I see many parallels between the holiday email marketing season and my personal experience running a marathon.

After a spinal cord injury left me paralyzed on one side in 2007, my rehab doctor told me that the best thank you I could send to him for, you know, teaching me how to walk again, would be a picture of me crossing the finish line of a marathon. Less than 5 years after I broke my C4 and C5 vertebra, I stood next to my sister, Nikki, at the starting line of the Yakima River Canyon Marathon, ready to fulfill my promise.

The Yakima River Canyon Marathon is not one that I would recommend to beginners. It is hilly. It is sparsely supported, due to the primitive nature of the route. And did I mention, it is hilly?

I knew it was hilly, and trained accordingly. Nikki had run the race previously, and had warned me during our many training runs that at mile 20, we would encounter a two mile stretch that was basically straight uphill.

Whee.

On race day, we fell in pace with an octogenarian who had run the Yakima River Canyon Marathon every year since its creation. Aside from the demoralizing fact that I, a healthy young woman in my 20s, had the marathon pace of an 80-year-old man, this was actually one of the highlights of my marathon experience.

He was absolutely hilarious.

“My wife knows I come out here every year to chase pretty women,” he shared. And then, with expert timing despite the breathlessness of the run, he added, “But I tell her don’t worry… I never catch them.”

After completing the 20th mile, we rounded a corner and there it was. The start of the dreaded two-mile hill.

“Here comes Papa Bear,” I heard from my left.

My elderly race companion was not referring to himself, as I initially thought. He had dubbed the gruelling hill ahead of us “Papa Bear.” Gripping my hand for reassurance, my sister encouraged me to pick up my speed. We spent the next 20 minutes slaying that bear of a hill, inspired by all the racers around us and motivated by the promise of some chocolate milk at the finish line.

In the Holiday Email Marketing marathon that is OND, November is the PAPA BEAR.

November is the 2 miles you run straight uphill after slogging through 20 miles already. You call on your training and mental toughness. You remember, it’s all downhill from here. And when it’s all over, you slam a chocolate milk (or other beverage), high five strangers, and take the best shower of your life.

Now that you’re inspired to kick November right in its hiney, let’s dive deeper into some of the ways you can be an ultra-super-mega holiday email marketing superstar this month.

Go off the beaten path

I previously confessed in my October deep dive that I’m shamelessly enamored of hashtag holidays. You didn’t think I’d abandon them in my November plan, right?

Check out some of these ideas and see if they align at all to your business/brand.

• Movember

• National Healthy Skin Month
• Gluten-Free Diet Awareness Month
• National Adoption Month
• National Gratitude Month
• Peanut Butter Lovers’ Month
• National Diabetes Awareness Month

Daylight Savings

The first weekend of November, we fall forward. AN HOUR! Gross.

But also, a fun opportunity to reward your subscribers.

You can go cheeky and offer some “daylight SAVINGS,” delivering special pricing incentives for the day.

OR, go inspirational like our friends at CreativeLive. What will you do with your extra hour?

And of course, we have Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. It’s my husband’s favorite holiday, mostly because he likes to eat and deep fry things.

*In case you can’t tell, we do the deep fried turkey every year*

But for those of us in the email marketing space, Thanksgiving represents a beautiful opportunity for content marketing. Not just sending out deals. Sending out VALUE.

Create messages around the core themes of gratitude, family and friends, and entertaining to go above and beyond with your email campaigns for the holiday season.

Are you grateful for your customers? Let them know. It warms my heart to see businesses actually take a beat and send out a note of gratitude on Thanksgiving day. Whether it’s a simple one-paragraph note from you or your company’s founder, or a beautiful image and simple expression of thanks, it means a lot to stop ASKING for things from your customers during this season. Here’s an example from Gymboree that I liked for its simplicity. –>

Do you offer products or services that simplify Thanksgiving entertaining or that elevate the holiday table? I hope you’ll tell us about them. If you’re in the business of edible/drinkable products, share recipes that will help your customers be the star of their Thanksgiving get-together!

And it’s definitely okay to deliver value with pricing incentives, too. Create a “Friends and Family” sale and invite your customers to enjoy insider pricing on something special.

Do you offer a loyalty program or subscription service? Offer your mailing list subscribers a week of loyalty benefits, so they get a taste of what you offer those in the inner circle. It’s a great way to generate revenues, but it also is a wonderful opportunity to promote the loyalty program!

Annnnnnnd the giant tryptophan hangover? CYBER WEEK

Cyber Week is the gauntlet that runs from the day after Thanksgiving through the following week. Guess what everybody’s talking about in November? Cyber Monday and Black Friday.

Having worked this particular retail stretch for the past 5 years in the winery direct to consumer space, I can tell you that the discounts got deeper, the presales got earlier, and the stress started in like, the summer.

So I’m skipping Cyber Monday this year, and encouraging others to do the same.

Skipping Cyber Monday DOESN’T mean you don’t make holiday sales

I LOVE a well-executed holiday gift guide, and yours should go out no later than mid-November.

Yes, I realize I’m not delivering the content in a linear way, here.

The holiday gift guide is more than a single email. It’s an entire email ecosystem. Take stock of what you have to sell during the holiday season, and create holiday-appropriate categories to position throughout November and into December to make giving the gift of [insert your business name here] a breeze!

Some tips for putting together your holiday guide:

A picture paints a thousand words, so curate some awesome imagery of your offer(s) now, if you haven’t already.

Consider categorizing gifts by recipient, price point, giving occasion, size… but don’t do ALL of those things.

Create a landing page or microsite for your holiday guide content and offers to live on. This gives you a chance to position each offering in its holiday-specific context without completely reskinning your website to look like Santa puked all over it.

Give love to the planners out there

I noticed a lot of travel-themed campaigns in my inbox in November of 2017, and I liked it. From planning your New Year’s Eve getaway to “gifting the trip of a lifetime” to “don’t share a bathroom with your in-laws this holiday season,” Christmas, New Year’s and winter travel is relevant and top of mind. If you’re in a related industry, you probably don’t need me to tell you about this… but if you did, and you’re scrambling right now, I’m not judging.

What to do now:

1. Buy a gift card for your favorite coffee shop, because there may be some long days and late nights ahead
2. Map out the specific days and dates that make sense for your business to capitalize on this coming November, and make sure your campaigns are built and your landing pages are ready!
3. Add a holiday guide to your marketing mix (if you haven’t already), and get it put together!
4. Double-check the render on your welcome email campaign and order confirmation emails. Your first-time customer number is going to increase dramatically during the next few months, and you want to be sure you’re looking your best in these automated emails.

Summin’ it up

November is a huge month for email marketers, and your holiday email marketing success hinges on how well you’ve planned ahead to deliver value for your subscribers! If you’re looking at your calendar and feeling a little like a runner at mile 20 of a marathon, I’d love to help. Contact me for a free holiday planning conversation!

Don’t be afraid to target some uncommon days or dates and themes for campaigns. Not only will you avoid the noise on the heavy-hitting days, but you’ll surprise and delight your customers.

Be sure to do more than ask for sales during this month. November is National Gratitude Month, after all, so tell your customers that you’re thankful for them! Think about your ideal customer, and what you can do now to make their holiday season even more joyful. What words come to mind? What experiences do you want to create? Build your programs and messages with those words and themes in mind, and you’re going to absolutely slay November.