BFCM Deliverability

What has two legs, a buttery sheen, and is stuffed?

That's right, it's ME! We went out for a fancy dinner last night to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary and I'm still full, please send help. 😫

If you were thinking more along the lines of a delectable turkey as pictured here, you're also right. There are no losers here (certainly not until January anyway, when the diet/gym emails go hard)! You know what else gets stuffed at the holidays, besides me, and turkeys? Inboxes!

With gift-giving reaching its annual climax and retailers closing out Q4, inventory is moving fast. Consumers want deals, businesses want dollars, and mailbox providers want safe, secure inboxes for all. So, how can you satisfy everyone when you're not a tasty, tender turkey?!

🦃 Make a plan! Just like your feast needs a menu, your holiday sends need a schedule. Who will you be sending to? How often? Are you confident in the data and content, or should you test first? How much mail are you going to send, and can your reputation support it? You may need to gradually warm up to higher volumes, so build that buffer into your calendar.

🍠 Exercise caution when experimenting. One Thanksgiving, my dad debuted a new cranberry recipe. More relish than sauce, it leaned hard into savory territory, even containing horseradish. Guests were appalled, Dad was sad, and we were basically cranberryless. Don't follow in my dear ol' dad's footsteps! Your subscribers have more mail and less time these days; make it easy for them to recognize you, interact with your messaging, and move on. If you want to take a crack at new content, switch up subject lines, or get sassy with segments, do so sparingly. A misstep now could be costly, and take weeks to recover from. We forgave Dad, but we didn't forget. Even now, decades on we still ask if he needs any horseradish for his cranberries.

🫛 Give 'em the good stuff (and nothing else). Subscribers expect a lot from their emails, especially now! Send your biggest discounts, break out your brand's best jokes, and use those unique images! If you don't have anything new or exciting to say, then keep it short and sweet. Do you really need to send every day? Let alone multiple times per day? Email is asynchronous--if people don't see your message immediately after you send it, it's still there waiting for them to interact with! The more you send, the more opportunities people have to engage with or ignore you. Inbox placement is based heavily on prior recipient reaction, so if your mail is regularly discarded or disregarded, you could harm your reputation more than you've helped your sales goals.

🥧 Reconcile with your results. What did you try, and how did it work? Did increasing your volume hamper your open rates, or increase your sales? Both?! Did customers complain about receiving more mail, or did they contentedly click regardless of the increased contact? What does this teach you for the immediate future, or next year?

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Want to talk turkey about holiday sends? See you tomorrow at our AMA!