要开始了

2022年的黑色星期五和网络星期一已经过去，12月还剩下两个星期，让我们看看到目前为止我们能看到的与假日有关的零售电子邮件，并分享成功支持假日的关键见解和电子邮件最佳做法。

For retailers, there is no more important season than the Christmas Holiday period, which mostly comprises November and December.  Depending on the retail vertical, Holiday can generate up to 35% of annual retail sales, and drive an even larger percentage of annual profits.  Email marketing has become an enormous supporter of the Holiday promotional effort.

Conventional wisdom places the gateway to Holiday as the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend period, immediately following the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.  And in fact, supporting that entry is where we see the bulk of related email activity truly ramp up.  

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我们看到的情况

Bird deployed about 3.2 billion emails this year on behalf of senders on each of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This is up from the two-week average of 2.4 billion prior to Black Friday.

And that’s only what Bird sent.  ǞǞǞ table below shows sixteen billion total Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails observed across eight retail verticals in a permissioned global consumer panel whose email we track.

(*注意事项:  Read Rate is our proxy for Open Rate.)

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Black Friday and Cyber Monday themes are extensively used in early Holiday email.  ǞǞǞ highest volumes were sent by Apparel, Accessories, Retail and Department Stores (4.2m and 4.4m respectively); Toys and Games sent the lowest.  Excepting Sporting Goods, all categories drove inboxing to 90% or higher.  Read rates cluster in the 12-14% range, with Retail and Department Stores the highest, and Jewellery and Watches the lowest.  

然而，在这一时期，以黑色星期五/圣诞节为主题的邮件只占这些发送者部署的总数量的一小部分。在这些垂直行业中，没有一个行业的黑色星期五/圣诞主题邮件在分析期内超过各自垂直行业邮件总量的16%。

That distinction is important.  Black Friday/Cyber Monday-themed mailings tend to be promotional, with aggressive discount offers.  These are less focused on individual merchandise categories curated and personalized for specific customer segments.  The more targeted approach usually reflects other Holiday period mailings.  As a result, the latter also tend to drive somewhat higher subscriber engagement. 

主要收获

One noteworthy takeaway from our observations is the importance of recognizing the realities of  event timing in planning Holiday email activity.

• 亚马逊凭借其庞大的受众群体、市场主导地位和电子邮件的复杂性，通常早于大多数其他零售商推出季节性campaigns 。竞争对手需要了解这种模式，并制定相应的计划。

• Even aside from “Black Friday” having long ago been co-opted by almost everyone as a year-round promotional device, the fact is that Black Friday and other Holiday promotions are appearing earlier and earlier in the retail’s fall season.  We’re seeing evidence of increasing Holiday references even before September.  Concerns about supply chain issues may account for some of this earlier emphasis.

• 现在，"网络星期一 "的提法和促销活动通常会延伸到 "网络周 "或 "网络日"，一直到12月。

• Finally, the retail Holiday season doesn’t end on December 25th.  With post-Christmas clearance and other promotional events, related activity usually extends through much of January.  

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如何战胜行业平均业绩

Email best practices that properly address the importance of Holiday are not unique to Holiday.  But these best practices take on more importance during Holiday, because it’s of such critical importance. These best practices are all focused on optimizing inbox performance and user engagement, as the two metrics are symbiotically related by the importance attached to engagement in ISP spam-filtering protocols. And we can’t overstate the importance of optimizing inbox performance. Messages that don’t reach the inbox can’t be opened, clicked-on or bought from. Forrester has stated, “Take deliverability seriously, or leave money on the table.”  If you monetize your email programs and know their value, you can easily show the annual revenue upside of even small improvements in inbox performance. Many factors can affect the outcome, but we’ve seen cases where even a 1% improvement in email inboxing can yield a 5% improvement in related revenue.

‍订阅者获取

选入/许可

• 在为你的商业或营销电子邮件获取电子邮件用户时，使用积极、正面的选择协议。

• 不要使用任何形式的被动选择，即潜在用户通过一些小字自动选择加入，作为购买交易的一部分，无论是否有取消选择框的选项，或以其他方式取消订阅。

• 我们积极劝阻使用任何购买的电子邮件名单，这些名单往往是昂贵的，无益的，而且是垃圾邮件投诉的一大来源。

欢迎邮件的重要性

• Promptly acknowledge an opt-in, ideally with a Welcome email 到 new subscriber, which arrives within minutes of the opt-in.  The Welcome email should include a description of the type and frequency of messages to be sent, as well as clear opt-out procedures. 

清单管理/卫生

• 地址清洗。 All new email addresses should be subject to basic screening to ensure that they contain essential and valid elements.  Your ESP will almost certainly perform this service.

• 定期的电子邮件地址变更（ECOA）处理。 A significant percentage of email addresses become undeliverable every year.  The main reason is that your subscribers change their email addresses and fail to notify you.  You may see this happening through the emails that ‘bounce’ or become longtime open/click inactives. There are vendors who can help you do this.  They will then send out a Permission Message 到 updated email addresses, to ensure deliverability and permission.  This message includes an email change of address link, permitting the capture of the customers’ current preferred email address.

• 便于用户通过电子邮件更改地址。 Your website and emails should contain clear indication of how a subscriber can change an email address.  A significant number of email opt-outs are merely trying to change their email addresses.  During the opt-out process, ask the subscriber if they’re actually trying to change their email address, and if so, divert to that process instead.  That way, the entire subscriber record can be saved.

筛选参与人 

• 不要给任何在过去90-180天内没有打开/点击过你的邮件和/或浏览过你的网站，以及/在过去12个月内没有购买过的客户发送电子邮件。

• Consider re-opt-in/reactivation programs for inactives (however defined).  In these, the targeted email/purchase inactive subscriber is acknowledged as such, and asked if s/he wishes to continue receiving your email. Although these are important programs, they should not be attempted during the Holiday period, given the inbox risks associated with over-mailing into inactive audiences.

相关性定位

• A large driver of spam complaints and email opt-outs are untargeted or mistargeted messages.  A subscriber is much more likely to engage with an email if it’s relevant; that is, targeted to likely customer interests, based on data reflecting customer location, status, preference and browse/purchase behavior.  Audience and program optimization require considerable data and programming resources, but successful execution drives improved audience engagement, which In turn drives better inbox performance.

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