“It’s almost July! Is it too early to start planning?”
“But how early is too early? Or early enough?”
“Could starting in July be premature and lead to subscriber fatigue by November?”
“Should the email cadence change closer to the holidays? What should the cadence look like now?”
“What’s the best time to send the first teaser?”
The months leading up to the holidays can, in a sense, be more challenging than the season itself. You may be asking the right questions, but you’re also procrastinating.
And if you’re a brand whose existence depends on performance during peak seasons, the pressure is even greater. A significant portion of our clients come from the retail sector, and we have seen the anxiety on their faces at this time of year.
This blog post is here to help you with all your pre-holiday worries. We will discuss the timing of holiday email marketing from various perspectives and provide you with helpful tips to get started on time. Let’s do this!
Understanding The Holiday Email Marketing Timeline
Officially, the holiday season spans from late October to early January. But people usually start shopping around early October.
Last year, 40% of US consumers had started their holiday shopping in October. But more significantly, the average weekly search volume for deal-related keywords shot up by 50% in September last year compared to the search volume during the same month in 2022.
Still more significantly, since June 2023, product review and comparison-related searches have “aligned with” deal-related searches.
So from late November to June – the timeline has extended quite far back before our eyes. The takeaway? As far as marketing is concerned, it is always the consumers who determine the holiday timeline, not the official calendar.
In one of her older LinkedIn posts, brand builder Tracey Rossignol distills the point quite perfectly when she says, “Retailers seem so focused on getting a head start on promoting an upcoming seasonal event, they seem to be forgetting their customer. When does a customer actually want to shop for that type of item? It is the chicken or the egg debate. Does the customer shop for that item because you are promoting it or because it is a natural time for them to purchase it?”
But that’s generally speaking. The timeline will vary from industry to industry.
Whereas the food and beverage industry can start their holiday campaigns around early August, the travel industry can’t wait till then. It’s one thing to book a table at a nearby restaurant and quite another to schedule a holiday trip. The latter requires weeks, if not months, of advance planning.
Let’s unpack this in more detail.
Read More: Email Design Trends To Make Your Holiday Emails More Impactful