach inboxes.

Tracking and Refining Your Seasonal Campaigns

You’ll also want to retrospectively adjust seasonal workflows as the process changes. You’ll be assessing success opens, clicks, conversions to know what’s effective and what’s not. If certain emails aren’t performing well, perhaps A/B testing will help to see if a new subject line, CTA, or offer will help. Furthermore, audience response is critical. Survey or reach out to them after a big seasonal push to determine what they did and didn’t like so you can adjust future seasonal workflows. In addition to Warmy.io to evaluate deliverability over time, your seasonal email approach will be that much stronger!

Conclusion

These are all applicable seasonal email workflows that foster engagement and conversion when appropriate and when users are in the mood to buy. A well-timed campaign with the proper occasion, personalized subject lines and copy, and Warmy.io for guaranteed inbox placement will nearly guarantee success. The blasts you need for the holidays, Black Friday, and back to school are merely to test the template ahead of time and ensure the email warmer can bolster your sender reputation. You’ll have a successful seasonal email workflow and avoid audience burnout down the line.