Traditionally, email usage declines over the summer months. While customers are on vacation or making the most of long summer days with visits to the beach or family barbecues, inboxes quietly fill with emails that may never be read. But don’t despair.
There are steps you can take to ensure that your email marketing campaign retains its momentum over the summer months.
1. Format Emails for Mobile Readers
With mobile devices increasing in popularity, customers can check their email from any location. Global research organization, The Nielsen Company, reports that email accounts for 41.6% of mobile Internet usage in the United States. Test out your email format to be sure that it can be easily read using a Smartphone.
2. Hook the Reader
Grab your customers’ attention with an enticing subject line. Your email will stand out from the stack accumulating in their inboxes and has a better chance of being read. Catchy subject lines are also essential for mobile devices, as you need to seize the attention of mobile readers with your first 100 characters.
3. Keep it Short and Snappy
When you are cutting in to valuable vacation time, be sure that what you are offering is relevant and useful. Whether customers are scanning your email at the beach or pruning their post-vacation inbox, they will prefer short, meaningful content.
4. Add Summer Sizzle
Give your emails a seasonal slant. Add fun, summer-themed competitions. Offer tips on outdoor parties and ideas for entertaining the kids. Ask customers to tell you about their trip of a lifetime or to send in snapshots of your product in unusual locations.
5. Reduce Your Frequency
Customers are likely to log in less often over the summer. Take this into account by sending out fewer emails and extending the timescales for special offers. Research carried out by eMarketer found that nearly 50% of customers who receive excessive amounts of email over holiday periods delete them, while many others report senders as spammers or simply unsubscribe.
Customers may change their email routine over the summer, but it is still possible to reach out to them with a carefully-planned, seasonally-adjusted marketing campaign.