5 Ways to Use Targeted Email Remarketing Campaigns to Drive Holiday Sales

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are like the Super Bowl of retail marketing campaigns. These events give retailers the ultimate chance to market to consumers in the hope of getting off to a good start for the busy holiday shopping season.

Every year at this time, savvy retailers finalize their game plans to get the most out of this season of buying. In 2011, Shop.org's eHoliday survey revealed that nearly 85 percent of retailers sent an email to their customers promoting Black Friday deals. The so-called "spray and pray" strategy of sending generic emails to everyone on your list is certainly the traditional approach to trying to capture the most sales. Will it work? Yes. Can you do better? Absolutely!

So, how can you drive more revenue through email in a more effective way? Retailers can add incredible relevance and revenue by incorporating more behavioral/targeted marketing into their Black Friday/Cyber Monday campaigns. Doing so will also minimize subscriber fatigue, unsubscribes and complaint rates. Below are five tips you should use to get the most out of your holiday campaigns while also building a list of loyal brand followers:

1. Figure out why people are abandoning. Get to know your shoppers and you'll find out that they're not following through with a purchase for a reason. Maybe it was an issue with their payment method of choice, maybe high shipping costs deterred them from buying. Last year payment method abandonment was tracked at around 18 percent across many key industries. Finding out why abandonment is occurring will play a big role in figuring out the best way to re-engage.

2. Engage noncarting visitors too. Just because a visitor didn't add something to their cart doesn't mean they aren't a potential buyer. During Footwear etc.'s 2011 Black Friday campaign, it ran a collection of remarketing programs based on categories consumers browsed while on its website. This resulted in an open rate three times that of its normal marketing campaigns. Clickthrough rates were also impressive at 10 times the regular rate. Conversion was three times higher as well, which generated a lot of revenue for the company.

• MORE ON
• E-COMMERCE